Advent Enthusiasms and Idiosyncrasies (1)

My favourite soprano singer is Jessye Norman. Ever since I heard her sing the Sanctus from Gounod's St Cecilia Mass (20 years ago), I've listened, learned and been renewed by that magnificent voice. That double CD is now scratched and looks its age.

I've just bought her double CD, Christmastide for the Aberdeen - Paisley weekly jaunt. So instead of Abba, Mozart, John Denver, Thomas Tallis, Mary Chapin Carpenter,and various other voices I'll play several CD's I've now bought for Advent. The Jessye Norman one begins with O Come, O Come, Emmanuel. Sung with slow, deliberate enunciation, like a prayer quietly passionate and long in the saying. It builds towards a crescendo of longing, orchestra and voices demanding to be heard, and above it all the clear confident cry, no longer quietly desperate but sure in its rejoicing, "Emmanuel will come to you, O Israel". 

If it is to be faithful to its own mission and message, then this year the Church, more than any other institution, more than any other source of wisdom or authority, and more confidently than any marketing agency cleverly luring customers, - the Church should speak, live, embody, sing, pray, share, demonstrate, the truth by which it lives. "Rejoice, Rejoice, Emmanuel shall come to thee, O Israel." Whatever else our culture currently lacks, joy, hope and trust are in highly significant deficit.

The question haunts me - how does believing God comes to us in Jesus Christ make me act differently from my neighbours?

If in Jesus the love and mercy of God have come, and if Christmas brings a message of peace on earth and goodwill amongst all peoples, then why in the name of Jesus do I buy into the gloom and anxiety of a global economy on the critical list?

What listening to Jessye Norman's rendering of O Come, O Come Emmanuel does is question our culture's default position on what matters most. And it lifts my eyes beyond the Euro zone, to the economy of heaven, and the call to live with hopeful joy and trustful peace, not because that makes problems go away, but because it looks with clearer vision at the God who comes near.

The painting is The Annunciation, by Fra Angelico. It is replete with biblical clues, it is a masterpiece of reverenced mystery. It is a painting of God at work invading and interrupting with urgency and demand - awaiting that "Yes" that allows the Word to become flesh.