Praying Together 15th December 2024

Meditations for the Third Sunday in Advent

Rejoice, rejoice; Emmanuel shall come to thee, o Israel!

“In the silence of a midwinter dusk, there is a sound so faint that for all you can tell it may be only the sound of the silence itself. You hold your breath to listen. You are aware of the beating of your heart. The extraordinary thing that is about to happen is matched only by the extraordinary moment just before it happens.

Advent is the name of that moment.”

Frederick Buechner

O come, o come, Emmanuel; and ransom captive Israel that mourns in lonely exile here until the Son of God appear

Rejoice, rejoice, Emmanuel shall come to thee, o Israel!

O come, Thou Rod of Jesse, free thine own from Satan’s tyranny.
From depths of Hell thy people save and give them victory o’er the grave

O come, thou Day-Spring, come and cheer our spirits by thine advent here.
Disperse the gloomy clouds of night and death’s dark shadows put to flight

Rejoice, rejoice; Emmanuel shall come to thee, o Israel!

This hymn is about 1200 years old and originally contained seven ‘antiphons’ or verses, one to be sung daily from 17th to 23rd of December. They contain a secret code – if you take the first letter of the second (Latin) word in each, it forms the acrostic ‘Ero Cras’ – ‘I shall be present tomorrow’

Take a while in contemplation to listen to the instrumental version below.

I was waiting for my dinner in a hotel restaurant on my way back from the UK last week. I couldn’t help hearing the conversation on the next table although I couldn’t actually seethe debaters without turning round. It was early evening, the office Christmas parties hadn’t yet arrived, so it was relatively quiet despite the inevitable background of a mixture of carols and the ringdingdingaling of the other inescapable seasonal songs. The subject of discussion (well it wasn’t really a discussion, being pretty much one-sided, with a single person doing all the talking) was ‘Christmas’.

‘Of course’, the pleased-with-itselfvoice proclaimed in a somewhat patronising tone ‘Christmas is really a Pagan festival’. I consider it to be a sign of my increasing maturity that I restrained myself from getting involved.

Good job I didn’t – because the person was wrong in one sense, but on reflection (sort of) right in another (not that he realised or intended it). The point he was trying to make was that our ‘Christmas’ celebrations are simply the Pagan winter solstice festival of ‘Yule’. This involved animal sacrifice and twelve days of revels and toasts to theNordic gods, with holly wreaths and mistletoe used as protection from evil spirits and to ensure fertility. These rituals were appropriated and eventually ‘Christianised’ by missionaries in the fifteenth century or so – as were many other Pagan and Celtic traditions and beliefs. Sincere pagans still celebrate Yule today – many thousands attendStonehenge or other ancient sites to watch the dawn break on December 21st. But Mr. Smug was misinformed – Christmas is Christmas, not Yule. The two are altogether different.

But then, I got to thinking, is that really true anymore? Has the process been reversed? Have we become ‘Pagans’ in our December activities? Actually, no. What we have really done is ‘Secularised and Commercialised’ this time of Incarnation, the Advent preparation for the Word becoming flesh. Have the Cards, Cake, Mince pies, Turkey and Ham, Santa,Sprouts, Tinsel, Holly, Chubby Robins in the snow, Glitter, Overindulgence and General Roistering taken over over our true celebration? What does Christmas 2024 mean to us?

I’m not saying that these examples of traditional celebration are bad in themselves – certainly not. I love a goodfeed as much as the next man, as my waistline demonstrates. But if we look behind all of the (often artificial) jollity, there is a simple but earthshattering message of God’s love. If that truth is not front and centre, we completely miss the meaning of the feast.

We must never forget: Christmas is Christ Mass, the Eucharistic (Thanksgiving) prayerful remembrance of the birth of our Saviour, Redeemer and friend, Jesus.

Without Him, there is nothing to celebrate.

With Him, the light of the world has come.

p.s. When you get to the point where the whole festivity thing overload gets just too much, do you sometimes wonder – did Scrooge have a point? Answers on a Cracker.

Compliments of the Season from the Reverend Grumpy.

Quote of the week

It’s not what you eat between Christmas and New Year that is the problem. It’s what you eat between New Year and Christmas.

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