Caroling through Advent - Devotion 13

 

 

Today’s devotion brings our reflections on beloved Christmas carols to a close. Thank you to everyone who shared their thoughts and memories. Thank you to readers and those who have sent private notes of gratitude and further memories.

 

The carols In the Bleak Mid-winter and Of the Father’s Love Begotten are set to tunes that are pensive. The carols’ words reflect on profound mysteries and proclamations of theology.

The Christmas season bridges one calendar year to the next. In Canada, the weather is winter cold, precipitation, and wind. It is a time to ‘hibernate,’ to curl up by the fire with a blanket, and a mug of one’s favourite hot drink. There is time to pause and reflect.

 

*As one year transitions to the next, do you reflect on the year past, and/or make goals for the coming year?

*Do you reflect on your year’s faith journey? Do you take stock of your hope-stores?

*This past year, what did you discover about God?

*Consider the health of your relationship with God.

 

Approaching a new year with Advent/Christmas themes still ringing in our ears, makes for an auspicious time to ‘repent’ – to turn around- to hit the reset button. Emmanuel, Hope, love, peace, and joy – are present, sitting within, waiting to address life’s big questions of purpose and meaning. They speak to hearts inviting people to approach life from a counter-cultural perspective. To consider that one is part of something far weightier than themselves and day to day situations.

 

These carols are weighty.

Ian Bradley (theologian and hymnologist) questions the theology of the carol, In the Bleak Mid-winter, asking, “is it right to say that heaven cannot hold God, nor the earth sustain, and what about heaven and earth fleeing away when he comes to reign?” Singing, Of the Father’s Love Begotten, one does not get past the title, without a dose of theology; followed by a text that expresses much of the Nicene Creed – tackling the mystery of Trinity and matters of Christ being both divine and human.

 

The Gospel for Christmas Day is John 1. This is John’s ‘Christmas Story.’ There are no shepherds, angels, or wise men. The narrative is not earthly. The narrative is cosmic! In the beginning was the Word, and the word was with God, and the word was God. This theology opens many paths for contemplation. It takes one outside the earthiness of the stable and directs attention to that which is beyond human understanding. Acceptance of weightier matter offers freedom, freedom from bondage to self, to circumstance, to what others think. Contemplation on ‘in the beginning was the word’ births elements of the cosmic – transcendence, awareness, awe, and gratitude- into the very nature of human life.

 

*Do you find it helpful to describe Christ as cosmic? To express God in terms of an expansive Great Mystery?

*In 2023, what would you like to explore about God?

*What theological question would you like to ponder?

*How does the experience of transcendence, awareness, awe, and/or gratitude change you and how you live?

 

Holy and Cosmic,

With awe we contemplate mysteries beyond our understanding. Birth in us freedom from all that keeps us in bondage. Birth in us gratitude and a thirst for contemplation on weighty matters. May 2023 be a year of renewed relationship with Emmanuel. Amen.

 

 

Link to In the Bleak Mid-winter  https://youtu.be/PuDpOWPf7_g

Of the Father’s Love Begotten https://youtu.be/n7YN97P72Rs