A PRAYER FOR ADVENT, 2020 STYLE [Sa, 11-28-20]

 CHRIST IN WINTER: Reflections on Faith & Life for the Years of Winter

A PRAYER FOR ADVENT, 2020 STYLE [Sa, 11-28-20]

It seems like we have already been in a long, long advent season, waiting for the dawn of hope. Into the 9^th month of that season. But tomorrow is the beginning of Advent in the Christian calendar, the season of waiting for the coming of the Messiah… So here’s a prayer for Advent…

Come, o come, Emmanuel

To this earthly heaven

This earthly hell

Where joys and sorrows

Together dwell

Come, o come, Emmanuel

 

Come, o come, Emmanuel

At birth’s first cry

And death’s last knell

As new hopes we see

And old tales we tell

Come, o come, Emmanuel

 

Come, o come, Emmanuel

On days when we’re ill

And days when we’re well

In love’s free bloom

Or the prisoner’s cell

Come, o come, Emmanuel

 

Come, o come, Emmanuel

When we hunger

And when we thirst

When things keep going

from worse to worst

Come, o come, Emmanuel

 

[Please don’t cause our faith to teeter

When we have to change our meter.]

 

May we end this dreadful year

With keen-eyed anticipation

May we greet the Christmas message

With quiet shouts of acclamation

 

May the stable birth of a tiny baby

Give us hope, that yes, just maybe

The year of pestilence is done

All the necessary races run

 

On Christmas morn, that hopeful dawn

Tell all the demons, “You! Be gone!”

Give us hope for days to come

Let us march to the angels’ drum

 

Until then, in this Advent season

Let us know the eternal reason

That earth still turns and God still yearns

For our joyful, penitent return

 

Come, o come, Emmanuel

 

John Robert McFarland