8 December 2009 2 Comments

Richard Coles (ex keyboard player of the Communards and now Church of England Priest) said in the Observer on Sunday re: Advent:-

‘its darkness and austerity rescues Christmas from the sentimentality and commercialism into which it can so easily sink’.

I love singing ‘O come, O come Immanuel’; I could sing it and nothing else all Advent (and a future Advent posting will make reference to Sufjan Steven’s version of the same). It is one of those songs (like ‘Anthem’ by Leonard Cohen or ‘I still haven’t found what I’m looking for’ (Rattle and Hum version) by U2) that is damn near perfect.

Had one of those moments on Sunday when heaven and earth seemed to meet: when joy, pain and longing intertwined and made sense.

We were singing:-

From depths of hell thy people save,

And give them victory over the grave.

Rejoice! Rejoice! Immanuel

Shall come to thee, O Israel’

I was thinking about someone in the congregation who had just lost her husband 2 days before after a long illness. And at this point I lost the ability to sing: this is our hope, our longing and it is real, not pie in the sky or trite as I hear in some songs.

In one of those staggering displays of Grace that keeps me in church, the same woman came up to me to thank me for what I had said with some really humble reflections on how she was going to try and be prophetic (Advent 2 was John the Baptist) where she was this coming week (It made what I had said seem like just a loud noise- what she was saying was so more ‘godly’). Then she said ‘It is good to be here, to be among friends; I have missed it.’

…I have so much further to go…….