by CCW | 29 November 2017 09:56
Advent. Such a powerful idea. It marks the movement of God’s Word coming to us. Without that motion there can be no Christmas, spiritually and religiously speaking. It is not about Santa Claus, for however much Santa Claus belongs to Christmas, Christmas does not belong to Santa Claus.
There is a far deeper meaning to Advent that speaks to the darkness and the despair of every age including our own. Our two services of Advent and Christmas Lessons and Carols on Sunday, December 3rd, the one at 4pm for Grades 7-11 at Christ Church, and the other at 7pm in the School Chapel for the Grade 12s, speak to the critical idea of a culture in which there is a profound respect for learning.
We awaken to self-consciousness only to discover something which is prior to us, something which has a greater primacy than ourselves and without which we cannot make sense of selves as selves. Such is the truth and the goodness of God which cannot lie hidden and concealed but must manifest itself and gather us into itself. Such is the nature of the Good, we might say. Advent is the season of teaching and particularly marks the idea of Revelation. God’s word comes to us as light in the darkness of human experience and evil. The coming of God’s Word in the rich parade and pageant of the Carol Services awakens us to hope and peace, to joy and love.
Designed in 1918 and first performed at King’s College Cambridge, England, the Advent Service of Lessons & Carols was intended to speak to a world devastated and destroyed by the ravages of the First World War by recalling the greater themes of hope and peace.
This year, 2017, marks the 140th anniversary of Hensley Memorial Chapel in the 229th year of the School. The Chapel is a strong part of the culture of learning which counters the corporatization of education which reduces all learning to a means rather than an end, turning education into a consumer product, a for-profit model which does little justice to the classic themes of an education for the whole person and expressed in service and sacrifice for others.
The Scripture readings in Chapel challenge us to think more deeply about what it means to be human beyond the reductive approaches which turn us all into things to be manipulated and used by others. They recall us to freedom and truth, to order and love without which we consign ourselves to a wilderness of our own making, the wilderness of modernity.
T.S. Eliot’s The Wasteland, written in 1922, reflects on the character of the modern world as a wilderness wasteland, barren and empty where all that remains are “these fragments I have shored up against my ruins”. The image is arresting. It is about clinging to the fragments of a world broken and in ruins, lost and gone by virtue of the devastations and destruction of the First World War, the legacy of which has largely defined the 20th century and beyond. Against that image, the Scriptures offer another vision, a vision of redemption, the gathering up of the fragments of our lives “that nothing be lost.”
In the reading from St. Matthew this week, we hear about the radical meaning of the coming of God’s Word to us as light and truth. “The blind receive their sight, and the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, and the deaf hear, the dead are raised up and the poor have the Gospel preached to them”, words which are echoed in the great Bidding Prayer of the Carol Service. Such words and images signal the radical healing and restoration of our humanity out of the ruins and follies of our destructiveness.
They complement the idea of respect for learning. It is about being defined by the ideals and principles that adorn and dignify our humanity by recalling us to truth. That remains the challenge for us. Some twelve years after writing The Wasteland, Eliot wrote Choruses from the Rock. “Where is the life we have lost in living?/ Where is the wisdom we have lost in knowledge?/ Where is the knowledge we have lost in information?/ The cycle of the Heavens in twenty centuries/ Brings us farther from God and nearer to the Dust.” They are the questions which challenge and counter the so-called information age and the so-called knowledge economy. They do so by awakening us to wisdom and truth, to a profounder commitment and respect for learning.
The questions of Advent are the questions that belong to the quest for wisdom. “What went ye out for to see?” Jesus asks the multitude with triple intensity about John the Baptist, a prophet and yet more than a prophet. He is sent to prepare the way of the Lord, a preparation through an awakening and a longing for mercy and truth. They are the questions that belong to a culture of learning in which we may find hope and peace.
All parents, guardians and grandparents are invited to the Carol Services which are, of course, mandatory events for the students because they are about respect for learning and so speak to the essential purpose and ideals of the School: Deo Legi Regi Gregi and Fideliter; in short, our faithfulness to God, the Law, the King, and the People. Such is the commitment to learning and service.
(Rev’d) David Curry
Chaplain, English & ToK teacher
Chair of the Department of Religion and Philosophy
Source URL: https://christchurchwindsor.ca/2017/11/29/kes-chapel-reflection-week-of-26-november/
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