Its Advent time.
It's the time the church considers the coming of Christ
and while the world outside the church is
generally happy to give a nod in the direction of the babe born in Bethlehem,
the church turns our attention to the coming of Christ again.
Its Advent time
and as Christians we live in Advent,
between the coming of Christ and the coming of Christ again.
The four Sundays of Advent have traditionally been an opportunity to consider
death, judgement, heaven and hell
that is to give our lives an eternal horizon.
As Bob Dylan sung are you ready to meet Jesus?
Are you where you ought to be?
Jesus is coming
and he will come with judgement.
Why judgement?
Judgement because the world is not yet as it should be,
The world is not yet rid of the forces of evil. Satan is still on the prowl.
Judgement names God’s determination not to let evil go unpunished;
God’s determination to see love win.
God will save us from judgement, but God will not save us without judgement. [i]
Evil is not just out there, but in us,
the line between good and evil runs through each of us,
and Advent looks to that time,
when God will do once and for all with evil
out there and in us,
that all things and us might be reconciled to him.
This Advent
I want to talk about 4 songs —
one each week.
Not just any songs,
but songs that are known as Spirituals,
arising from the African American church tradition,
created in the brutal historical setting of slavery
by those who were enslaved. [ii]
Singing the spirituals I suggest is a good idea
because they infuse a hopeful imagination for heaven
from a position of things not being as they should be.
When you’re surrounded by injustice, oppression, evil
you long for judgement,
the rectifying of a world deeply askew.
This is Advent.
Advent begins in darkness and is a longing for Light,
a believing in the coming Light,
a hoping for the promised Light.
The Light that makes plain — that judges —
the inhumanity of human beings done to each other
and to the rest of creation.
I hope also
in getting you to sing these spirituals,
to give you a different playlist for the season:
I want you to spend the next 4 weeks humming, ‘When the Saints’
or ‘Swing Low, Sweet Chariot’ or ‘Go tell it on the mountain’
rather than jingle bells or even O come all ye faithful.
As we sing the Spirituals
we are being accompanied by the book of Revelation.
In the case of ‘When the Saints’
we find it is the book of Revelation put to music:
blessed are those invited to the wedding supper of the Lamb;
blessed are those who wash their robes,
that they may have the right to the tree of life
and may go through the gates into the city:
I want to be in that number!
The book of Revelation is perfect Advent reading,
even if it does not always appear straightforward reading.
Revelation is precisely a call to live in the light of the coming of Jesus.
The book ends with Jesus saying ‘I am coming soon.’
Revelation is often read as being all about the future,
a guide to how history will play out in the end times,
it is better read as a summons to how to live faithfully now.
The book of Revelation
is apocalyptic;
not because it describes earthquakes and the end of the world,
but because it describes in bold dramatic language
the intervention of God to redeem the whole world:
everything.
The word apocalyptic means to look behind the veil:
the truth is being revealed
and ordinary language is too ordinary
for that the revelation,
so John can only describe it as a poet —
a kaleidoscope of imagery and sound
that declares a new heavens and earth has arrived
and is arriving.
John of Patmos offers a poetic, theological, pastoral
vision of reality,
soaked in scripture,
unveiled by the Spirit,
for the purpose of imbibing faith and faithfulness,
hope and hopefulness,
truth and truthfulness,
courage and comfort
to churches who are named lampstands,
from which the light of the gospel is displayed.
This hope, faith, truth, courage and comfort
was the heart-beat of the slaves of the cotton fields of the American south.
Their songs were nothing less than a conviction
that God was on their side
and would bring their liberation,
their salvation,
their redemption,
that they would be numbered among the saints.
Advent deals in the apocalyptic.
The Spirituals turn to the book of Revelation
because in it they found something that mirrored their experience
and still gave them hope.
In singing ‘I want to be in that number’
they were identifying themselves with the vast number
who are counted with the Lamb, that is Jesus.
This conviction that God was on their side,
a conviction rooted in their reading of the Bible,
meant that their call to God was the same as they found in Revelation:
‘How long, Sovereign Lord, holy and true,
until you judge the inhabitants of the earth and avenge our blood?’
In Advent time,
the longing is one for God’s judgement.
Advent people long for justice and judgement,
they ache for the wrongs to be righted,
and in their longing and aching and waiting
they remain convicted that God is just and will judge.
That conviction is one found in worship.
The book of Revelation overflows with worship,
the faith of the enslaved persons overflowed with spiritual songs.
Worship was and is the centring act [iii]
that orientates us to the God of creation and covenant,
the God of exodus and wilderness,
the God of judgement and salvation,
to the God who is known in Jesus.
The Spirituals, like ‘When the Saints’, offered
life in the context and threat of death. [iv]
Instead of succumbing to despair,
they sang, giving strength to the weak and weary,
the battered and bruised.
This is not to romanticise the singing slave,
the spirituals did not ease their suffering,
but gave voice to their suffering and to their hope in God.
The spirituals were acts of resistance.
Resistance to the narrative that to be black was to be a slave
and worthless.
The spirituals provided a bigger narrative,
that orientated the singers to belief in the kingdom and heaven,
the promised land over the Jordan.
The spirituals were a counter to a white oppressive version of Christianity
that was seen as false —
the white slave owners were Pharaoh and the American south was Egypt.
They read and sung the Bible with imagination,
which they learned from the likes of John of Patmos,
who likewise imagines Rome as Babylon.
Its Advent time.
Advent begins in the dark.
It takes seriously the darkness of the world.
It takes seriously the cry ‘How long?’
John Rackley wrote recently
The time of Advent lament is not a warm-up act for Christmas
anymore than were the prophets of Israel.
It is the soil into which faith can plant deep roots.
For Advent is an experience of having faith amidst the darkness of life.
It is more than calendar event.
It is a way of life;
a spirituality of truth seeking justice.
It is to be lived daily awaiting the arrival of God’s dawn.
The book of Revelation begins with worship — worship round the throne,
and at particular points John hears singing (chs. 4, 5, 7, 11, 15, 16, 19)
The songs are a different playlist
that offer hope when darkness surrounds.
The spirituals offer an imaginative response,
They are a third testament alongside Old and New.
Advent begins in the dark.
And in the dark we turn to God
And sing.
Oh when the saints …
[i] Fleming Rutledge, Advent: The Once and Future Coming of Christ, 2018, 182.
[ii] The idea came from reading Luke Powery, Rise Up Shepherd: Advent Reflections on the Spirituals, 2017, ix-xi.
[iii] Eugene Peterson, Reversed Thunder: The Revelation of St John & the Praying Imagination, 1988, 140.
[iv] This paragraph owes much to Luke Powery, Dem Dry Bones, 2012, 31-39.
[v] John Rackley, ‘Dark Advent Rising’ https://www.baptist.org.uk/Articles/534902/Advent_where_is.aspx
Comments