The world's sap has sunk...

Tomorrow is the longest night of the year…correspondingly we have to endure its shortest day. And as if to rub our noses in it, the weather has turned decidedly grim. It’s one thing to be cold, but at least crispiness and sub-zero mornings make us dream of a white Christmas. Dark mornings, gloominess, wet and windy weather all induce a deep reluctance to get up: duvet weather.

Like the animals, it’s an attractive option to hibernate through the dark of winter.

And the darkness is spiritual.

 

 

The beginning of Advent is marked by the excitement and unquenchable optimism that Christ is coming to reign…we sing ‘Lo! He comes…’

However, this year I’ve found myself (not unlike the passage of Lent) becoming steadily more gloomy spiritually as the season has progressed. Instead of the dimmer effect – steady growth from dark to light – it’s been a gradual darkening: from dark to darker! And I think it’s John Donne’s fault:

Tis the year’s midnight, and it is the day’s,

Lucy’s, who scarce seven hours herself unmasks;

The sun is spent, and now his flasks

Send forth light squibs, no constant rays;

The world’s whole sap is sunk

 

These are his opening words from ‘A nocturnal upon St Lucy’s Day’

Traditionally, St Lucy’s Day, 13 December, was regarded as the shortest day of the year – hence the idea of the “year’s midnight”…and the evocative assessment that “the world’s whole sap is sunk”.

St Lucy is a 4^th century martyr. Around Lucy certain legends have developed, not least the persistent idea that her eyes were removed before her death. However, this idea is unfounded, and absent in the many narratives and traditions, at least until the 15th century. But it’s rather poetic isn’t it. This beautiful young maiden, whose name, Lucy, is derived from the Latin for light (lux), has the one thing removed that casts light within – her eyes. She is, before death, consigned to darkness.

Liturgically, St Lucy’s day is followed by St John of the Cross Day who famously penned the poem, ‘The Dark Night of the Soul’. Happy.

Indeed, not only does St John’s poetry witness to the darkness that so often engulfs the human spirit, thrusting us into realms and periods of detachment and difficulty, seasons of isolation, even from God, when all is dark about us. But St John’s life itself witnesses to the darkness that accompanies walking with Christ. He was jailed in a monastery, where he was kept under a brutal regimen that included public lashing before the community at least weekly, and severe isolation in a tiny stifling cell measuring ten feet by six feet; not what you’d call palatial. Rarely, he was permitted an oil lamp, and he had to stand on a bench to read his prayer book by the light through a hole in the wall. He had no change of clothing and a meagre diet of water, bread and scraps of salt fish. A very real and no doubt soul-searchingly depressing period of darkness.

 

And then as if these two saints of the church were not enough, we were all confronted with the darkness of human nature in the massacre at Sandy Nook Elementary School. Sadly, the murder of 20 children only made me weep, and remember the Holy Innocents…Why, Lord? Why such darkness? How do we as Christians sing “my heart is full of admiration…” and so on, when we are confronted with evil?

On the same day I had a few hours to myself in the evening and possessed by a curious mood I decided to watch ‘Schindler’s List’ and so was plunged into more soul searching as I pondered afresh the torment and horror of the Final Solution and the death camps.

Whatever hopefulness that greets Advent, it has given way to a despair that accompanies the frank realisation of the state of the world. A spirit of evil and darkness seems to brood over the lives of man.

But in fact, maybe this is precisely the correct trajectory we take in Advent.

As I’ve remarked before, Advent is NOT about imagining we live in the Before Christ times; make-believing that we are shepherds and wise men waiting for the Messiah. No.

But something has to happen to our Advent cry. To sanctify and purify it. 

At the end of the liturgical year we reflect on the lives of the saints and the promise of eternal life in God’s presence in heaven: the last and eternal things. This naturally gives way to Advent where we begin the year eagerly expecting Christ’s coming. We are often expressly admonished to be joyful in this season. We are told – this is not a second Lent. We are reminded that the season is not penitential in nature.

Really?

I would contend that any serious engagement with the Advent readings, and much of this is in Isaiah, makes us reflect on the nature of our fallenness:

“The earth lies polluted under its inhabitants” (Isa. 24:5)

“He [man] cannot save himself” (Isa. 44:20)

The prophet points at the sins of indolence and laziness (47:8), of sorcery and astrology (47:12f.), of idolatry and pride (44:9-23; 47:7). The prophet says sin is rebelliousness “from birth” (48:8b).

In essence, we frequently and persistently turn away from God: we forget him (Isaiah 51:13).

Perhaps it is entirely fitting that this period from 13^th to 21^st December represents the dark heart of winter (and why the counterpoint of Gaudete Sunday is so refreshing. My friend Bryony preached on this on 16^th December). This week is the grim core of Advent, when we are finally worn down by the weather, the world, sin and our adversary, the Devil, who features in our readings from Thessalonians. We are afflicted on every side. Like the Psalmist, David, we might well say, “I am in the midst of lions; I am forced to dwell among ravenous beasts…”(Psa 57:4)

And then when I look inside…I realise I am one of those lions, I am one of the beasts. I am my own darkness.

 

So what do we do?

We cry that great Advent exclamation: WAKE UP, DO SOMETHING, LORD! SAVE US (Isa. 51:9)

And the beautiful truth of this season is this: the hope of a world redeemed can only be sustained when we have in our heart the truth of a promise fulfilled: a baby born. We can only trust God to be faithful, because he was faithful to his promises of old to come into the world to comfort and console us. And it gets better!

“We know that the one who raised the Lord Jesus from the dead will also raise us with Jesus” (2 Corinthians 4:14).

Advent is viewed through the lense of Christmas. Advent Hope is assured because of the Christmas Incarnation, and the Christmas Incarnation set into motion the life that leads to real life. Christmas is seen through the lens of Easter. Easter is the feast of feasts.

I am consoled and comforted this Advent because I am reminded once again that Jesus is coming back to judge and redeem the world. I can trust this will happen because God is faithful. His faithfulness is proven in the nativity – he fulfilled his promise – that God would come to save us. And this is THE great promise – that God would defeat the evil that came into the world – a defeat seen in the EASTER triumph.

 

So, John Donne, you may well be right. The world’s sap has sunk – and sadly we see signs of this decay day by day. But hope…hope is what drives us on. The hope of a Son: a son to save, to redeem, to judge, to comfort and console. A son who came, who died, who rose, who ascended, and who will come again.

A light. A light that has come into the darkness. And will never go out.