Thoughts on Advent Music

As the Advent season approaches, there's a debate going on in my congregation about what the appropriate hymns to sing are during these four weeks leading up to Christmas. Really, this is not a new debate: my congregation has had some of it before, and many congregations face a similar dilemma.

The struggle, as it were, is basically this: the pastors (myself and my senior pastor colleague), the music staff, and a portion of the congregation want Advent to be Advent, holding off on Christmas carols/hymns until the Christmas Eve services and for the Sunday(s) following that are the actual Christmas season. Another section of the congregation, though, doesn't seem to have much connection with the Advent season or its hymnody, and feels that we should be singing the Christmas carols in those Sundays leading up to Christmas. And, of course, there's probably the silent 'broad middle' of the congregation that doesn't have particularly strong feelings one way or the other on the matter.

In the debate going on in my congregation, I think there are actually a number of realities and issues playing into the dynamics of the debate--issues not directly connected to the debate at hand--and so I'm not sure it's helpful or appropriate to go into great detail about the specifics of how this debate is playing out in this place.

What I want to do instead, though, is give some of the reasons why I feel Advent is important, why I feel we need to let Advent be Advent.

1. -- There's a fairly basic issue about the integrity, harmony, and wholeness of the liturgy itself. Our congregation uses the lectionary to determine the scripture readings for each Sunday. As a preacher and worship planner, I find that worship services are much more powerful and meaningful when all of the elements fit with one another. Specifically, I try very hard whenever I am planning worship to see that the hymns and other music we sing fits well with the scripture readings, the sermon, and any other themes for that day (special celebrations, liturgical season, etc.). Sometimes this "fit" is more direct (a hymn whose text quotes or tells the story of one or more of the readings, for instance) and sometimes this "fit" is more of a 'coordinated' or 'complementary' relationship (a hymn that expresses the same or similar themes, for instance). During the 'festival seasons' (that is, the part of the church year that is not simply Ordinary Time), often choosing most of the hymns out of the repertoire for that season is a sufficient level of 'fit' to bring the sort of harmony I look for. The hymn that follows the sermon, though, (the "Hymn of the Day" as it is referred to in the Lutheran tradition) definitely needs to 'fit' the readings and sermon, for me--little is more jarring than a post-sermon hymn that deflates, contradicts, or is simply unrelated to the sermon and scripture that precedes it (unless for some well-thought out reason a contradictory message is planned intentionally).

So, during the season of Advent, it makes little sense to me to completely ignore the whole nature of what the scripture readings are during this season. For instance, the Gospel reading for the 1st Sunday of Advent this coming year is from an apocalyptic discourse of Jesus, Matthew 24:36-44: "Keep awake therefore, for you do not know on what day your Lord is coming." For that kind of text, something like the well-known "Sleepers Wake! A Voice Astound Us" (a.k.a. "Wake, awake, for night is flying") to the also-well-known tune WACHET AUF is something that fits well. Or, while not being quite so direct a fit, Marty Haugen's "Awake! Awake, and greet the new morn" would fit in a complementary way. Or even "O Come, O Come Emmanuel" complements this text--Jesus is saying "you do not know on what day your Lord is coming" and in response the church prays for him to come. Flipping through one of the hymnals I have at home right now, though, I cannot find a Christmas carol that fits at all with this kind of text.

The situation is the same with many of the Sundays of Advent in all three years of the lectionary cycle. We hear beautiful and powerful prophetic visions from Isaiah about the wolf lying down with the lamb and God saying 'peace' to those under oppression. We hear Jesus speaking of his second coming, not his first. We hear John the Baptist crying out to prepare and repent. How many Christmas carols speak of repentance?

2. -- The church does not need to play into and support the over-commercialization of Christmas and our society's addiction to immediate gratification. As this debate plays out in many churches, there are always folk who say "well, they're playing Christmas carols everywhere else, why can't we sing them in church?" Well, part of the vocation of Christianity and the church is to invite people into "the way", a different way of seeing themselves and the world and a different set of practices. Recently there has been a lot written about the recovery of "Christian practices" in mainline Protestant churches. The way we mark time, as Christians, is part of the different sort of practices we engage in as the church. We set aside one day each week for 'sabbath': worship, rest, and service to others. And we observe a liturgical cycle that deeply connects us with the life of Jesus: his coming, his birth, his ministry, his death, his resurrection, his presence by the Holy Spirit, and his coming again. It is not that we don't celebrate Christmas or sing Christmas carols, but we do so in their own time and place. Advent gives us the opportunity to be immersed in Jesus' "coming"s: his first coming and his coming again.

The demand that we sing Christmas carols during Advent stems from at least two phenomena in American society and American Christianity. One of these I have already named: the combination of commercialization with our American addiction to instant gratification. Why should I have to wait when I can have it now? A second piece, though, has to do with the phenomenon of the American civic religion and the loss of Christian distinctiveness in America. Many in our congregations do not connect with Advent, or with much of the liturgical/lectionary year, because in the so-called glory days of American Protestantism, most Protestants had little to do with such things. Observance of the church year and use of the lectionary is something that most mainline Protestants (the Episcopalians and some Lutherans excepted) only began reclaiming in the late 1960s. It was probably not until the 1980s that you could say it had caught on to a large degree in a majority of the churches. (And, I will add, my particular congregation was especially late in this, as regular use of the lectionary didn't start until around the year 2000.) The idea that the distinctive, historic practices of the larger Christian tradition could have important formational function went largely unrecognized, or thought unimportant, by mid-20th century civic faith Protestantism. It was simply assumed that everyone was Christian and that everyone knew what it meant to be Christian. The idea that Christianity was about inviting people into an alternative way of life, faith, and practice would have been thought odd at best (and perhaps 'ludicrous').

Well, folks, this isn't the 1950s any more. Most mainline Protestants have been engaged in the liturgical renewal movement for at least 30 years. Marking the liturgical seasons, using the lectionary, reclaiming the sacraments, all this is not new. Secondly, we do need to be formed in the faith, to be drink deeply at the well that is the life-death-and-resurrection of Jesus, to be invited into a distinctive community called the church.

3. -- This final piece is connected to the second one, but from a different angle. I'll say it this way: We need Advent. I think the root feeling/theme at the heart of Advent is longing. Simply as humans, we have longing. We long for comfort, for peace, for an end to warfare and hunger, for love. The haunting melody of "O Come, O Come Emmanuel" is a wonderful musical embodiment of that longing. As Christians, though, we are especially a people of longing. We are the ones who "proclaim the Lord's death until he comes"--the focus of which should be at least as much on the "until he comes" part as on the "Lord's death" part. Our basic faith affirmations include "Christ will come again" and "I believe in ... the resurrection of the body and the life everlasting." Our basic prayer is "Our Father in heaven ... your kingdom come." Quite frankly, if we are not a people of longing, then we have definitely lost our way as Christians. If we are not a people of longing, then we have lost sight of all those in this world who are hungry, dispossessed, and enslaved. If we are not a people of longing, then the gospel itself is nothing to us, for we apparently have all we need and all we hope for within our reach. (This is part of the connection to the commercialization of American society theme, because in America we do have everything within our reach, or at least so it seems.) If we are not a people of longing, then we have no use for God at all. "Our hearts are restless until they rest in you, O God," saith Augustine.

We need Advent. We need it in order to reconnect with the longing that haunts inside us, to give voice to our hope for ourselves and the world, to empower us to authentically cry out "Come, Lord Jesus!"