“Come to me all who labor and are burdened,

and I will give you rest.

(Matt. 11:28)

Advent II Wednesday Jan Robitscher
     Isaiah 40: 25-31 All Saints’ Chapel
     Psalm 103: 1-4, 8, 10                                           CDSP
     Matthew 11:28-30              December 13, 2017


The word Advent means “to come to”. Advent the season is about the comings of Christ to us in the past, present and future.  But it is also about something else: Our coming to God. It is (at least ideally) a time of quiet anticipation, of longing and of awe.  In a way, it is like a dance. Not a frenetic, joyful dance like the long line-dance to “Lord of the Dance” at the Revels, but a slow, measured dance like the Argentinian Tango  or Torvill and Dean’s mesmerizing dance on ice to Ravel’s Bolero in the 1984 Olympics. In professional dancing there is a lead (usually the man) and a follow (usually the woman). Both have complementary roles, each serving the other, to make the dance come alive. Perhaps this little refrain describes the dance that is Advent:

(Sung) Dance in the darkness, slow be the pace.

Surrender to the rhythm of redeeming grace. 

If I were to say “Isaiah 40” you would probably think of the first line, and then of the first notes of Handel’s Messiah: “Comfort ye…”
We know the part about God’s seemingly impossible promise to forgive and restore the people Israel. But if we read further we encounter a people weary and forlorn, wondering where God could be in the midst of their exile.  God, however, asks a series of rhetorical questions—really almost unrelenting statements, to the weary people: Have you not known? Have you not heard? There is no other God than God. And so the people Israel must return to the  dance of God who is the only source of creation, indeed of their very being. God is the lead and calls the people Israel back to the dance.

And Jesus, in our short but very familiar Gospel passage urges“Come to me all you that are weary and are carrying heavy burdens and I will give you rest.” Again, there is no other dance partner—only Jesus, God-with-us.

Dance in the darkness, slow be the pace.

Surrender to the rhythm of redeeming grace.

The lessons for today resonate well with how we may feel at this time. The darkness closes as we head toward the shortest day of the year. Weary of study, papers and exams, we long for the joyful dance of the celebrations of Christmas and for the lengthening days of Spring. But God calls us to a slower dance—in the dark—a time to surrender ourselves and let God be the lead and we be the follow, in a dance that will lead us to Jesus, just as angels and  shepherds and wise men were led in the great dance of the Nativity.

But what of the other celebrations of this day: St, Lucy and the Ember days? St. Lucy, early Church Martyr became a symbol of light in the darkness of winter as her feast, in the old calendar, fell on the shortest day of the year. In the face of persecution and certain death she looked to the coming of God in Jesus for her strength, that light which no darkness could overcome. And by the way in which she was martyred, she became the patron saint of those dwelling in the physical darkness (not always total) of the blind and sight-impaired and also of the metaphorical blindness of the spiritually impaired. Lucy was willing to enter the dance of Advent:

Dance in the darkness, slow be the pace.

Surrender to the rhythm of redeeming grace.

And those Ember Days? They started as planting and harvest festivals and became occasions for prayer and preparation for ordinations. Now we know them mainly as time when postulants write their bishops. They are three days that fall four times a year. I remember it this way: Advent (after the Feast of St. Lucy), Lent (after Ash Wednesday), Pentecost and after Holy Cross Day in September. 
The Prayer Book bids us pray for ministry during these days, but they can also be for us a time of reflection and renewal ; a time to stop amidst the noise an rush of life. 

What day is today? It is all of the layers of meaning and devotion, Feast, Fast and prayer, but above all it is the day the Lord has created; a quiet Advent day of anticipation, longing and awe when, if we are willing—and maybe even if we are not—God can and will call us to the slow and mesmerizing dance that is Advent. And together we can “Dance in the darkness” and surrender to the redeeming grace of the comings of Christ— in the past at his birth, in the present, right here, in Word and Sacrament and in the future when he comes again. God the lead invites us to the dance, and longs for us, to follow.

Dance in the darkness, slow be the pace.

Surrender to the rhythm of redeeming grace.