Advent vigil
Advent is a season when we pray for God’s coming among us, with an audacity that borders on the absurd. God, coming here and now? It all seems a most unlikely expectation, now as "then" in a forlorn corner of the Roman Empire, Bethlehem. What is it that this season re-minds us of, in its call to watch and wait, to keep vigil? What does it mean, in Advent, that we find ourselves as a people shaped by the hope of this may-be-coming? It means at least this: that Advent invites us to discover once again that primal posture of receptivity, to open our hearts and minds to a coming we cannot know how to expect – and one that may interrupt us inconveniently, as happened to the simple shepherds in the ancient story we will hear once again this year. Keeping vigil? Waiting and listening for God’s be-coming among us? Could we find a posture of heart more out of keeping with the frenzy of this season, more counter-cultural than this?
But perhaps this is precisely the point.
T. S. Eliot once wrote that "time and the bell have buried the day." But the problem facing us is of a different magnitude, taking forms of busyness the poet could not have imagined. Most of us hardly hear the sound of bells anymore, though we are hurried (and the day buried) by other sounds: mostly the electronic music of cell phones, with their exotic and enticing rings sounding from our pockets and purses. The crowd of people pushing through the store aisles, vying for coveted parking spaces near the mall, haggard in their hurry, often with phones pressed to their ears or "Bluetooth" devices strapped to their ears; workers and tourists and shoppers crowding the busy sidewalks of Boston, as in every other city I suppose, their eyes glazed with purpose as they set themselves to the task of buying and preparing for the relentless coming of Christmas: is this an appropriate cradle for a season of waiting, of quiet expectation? Hardly imaginable, and usually far from our experience.
The carols of this season, perhaps more effectively than the fervent and sincere pulpit oratory of pastors and priests, interrupt the madness and call us toward a different vigil. One line of "O Little Town of Bethlehem" often sounds in my mind this season, re-minding me that whatever else incarnation means, it has to do with how "the hopes and fears of all the years/are met in Thee." With poetic license, we might learn to sing these lines another way: “The hurry and the worry of all the years” – including this one – “are met in Thee” O Christ! Such songs invite us to celebrate Advent as a time of vigil, re-mind-ing us of what it means to wait and to hope for God’s be-coming-among-us.
O holy child of Bethlehem, descend on us we pray;
Cast out our sin and enter in, be born in us today.
Be born in us. . .today: we await God’s be-coming-among-us as a “presence” we long to know in the hopes and fears, in the hurry and worry, in the waiting and in the wondering of our years, all of them and this one. And so we keep vigil in this season, praying that God’s advent might happen not only then and there, in some past or future scenario, but now and here in the ordinary texture of our living – in our hopes as in our fears. Which is to say, in the absences that call forth our desire, and invite us toward this may-be-coming-of-God again. Emmanuel: God’s goodness revealed in our ordinary flesh; God’s beauty veiled in our broken human love; God’s truth found in the hurried pressures of this season and in the interrupting joys of song and of silence. Advent vigil even here, even now. Audacious? Yes. Absurd. Surely so. And, too, as true as the deepest arc of our longing.
Mark S. Burrows
Professor of the History of Christianity and
Theologian-in-Residence at Old South Church, Boston
[A longer version of this Advent meditation can be found in a longer article of mine, published as "Vigils and the Rest" in the current issue of the journal Weavings (November/December, 2007); it can be ordered at: www.weavings.org, or found in the ANTS library.]
But perhaps this is precisely the point.
T. S. Eliot once wrote that "time and the bell have buried the day." But the problem facing us is of a different magnitude, taking forms of busyness the poet could not have imagined. Most of us hardly hear the sound of bells anymore, though we are hurried (and the day buried) by other sounds: mostly the electronic music of cell phones, with their exotic and enticing rings sounding from our pockets and purses. The crowd of people pushing through the store aisles, vying for coveted parking spaces near the mall, haggard in their hurry, often with phones pressed to their ears or "Bluetooth" devices strapped to their ears; workers and tourists and shoppers crowding the busy sidewalks of Boston, as in every other city I suppose, their eyes glazed with purpose as they set themselves to the task of buying and preparing for the relentless coming of Christmas: is this an appropriate cradle for a season of waiting, of quiet expectation? Hardly imaginable, and usually far from our experience.
The carols of this season, perhaps more effectively than the fervent and sincere pulpit oratory of pastors and priests, interrupt the madness and call us toward a different vigil. One line of "O Little Town of Bethlehem" often sounds in my mind this season, re-minding me that whatever else incarnation means, it has to do with how "the hopes and fears of all the years/are met in Thee." With poetic license, we might learn to sing these lines another way: “The hurry and the worry of all the years” – including this one – “are met in Thee” O Christ! Such songs invite us to celebrate Advent as a time of vigil, re-mind-ing us of what it means to wait and to hope for God’s be-coming-among-us.
O holy child of Bethlehem, descend on us we pray;
Cast out our sin and enter in, be born in us today.
Be born in us. . .today: we await God’s be-coming-among-us as a “presence” we long to know in the hopes and fears, in the hurry and worry, in the waiting and in the wondering of our years, all of them and this one. And so we keep vigil in this season, praying that God’s advent might happen not only then and there, in some past or future scenario, but now and here in the ordinary texture of our living – in our hopes as in our fears. Which is to say, in the absences that call forth our desire, and invite us toward this may-be-coming-of-God again. Emmanuel: God’s goodness revealed in our ordinary flesh; God’s beauty veiled in our broken human love; God’s truth found in the hurried pressures of this season and in the interrupting joys of song and of silence. Advent vigil even here, even now. Audacious? Yes. Absurd. Surely so. And, too, as true as the deepest arc of our longing.
Mark S. Burrows
Professor of the History of Christianity and
Theologian-in-Residence at Old South Church, Boston
[A longer version of this Advent meditation can be found in a longer article of mine, published as "Vigils and the Rest" in the current issue of the journal Weavings (November/December, 2007); it can be ordered at: www.weavings.org, or found in the ANTS library.]
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