A favorite Advent hymn

With printable art for each verse

Gentle reader,

Today, I’m sharing one of my favorite Advent hymns, “People, Look East” by Ellen Farjeon. Farjeon offers us several rich metaphors for our hope in Jesus, some familiar and some less so.

I love the idea of Advent—and decorating the house!!—as hospitality. We prepare for Jesus the guest by opening our homes and setting extra places at the table, by dressing the tree and opening our hearts.

“Love, the rose,” evokes God’s promises of a flowering wilderness; ““The desert and the parched land will be glad; the wilderness will rejoice and blossom. Like the crocus, it will burst into bloom” (Isaiah 35:1). It also brings to mind a better-known Advent carol:

Lo, how a Rose e'er blooming
From tender stem hath sprung!
Of Jesse's lineage coming
As men of old have sung.
It came, a flower bright,
Amid the cold of winter
When half-gone was the night.

This seems, to me, to be Farjeon’s oddest and so most interesting metaphor. Love, the bird, is guarding that nest for the day when winter will flee and new life will come.

Now, the hymn draws us nearer to the nativity, to the star that will shine over the manger in Bethlehem.

May we look, together, toward the coming of Love, our Lord, Jesus Christ, as Farjeon, again, alludes to Isaiah; “Every valley shall be exalted, and every mountain and hill shall be made low: and the crooked shall be made straight, and the rough places plain” (Isaiah 40:4).

Will you pray with me?

Holy God,

Please, give us the courage to hope, to look East, to open our hearts to the—guest, rose, bird, star, Lord—Love that is coming. You are a full feasting table, a blooming garden, a tender mother—gathering us under your wings—, a light in the darkeness, the Lord of heaven and earth. You are our hope. Help us to stand on that.

In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit,

Amen.

Grace & peace,

BFJ

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