Sermon for the 4th Sunday of Advent: Advent Calendar – preached at the Eucharist, Sherborne Abbey, on Sunday, 18 December 2022 by Canon Charles Mitchell-Innes. (Isaiah Ch 7: v 10 – 16; Matthew Ch 1: 18 – 25)
Here we are at the 4th Sunday in Advent, or, according to the unceasing commercial world, the 7th shopping day before Christmas. My Advent Calendar reveals Angels from the Realms of Glory winging their flight o’er all the earth; my supermarket – on the terrestrial level – is offering cut-price cheese footballs. Advent Calendars themselves have a similar variety of approach to the season. They fall into three broad categories: (a) the firmly religious and biblical, with scenes of mangers, angels and shepherds, above and around the holy family, with a general backdrop of Bethlehem. This is what our grandchildren receive from us; and they have never complained so far. (b) The lightly religious, with words and scenes of wassailing and a liberal sprinkling of snow, robins and Christmas puddings, laced with Good Cheer. (c) The shamelessly enticing secular calendars, with chocolate lurking behind every door, to test one’s self-restraint.
All of these are fun, and a good way to mark the approach of Christmas; but of course, not being theological threatises, they underplay the radical significance of the birth it celebrates. As I mention in my Pewsheet Thought, there is a darker aspect to Advent – before the radiance of the Nativity breaks forth. It is hinted at, perhaps, by the appearance behind one of the windows of the Poor Man gathering winter fuel. That could be an emblem of our times, not only here but most particularly in the war-ravaged parts of Ukraine, whose people are much in our prayers.
As for ourselves, there may be some comfort in considering that there have been more difficult times in living memory. In the winter of 1947, when everything froze from January to March, there was a great problem in the collection and distribution of coal from the pitheads, where it was piling up and not reaching the general population in sufficient quantity. There were various reasons for this, not least an instruction by the formidable Minister for Fuel, Emmanuel Shinwell, that coal should only be collected by nationalized transport; but nationalized lorry companies were in short supply. I have a book from that year which features a cartoon of a group of carol singers (well wrapped up), whose words are:
“Brightly shone the moon that night,
Though the frost was cruel:
Extra brightly just to spite
The Minister of Fuel.”
With this less cosy aspect of Advent in mind, I’d like to introduce you to a different Advent Calendar – a poem of that name by Archbishop Rowan Williams. It begins in late November, when “He will come like last leaf’s fall.” That is the time when autumn finally passes into winter and we are aware of human suffering, especially that caused by violence, and the need for redemption. Williams’ calendar then leads us into December:
“He will come like frost.
One morning when the shrinking earth
opens on mist, to find itself
arrested in the net
of alien, sword-set beauty.”
A familiar scene recently – beautiful, yet in a way disturbing. In mid-December we hear:
“He will come like dark.
One evening when the bursting red
December sun draws up the sheet
and penny-masks its eye to yield
the star-snowed fields of sky.”
That is an image of a child peeping out from under a sheet and seeing the breathtaking immensity of the universe.
Again, familiar, yet strange and other-worldly. And that is the essence of this birth that we now await. Think about Mary, whom our readings place in pole position today. She knows that what she faces is wonderfully – miraculously – ordinary: every day there are children born into the world. But in her mind must be also Gabriel’s message to her: “The child to be born will be called holy, the Son of God.” (Luke Ch 1: v 35) Or, as the angel in this morning’s reading from Matthew’s Gospel says to Joseph: “That which is conceived in her is of the Holy Spirit; she will bear a son, and you shall call his name Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins.” (Matthew Ch 1: v 20 – 21)
This double action is at the heart of our faith – Jesus born fully human yet fully God. As we shall say in a minute or two, “For us men and for our salvation [he] came down from heaven, and was incarnate by the Holy Ghost of the Virgin Mary, and was made man.” Janet Morley writes about Williams’ poem: “The tone is absolutely traditional for Advent. The Christchild will come, but not until the world is at its darkest, and there will be struggle …. surrounding the event. The preparation involves … an acceptance of the dark. It will be both utterly ordinary and yet apocalyptic.”
Rowan Williams’ Advent Calendar ends:
“He will come, will come
will come like crying in the night ….
He will come like child.”
Advent Calendar
He will come like last leaf’s fall.
One night when the November wind
has flayed the trees to bone, and earth
wakes choking on the mould,
the soft shroud’s folding.
He will come like frost.
One morning when the shrinking earth
opens on mist, to find itself
arrested in the net
of alien, sword-set beauty.
He will come like dark.
One evening when the bursting red
December sun draws up the sheet
and penny-masks its eye to yield
the star-snowed fields of sky.
He will come, will come,
will come like crying in the night,
like blood, like breaking,
as the earth writhes to toss him free.
He will come like child.
Rowan Williams