I got you a present

Unwrap six gifts for the season of Advent

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Gentle reader,

We’re on the cusp of the season of Advent, my favorite of the church year, and today, I have six gifts for you.

I know, I know; we’re not supposed to unwrap our gifts until Christmas.

But what if all us liturgical curmudgeons, the-no-carols-‘til-Christmas-police, just took a deep breath? What if we just stopped. And breathed in and out. What if we opened our hearts and breathed in the season of Christ’s coming?

My church history professor, the late David Steinmetz, taught me that for Martin Luther, there are three advents: a triple coming of Christ.

1. in the manger

2. in glory

3. in our hearts.

Past and future, to be sure, but also: present. Advent is present tense. What if we didn’t fight it? Jesus is coming, right here, right now, in our hearts.

Gift 1. a hymn

Charles Wesley’s “Lo He comes with clouds descending” is a seriously underrated piece of hymnody. I don’t know why.

Actually, I suspect I do know why: it’s dark and dense and deep, and we all think we would prefer cotton candy. Who among us, though, hasn’t been deeply wailing and doesn’t need the judgment of God so we might the true Messiah see? This version is the the text from the United Methodist Hymnal, posted at hymnary.org.

1. Lo, he comes with clouds descending,
once for favored sinners slain;
thousand, thousand saints attending
swell the triumph of his train.
Hallelujah! Hallelujah! Hallelujah!
God appears on earth to reign.

2. Every eye shall now behold him,
robed in dreadful majesty;
those who set at naught and sold him,
pierced and nailed him to the tree,
deeply wailing, deeply wailing, deeply wailing,
shall the true Messiah see.

3. The dear tokens of his passion
still his dazzling body bears;
cause of endless exultation
to his ransomed worshipers;
with what rapture, with what rapture, with what rapture,
gaze we on those glorious scars!

4. Yea, Amen! Let all adore thee,
high on thy eternal throne;
Savior, take the power and glory,
claim the kingdom for thine own.
Hallelujah! Hallelujah! Hallelujah!
Everlasting God, come down!

Here’s a very British rendition:

Gift 2. a playlist

This is my Advent playlist on Spotify: Eschatological vibes: Re God’s good ends for all things, the advent of Jesus.

It features Johnny Cash, Sandra McCracken, Rich Mullins, Sting, Over the Rhine, the Porter’s Gate, Handel, Sarah Groves, The Mountain Goats, Dolly Parton, Andrew Peterson, the Harlem Gospel Choir, and more.

Gift 3. an image

“Our Lady of Regla” © Harmonia Rosales, posted under fair use guidelines.

From Rosales’s website:

“Since the genesis of her career, Harmonia Rosales’s main artistic concern has focused on Black female empowerment in Western culture, depicting and honoring the African diaspora.

As a young girl, the impeccable skill and composition of the Renaissance masters’ fascinated her but the depiction of white hierarchy and the idealization of subordinate women, often falling under Eurocentric notions of beauty, dissuaded her passion… The dark cast of her subjects is specifically meant to separate its viewer from physical reality and transport them to a world that largely transcends the two-dimensional canvas.”

Finally, a Western iconography!

Gift 4. a book recommendation

Hannah Anderson’s Heaven and Nature Sing: 25 Advent Reflections to Bring Joy to the World is just gorgeous. I hate snakes, but in the chapter on snakes, Anderson almost reconciled me to the creatures.

“Yes, the manger signals something about this baby, but it is not simply his poverty. By being placed in the manger, he is revealed as both the rightful son of Adam charged with caring for his creation and also the eternal Son of God who created them and who provides for them. So instead of filling the manger with hay or corn, he fills it with himself” — Hannah Anderson, in Heaven and Nature Sing

Gift 5. a poem

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Sunday Before Advent
by Christina Rossetti

The end of all things is at hand. We all
Stand in the balance trembling as we stand;
Or if not trembling, tottering to a fall.
The end of all things is at hand.

O hearts of men, covet the unending land!
O hearts of men, covet the musical,
Sweet, never-ending waters of that strand!

While Earth shows poor, a slippery rolling ball,
And Hell looms vast, a gulf unplumbed, unspanned,
And Heaven flings wide its gates to great and small,
The end of all things is at hand.

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Indeed! Heaven flings wide its gates!

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Gift 6. printables for each Sunday of the season

The text on these printables is from the libretto of Handel’s Messiah, and the scripture texts on which they’re based is noted as well. These can be displayed on a string with a product like this:

Or, just tape them to the fridge or the wall. These should print fine from home on 8.5x11 paper, and I’ve provided a set with the white backgrounds and gray letters if you want to use less ink (scroll down for those). You can also have them printed as 8x10 photos, and they’ll look much better. Supporting subscribers can scroll to the very bottom of the post to access additional printables for every day in the Advent season.

Thanks for opening these gifts.

Will you pray with me?

Holy Father, giver of all good gifts, may you teach us to receive. Open our hands. This Advent season, we pray that the power of your Spirit might prepare our hearts, our homes, our minds, and our hopes to receive the gift of the coming of Jesus.

Amen.

Come, Lord Jesus!

Grace & peace,

BFJ

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White background printables, to use less ink:

Below, supporting subscribers can access additional printables for use during each day of the Advent season.