Advent Reading

Hymns, Lectionaries and Books

I’ve put aside my reading on C.S. Lewis during the last two weeks of Advent.  I’ve picked up two books from Amazon.  One is a meditation on the great Christmas Hymns, the other is a sort of lectionary/reading guide for the Advent season.  I’m trying to follow the actual lectionary (I’m using the Scottish Episcopal schedule) during this season, so I’m also reading the traditional scriptural passages.  And, of course, I’m listening to my wonderful library of Christmas music.   All of this, with the occasional hot chocolate or cinnamon apple cider, make for a transformative Christmas season.  There is no other season like it.

They first book I ordered this year was O, Come All Ye Faithful – one of the Great Hymns of our Faith series. 

I love the format: each hymn is given a scriptural study, a main theme study and an historical study, each by three different authors.   There’s a companion CD included with every hymn in the book represented and sung either by the students of the Master’s Choral, Joni Eareckson Tada or both.  The hymns are such an enriching way to meditate on the work of God in Christ and all that Christmas means – His prophetic arrival,  His peace extended toward all mankind, His humility in and the great miracle of the incarnation, joy and salvation to the world, and God coming down to man, revealing Himself and making Himself known to us, offering Himself as a substitute for our sins and providing the way for us to be united with Him eternally.   Christmas is all about God pursuing us.

I also picked up a book entitled Watch for the Light: Readings for Advent and Christmas.  The cover touted the various authors, which include C.S. Lewis, Thomas Merton, Madeleine L’Engle, Henri Nouwen and Dietrich Bonhoeffer, among others.   The problem is the “others” that were not so prominently listed, and for obvious reasons.  The book wouldn’t have sold to anyone but a leftist, liberal Christian.  I won’t go into the entire list or the history and beliefs of each writer, but suffice it to say that the list is a veritable who’s who of liberal, socialist, pacifists so typical of leftist “Christians” today.  Liberation theology proponents, prominent elders and both founders of The Bruderhof, even fascist, anti-semites are represented.  And so we find ourselves reading Advent stories, hoping to increase our faith and devotion, and instead are subjected to overt deconstruction of the Christmas story by the, no doubt, intellectually superior, better educated, more informed liberal  (attributions are carefully quoted from the likes of “priest and scholar” with “scholar” duly noted) who must describe the errors in the Gospel and the discontinuities in the Christmas story to us poor, deluded fundamentalists every Christmas season.  We shouldn’t try to “force a harmony out of some mistaken notion that if scripture is inspired it has to be historical as well”.  Silly us.  I’d recommend this book only as a compendium of leftist thinkers and liberal “Christian” leaders, perhaps a list of folks whose error we might study sometime after the season.  In the meantime, I’ve put this book down and taken up the scriptures in the lectionary.

I’ve decided to use the Scottish Episcopal Church’s calendar and lectionary.  And why not?  The structured, topical readings day-by-day are what I’m after, and these seem to me to be as good as the Anglican, Episcopalian, Methodist or Lutheran schedules.   And, of course, there are some nice folks who have compiled the calendar readings for you all in one place.   I’m also following some of my favorite blogs.  Type in “advent” in the search box, then select the blogroll as the search target, and you’ll find some good stuff there.