Let’s face it; Christmas is a letdown for most people. The anticipation is unrivaled; songs, smells, gifts, parties, movies and countdown calendars. But the Christmas season can leave us with an empty bank account, a full schedule of mediocre parties and a barrage of awkward family moments. It looks perfect in the Christmas movies, and jolly songs try to convince us it’s the most wonderful time of the year.
Christmas finds us in a perplexing moment right now. Our world is weary. Pain and violence are unescapable, and we don’t know how or where to process it. So we’ve taken it to social media walls in increasingly negative ways. Call me crazy, but I believe we can acknowledge the pain, AND stretch for hope during this season.
Should we sit in the pain of the world or embrace the hope of our coming King? We need to do both. In fact, Advent actually invites us to do both. The Church has celebrated Advent for centuries, but many of us have never truly understood it. I grew up cracking open Advent calendars, but somehow my list for Santa became strangely intertwined with it. I’ve come to see the beauty inside the longing and waiting of Advent. We can sit in the pain with eyes lifted in purposeful waiting for the Prince of Peace to arrive. Advent allows us to simultaneously acknowledge; the world is not as it should be, but the King is on the way.
The song O Holy Night holds these two realities in tension. It has become an anchor for me during the holidays. The timeless words, “A thrill of hope, the weary world rejoices” are tattooed onto my soul. They bear a depth eclipsing Nat King Cole (bless his heart) and the blessed Christmas anthems of the 50’s. It’s a biblical carol, not a suburban American song. Here’s part of the curious story behind it…
O Holy Night was a collaboration between a priest, a poet and a composer.
In 1847 a priest in a small French town asked a commissioner of wines and poet, Placide Cappeau de Roquemaure, to write a song for Christmas mass. Placide penned these steady words in a bumpy carriage outside Paris with the pages of Luke’s gospel in hand. Placide invited his friend and accomplished composer, Adolphe Charles Adams, to write the music. Three weeks later the song debuted at Midnight Mass.
Ten years later the song hopped the pond. An American abolitionist, John Sullivan Dwight, resonated with the words, “Chains shall He break for the slave is our brother, And in His name all oppression shall cease”. He translated it into English and published it in an American magazine. This carol can rudder us through a confusing era.
Christmas is a collision pain and hope. It’s a living paradox. As a pastor and a creative, I wonder how we might creatively engage the emotions of the Christmas season like a priest, a winemaking poet and a composer did.
How can we lament the pain of our world and wait in expectation for the coming of the Prince of Peace?
Just a few weeks ago I got an idea; curate a collection of Advent poems of pain and hope. I talked to a few poetic friends, and we hatched a plan to release one poem a day from December 1st – Christmas day to redeem increasingly negative social media spaces for rhymes and rhythms of hope and peace. As a team we’ve crafted these poems, and we’re excited to share them with you.
We won’t cheaply push the pain aside, but we’ll acknowledge it as we lift our eyes to the arrival of Jesus. We imagine people sitting around tables reading these and discussing them. No, the world is not as it should be, but there’s good news… “A thrill of hope the weary world rejoices, For yonder breaks a new and glorious morn!”
Get involved in The Weary World Rejoices
Read through the poem releasing every day from Dec 1st – 25th
Join the Facebook group The Weary World Rejoices to find the poem of the day and some videos as well
Head to this site, enter your email and get your daily poem delivered
Share the lyrics and videos across social media tagging them with #thewearyworld
Gather with your family, friends, small group or congregation to read these poems and process them together
Ponder the poems, pray for peace and pause to await Jesus
*For more on the story behind O Holy Night pick up the book Stories behind the best-loved songs of Christmas