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The Melancholy of Advent

Today is the 4th Sunday of advent. That means Christmas is one week away! Christmas is a joyful season. Whether it be the lights, decorations, gifts, cookies, music or the festive lithography of Currier and Ives, there is something magical about Christmas that brings us back to the innocent simplicity of our childhood and the childlike excitement of the season. As soon as Thanksgiving is done, I enjoy dusting off the Christmas music and filling our home with the sounds of the season. The hymnology of the season (be that secular or sacred) expresses the joyful spirit of the season: Have yourself a merry little Christmas. I'll be home for Christmas. Joy to the World! Hark, the Herald Angels Sing.


As I play through my favorites, I find myself drawn to songs with minor tones or a contemplative character - carols such as What Child is This, Wexford Carol, and O Come O Come Emmanuel, O Holy Night or Mary Did you Know. In fact, on a recent road trip where I was playing through my favorite Christmas Hymns, my wife commented on the contrast between my favorite songs and the overarching emotion of the season. On one hand, this can largely be attributed to the fact that I tend to gravitate toward the somber, heavy-hearted, and contemplative. But as we think about Advent and the joyful festivity of the season, there is a melancholic air to Christmas.


The term melancholy carries a broad semantic range including the idea of sadness and depression, but perhaps the definition that I think is the most appropriate is: sober thoughtfulness or pensiveness - that is thoughtfulness with a tinge of sadness. As we think about Advent, looking back at the context and reason for Christ's birth and then looking forward to what his birth means in our lives, we find ourselves filled with a sense of melancholy and hope.


Looking at the Past

The time of advent is often associated with the concept of peace. In Christ's day, peace was described by the word Shalom. It carries with the sense of not just peace but of wholeness or completeness. I have often been drawn to this idea of Shalom representing the state of everything as it ought to be - mostly because it represents what is not but what could be. It is the antithesis of anxiety and brokenness and the fullness of peace.


Christ was born into a world of people marked by brokenness and looking for a Messiah to set things right. A brief search through the Old Testament of the words "Grief" "Groaning" and "Sorrow" paint a picture of the history of nation of Israel - a history marred by the effects of sin and lost shalom.


God created the world and chose the nation of Israel to be His people. Through Noah, Abraham, Moses and David, God established a covenant with the nation of Israel. He would be their God and they would be his people. Like a marriage, faithfulness yields blessing but infidelity results in discipline.


Though God specifically chose the nation of Israel to be his people, the subsequent history is marked by the sorrow and brokenness that results from Israel's sin and their infidelity to God's covenant. The chosen nation spent 400 years as slaves in Egypt. Though miraculously they were rescued by God from Pharaoh, they spent 40 years wandering in the wilderness due to their discontent before entering the land God promised to them.


As a nation, Israel had a time of prosperity under King David and his son Solomon. But the people turned from God and worshiped the gods of the nation. And so, the grandiosity of Israel's kingdom was divided and ultimately destroyed resulting in another captivity, this time in Babylon.


After 70 years, under the leadership of Zerubbabel and Ezra, Israel was allowed to return to their land. But the next several hundred years saw successive waves of foreign occupation, first under Alexander the Great and ultimately under the Romans. It was into this context that the nation of Israel ached for a promised Messiah - someone who would vanquish their foes, restore their standing with God and return a sense of shalom. It was into this context that Christ was born. It is into this context that we sing.


O come, O come, Emmanuel,

and ransom captive Israel

that mourns in lonely exile here

until the Son of God appear.



Looking at the present

Advent anticipates the birth of Christ. Though the setting was austere, and the historical backdrop was marked by brokenness, the birth of Christ was a joyous event. Mary sings, "My soul magnifies the Lord, and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior. The announcement to the shepherds, capture the moment, "Fear not, for behold, I bring you good news of great joy that will be for all the people. For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, who is Christ the Lord."


For us who have the benefit of retrospection, we add to the joy of Advent the understanding the idea that this little baby would one day redeem his people, take away our sin and be the conquering king that we the nation of Israel have anticipated for so many years.


But the joy of Christ's arrival is tempered by the realization that his birth started the clock on a life that would ultimately end in his crucifixion. Advent and the incarnation point to the purpose of Christ’s birth. The road from Bethlehem’s joy leads to the anguish and sorrow of Jerusalem’s cross. The birth of Christ in a humble stable planted the seeds of Mary’s grief.


Isaiah 53 captures the melancholy of Christ by saying:


He was despised and rejected by men,

a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief;

and as one from whom men hide their faces

he was despised, and we esteemed him not.


Surely he has borne our griefs

and carried our sorrows;

yet we esteemed him stricken,

smitten by God, and afflicted.


But he was pierced for our transgressions;

he was crushed for our iniquities;

upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace,

and with his wounds we are healed.



Looking to the future

The melancholy of Advent doesn't come without a glimmer of hope. One of my most favorite scenes in nature is a landscape at sunset after a storm. Suddenly, there is a small separation in the clouds and a ray of sunshine breaks through bathing the entire landscape in a warm golden glow. The dark clouds of the storm just past contrast the ray of light giving the feeling that despite the storm and all its destructive fury, all is now well. In a word, the scene is a tiny reflection of shalom.


Melancholy provides the context to understand shalom. But the context would be incomplete without the parallel idea of hope. Hope points to and makes us long for the day when we shall experience ultimate shalom.


We live in a world defined by the idea of "Already but not yet." Christ has come. Because of his incarnation, death and ultimate resurrection, we have been redeemed. But even though our debt has been paid and our sin has been washed away, we still live in a world contaminated by the effects of sin. Paul describes the contrast between melancholy and hope. In Romans 8 he writes that though we still are groaning under the weight of sin, one day we will be set free. The melancholy of advent should remind us and point us to the hope of restored shalom. So inspired by the minor tones, we can sing:


O come, Thou Dayspring, from on high,

And cheer us by Thy drawing nigh;

Disperse the gloomy clouds of night,

And death's dark shadows put to flight.


Rejoice! Rejoice! Emmanuel

Shall come to thee, O Israel.


Merry Christmas!


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