Sermon Archive
Advent
Sermon preached by John McLuckie at Holy Communion on 1 December 2002
In one of the upstairs galleries of the National Portrait Gallery, there hangs a typical Raeburn portrait with a slightly atypical subject. A rather unprepossessing, but thoughtful man sits in his tartan breeches and black jacket with a fiddle held at the kind of angle my first violin teacher would have erupted at. He is Niel Gow and is one our nation's most remarkable musical figures. A skilled player of traditional and baroque music, he was also a fine composer of tunes which are still played today because they still move the hearts of those who hear them. Among Gow's significant output, there is one category of tune for which he is best known - his laments. These beautiful melodies manage to avoid any kind of gloom or morose heaviness but still convey in ways that words often cannot, the deep ache of loss, the bitter sweetness of memory and the deepest yearnings of the human heart. He wrote laments for wives, brothers, friends and even for whisky when its appreciators had to endure the agony of a short prohibition. It's not just that Scots like to moan. A good lament is a much deeper thing - if we have any love or enjoyment, then its absence is the cause of some of our most profound longing. If we have any sense of the rightness of things, the absence of that proper ordering is a cause of yearning. If we have any sense of the tragic dimensions of life and an honest awareness of our weakness in the face of such tragedy, then a lament is a statement of something very basic to our humanity. We yearn, we ache with longing, we cry out.
The poetry of Advent meets the poetry of our human longing in this very place. The first words of the bible we heard this Advent were these: ?O that you would tear the heavens open and come down!? and today we hear of a voice that cries in the wilderness. By Tuesday, many churches in the world will add similar cries to the song of Mary at evening prayer. The so-called 'O' antiphons, which we know best from the hymn, O come, O come Emmanuel, are deep calls of yearning to God that he may come. ?Come and show us truth?, ?Come and deliver us?, ?Come and set us free?, ?Come and shed your light?. Each of these short verses begins with the simple cry, 'O' and the ancient plainsong melody for that heart-felt syllable draws out in our voices a plaintive call to a God of many names. God is called to as Wisdom, Root of Jesse, Morning Star, Emmanuel as if, by naming many elements of God's mystery our cry will more readily find a place of listening and response.
If our laments are an acknowledgement of the incompleteness of things, the 'O' antiphons are an insistent request to God that that incompleteness be sorted out. ?O God, whoever you are, help me!? is the simple prayer that must pour out from the hearts of many each day.
I was totally surprised and delighted by a gift this Advent. A friend sent me his latest book, a collection of new 'O' antiphons, one for each day of Advent and set to the familiar tune of 'O come, O come Emmanuel.' It's a beautifully produced book and has been my companion through this Advent season. In these new verses of lamentation and longing, he gives some shape to that basic prayer of the heart, the prayer of painful longing. For our yearnings are not unnameable. They are often very specific and come out of the midst of our daily lives and our struggle to live them faithfully. Let me read you an example; it's the verse for today:
O come, O come thou healing host
around whose table none can boast,
who welcomes home the stigmatized,
their rightful place now realized.
Rejoice! Rejoice! By touching hand
together all in God will stand.
Not only does one who has known exclusion cry out for someone to offer a welcome, he also rejoices at the gift that is yet to be received. How can this be? Will God always answer our deepest longings in a way that will cause us to rejoice? Surely our experience says no. And yet, can the longing ever be met with kindness if there is no one to rejoice at the possibility of such kindness? If we do not allow our heart to lament and to rejoice at the promise of healing and justice, will we perhaps run the risk of giving ourselves over as a victim to despair? I think there is a big difference between lament and despair. A lament is based on the experience of what goodness can be. Despair is the feeling that goodness is no longer possible. I guess we must pour that out to God too, and it may be that, in time, the outpouring our despair turns to longing. I would invite you to take a little time in this season of the 'O' antiphons to give a little space for your particular longings before God. If you feel the pain of an injustice in our world or at your work, cry out to God and rejoice that goodness remains a possibility for us. If you are feeling the pain of a loss, cry out to God and rejoice for the gift you treasured. If you feel the weight of a failing or weakness, cry out God and rejoice that healing and acceptance are at the heart of who God is. If you are feeling the strain in a particular relationship, cry out to God and rejoice that new starts may be there for those who seek them. Give equal weight to the cry and to the rejoicing - we need them both to be human. And if it helps to turn up the volume on a piece of music that gives voice to your cry and to your hope, then do that and know that that, too, is prayer. Rejoice! Rejoice! Emmanuel shall come to thee, O Israel!