Celebrating Advent with Poetry

The language of Scriptures is mostly poetic. Almost one third of the Old Testament is made up of poetry, and poems are strewn throughout the New Testament. Christmas itself is held together by nothing more than poetic language.

And there is a reason why poetry is the preferred language of our faith. The story of God’s love becoming incarnate in a Jewish child in Bethlehem is too absurd, too elusive, too unsettling, and too amazing to be contained by unchangeable articles of faith or immutable religious tenets. Our theologies, which crave for clarity and certitude, have tried in vain to explain and systematize the ancient truth that permeates the sacred words of our Scriptures. The language of faith cannot be diminished, restricted, or domesticated.

Poetry keeps challenging our simplistic and rational interpretations of the mystery of the Incarnation. The beloved stories of Christ’s birth cannot be exhausted at first, second or 100th hearing. The poetic language of Matthew, Luke and John enables meaning rather than boxes in the significance of Jesus’ birth for humankind.

The poetry of the evangelists enlarges our hearts and frees our minds to imagine possibilities and worlds other than the ones we know so well every day of our lives. The poetry of the Gospels allows us to inhabit the holy story of Christ that we do not fully understand. In the Bible, God chooses poetry to speak to us because only poetry can prepare us to embrace the bottomless mystery of the Incarnation. Only the language of divine poetry is able to give us the courage to live ever more daringly as followers of Jesus Christ.

This Advent season, we are reclaiming the language of poetry in our liturgy. Every Sunday, beginning on November 26th, poems will be an integral part of the lighting of the Advent candles. J. Barrie Shepherd, Ann Weems, Padraig Ó Tuama, and Lindy Thompson will illuminate our spiritual journey toward Christmas.

On Christmas Eve, poems by Ian Frazier and Robert Frost will remind us to keep our eyes on the Christmas star and let the light of Christ guide us toward the road less traveled that makes all the difference on the journey of faith.

For the first week of Advent, we enjoyed the poetry of J. Barrie Shepherd’s with his work, “Watch For It”, which invited us to let Advent sharpen our senses.   Look for more poetry to inspire you in our Advent services.