Advent: where Memory meets Hope

Sermon by the Revd Dr Brutus Green
Readings: Isaiah 40 1-11; Psalm 85:8-13; 2 Peter 3.8-15a; Mark 1.1-8

Advent is the season where memory meets hope.

We’re swiftly drawn into this by the annual surprise of December, which hits without warning, and the realisation that our Christmas cards will be late and that what already looked like a busy month at work - certainly for clergy – has now become impossible because of everything else that MUST BE DONE. Of course, this year is very different. Last week’s Advent Sunday lacked the usual toys and cavorting children, and was a little quiet in church. You may also have missed the Christmas trees, and jingle and mingle; There are a few pines here and there – evidence of the ghost of Christmases past – but we might, this year, add to the usual nostalgia, the memory of what were once called “parties”.

Not hearing the usual bombardment of Christmas music in shops through November, may also have increased your sympathy for ‘O Holy Night’ and ‘All I Want for Christmas’; Gluhwine for two has a special sweetness this year, and yes with the smell of Christmas trees, we can be drawn back into those childhood Christmases, perhaps in Wales, and the memory of innocence, yearning, wonder and excitement. The memory of joy is part of what it means to be Christian. The memory of the goodness of life, of hope; of finding in the beauty, truth and love of the Christmas message, the promise of Christmas future and the possibility that it’s all worth bearing with. ‘Comfort, O Comfort my People’ saith the Lord, Tidings of comfort and joy.

But it’s also a time when memory causes pain. It is the first Christmas without dear…  We cannot see … this Christmas. Even after all these years, this song, this reading, the smell of the air at midnight, reminds us that to be human is to suffer loss; It is to grow more frail; it is to make mistakes; It is to suffer and to know suffering. It is the frailty of a child born in a stable, It is the dark horizon that lies ahead of him.

Ring out, wild bells, to the wild sky,
   The flying cloud, the frosty light:
   The year is dying in the night;
Ring out, wild bells, and let him die.

Ring out the old, ring in the new,
   Ring, happy bells, across the snow:
   The year is going, let him go;
Ring out the false, ring in the true.

Ring out the grief that saps the mind
   For those that here we see no more;
   Ring out the feud of rich and poor,
Ring in redress to all mankind.

Ring out old shapes of foul disease;
   Ring out the narrowing lust of gold;
   Ring out the thousand wars of old,
Ring in the thousand years of peace.

Ring in the valiant man and free,
   The larger heart, the kindlier hand;
   Ring out the darkness of the land,
Ring in the Christ that is to be.

What are your memories at the opening of the new Advent Calendar? Are your memories of comfort and joy, or regret and grief? Are we entering Winter stoicism, or Christmas nostalgia? These memories are what make and define us. We bring them to each Advent in hope.

And we can see this in the themes of Advent, this Advent wreath calls us to. The patriarchs, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, carry the original promises of God, of land, freedom and descendants. The prophets carry the message of hope – since Moses – the promise of redemption; John the Baptist points to the one who is coming soon, bringing salvation. And Mary carries within her body that promise.

These figures escalate the presence of God with us, leading in to Christmas. The annual cycle is the attempt to return us to the excitement of the story; To see God’s plan of salvation in history, To return hope to our hearts.

The bells of waiting Advent ring, 
   The Tortoise stove is lit again 
And lamp-oil light across the night 
    Has caught the streaks of winter rain 
In many a stained-glass window sheen 
From Crimson Lake to Hookers Green. 

And is it true? And is it true, 
    This most tremendous tale of all, 
Seen in a stained-glass window's hue, 
    A Baby in an ox's stall? 
The Maker of the stars and sea 
Become a Child on earth for me? 

No love that in a family dwells, 
    No carolling in frosty air, 
Nor all the steeple-shaking bells 
    Can with this single Truth compare – 
That God was man in Palestine 
And lives today in Bread and Wine.

And is it true? Between all the layers of years of memories, like strata in the rock; In our life and the life of our family; Running down into the ground in the life of St Margaret’s and the Church; All who have carried these promises, heard this hope, Believed, or tried to believe;

By Christmas we’re swept up in festivity. Advent gives us a chance to ask ourselves, where are we? Between the memory and the hope? Do we dare to believe the promises of God in the valley of the shadow of death?

Advent is also traditionally the season for reflection on the Four Last Things: Death, Judgement, Heaven and Hell. These are things with which we have contended this year in a new way. Confronting those daily figures in the Newspapers –Ask not for whom the bell tolls – It’s like numbers sent back from a war – Yesterday 504 – another battalion wiped out on the Western front. Lord, let me know mine end, and the number of my days. O come quickly! Today’s hymn sings – Before this judgement is upon us.

But the reality of death, which is usually squeezed out of day to day life, is enough to remind us that matters of faith are not peripheral, to be fitted into 10 minutes of mute observance on a Sunday morning, but the central occupation of our lives. Sure you may distract yourself with meal times, and snacks in between meal times, and naps in between snacks. But you cannot forever evade the eternal question of:  what is your purpose and are you avoiding it?! This is the message of Advent. Lo, he comes! We cannot blame consumerism and individualism this year, so where are we between memory and hope?

What is it that we remember each year? What is it of faith that draws us back? What has called us here on this first Sunday after lockdown?

And what is it that we hope for? What will Christmas be for us this year? Where will we find God with us?

The vision of Isaiah prepares us for John, ‘a voice cries out, “In the wilderness prepare the way of the Lord, make straight in the desert a highway for our God.” ‘  And so Mark speaks of John as: ‘the voice of one crying out in the wilderness: “Prepare the way of the Lord, make his paths straight” ’ Now the task of all Christians is ‘to prepare the way of the Lord’ to ‘make his paths straight.’

This Advent gives us a chance to apply ourselves. For many of us, this has been the most difficult year in living memory. That is no small thing. It may seem superstitious but I think many are praying to get to the first of January without anything else happening. Many have put up trees and decorations early to fill the emptiness of houses and diaries with a little razzle-dazzle. And it may well be that we will have to encourage memory a little harder to earn that hope. 

But of course history has known so many ages where the joy and hope of Christmas have seemed utterly fanciful in the difficulties of the present. Several people have spoken to me this year about the fact that our St Margaret bell tolls the hour. Perhaps it’s working from home, perhaps it’s the lack of airplanes. I find it encouraging that, as St Margaret sticks her nose out above the surrounding buildings, so also her bells sound to hush the noise of men of strife. Clearly poets have also felt the encouragement of church bells so I thought I’d end this morning with the words of the American Henry Longfellow, who writes of Christmas bells, in a very difficult context, of bringing forth the memory of joy and renewing hope:

I heard the bells on Christmas Day
Their old, familiar carols play,
    And wild and sweet
    The words repeat 
Of peace on earth, good-will to men!

Then from each black, accursed mouth
The cannon thundered in the South,
    And with the sound 
    The carols drowned
Of peace on earth, good-will to men! 

And in despair I bowed my head;
"There is no peace on earth," I said;
    "For hate is strong,
    And mocks the song 
Of peace on earth, good-will to men!"

 Then pealed the bells more loud and deep:
"God is not dead, nor doth He sleep;
    The Wrong shall fail,
    The Right prevail,
With peace on earth, good-will to men."