Advent Candles

All four Advent candles are burning now - or glowing softly, if you go in for LED candles as we do. Three of them are purple; one is rose. There's a logic in that proportion. Purple is the liturgical color of preparation, repentance, and what we might call sorrow redeemed. Rose is the color of joy, lit for the first time on Gaudete Sunday. It is a faithful joy rooted in God's steadfast love and committed to hope, but which does not pretend everything is rainbows and sunshine. Holy Joy coexists with the pain of loved ones missing, of martyrs suffering and dying, and of a world which is not yet as God has promised it will be. 

I think there's an important insight embedded in the fact that the first three Feast days after Christmas commemorate martyrs. December 26 is the Feast of Stephen - as in "Good King Wenceslas looked out on the Feast of Stephen" - deacon and protomartyr. December 27th is the Feast of John the Evangelist. He is considered a "white" martyr because he suffered for his confession of the gosepl but didn't die. They tried to kill him, but couldn't manage it. His symbol is a chalice full of snakes because he is said to have miraculously survived poisoning. He was exiled to Patmos where he recorded the Apocalypse of John, which we often call the Book of Revelation.


December 28th is the Feast of the Holy Innocents. This is where things get rather dark, because we're celebrating the martyrdom of a bunch of babies and toddlers. After the Magi "returned to their own country by another road" Herod the Great decided to solve the problem of a newborn king threatening his grip on power by sending soldiers to commit mass infanticide. No wonder St Matthew thought of Jeremiah: "A voice was heard in Ramah, weeping and loud lamentation, Rachel weeping for her children and refusing to be comforted, because they are no more." Herod tried to kill Jesus and failed because God is King in Jerusalem, not Herod. Pharaoh tried to have all the Hebrew boys killed and missed Moses because God is King over Egypt, not Pharaoh. Joseph had a dream, Jochabed had courage and creativity, and God had the final say.

That image of "Rachel... refusing to be comforted" cuts right to the heart of parental grief. Folks grieving miscarriage, stillbirth, infant death, or even the untimely death of an adult child can be quite literally inconsolable. There are no words of comfort, no accumulation of platitudes, which can make the unbearable less unbearable. Only time and grace and steadfast love will do. Such is the sacrifice we honor and the unimaginable grief we remember on the Feast of the Holy Innocents. For those of us grieving such loss personally, it might echo and resonate. It seems like the perfect day for a blue Christmas service. That's possible because the Christ child came as "King and God and Sacrifice" to redeem the world, including our grief and pain.

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