Ken Sehested
Invocation. “O Holy Night.” —a minor-keyed version of the traditional Christmas carol by Ben Caplan
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In early adulthood I developed a strong affinity for the plaintive, minor-keyed Advent hymns—and was quickly moving away from traditional Christmas carols through Advent’s stretch leading up to Christmas Eve.
Because plaintive music fit the mood of a plaintive people of Jewish communities in first-century Palestine, living as they did under Roman military occupation and corrupt, exploitive practices by Temple authorities controlled by the 1%. The Romans squeezed tribute from the Judeans, disproportionately poor farmers and small merchants. The Temple’s Sanhedrin, the judicial system which Rome permitted to rule over civil affairs, often sided with large landholders over subsistent farmers in disputes over land and commerce and debt. And the temple treasury itself held a monopoly on selling animals for sacrifice, and its money changers charged exorbitant rates of currency exchange to those on pilgrimage from afar.
The popular Advent hymn tune “O Come, O Come, Emmanuel” is adapted from the “Veni, Veni, Emmanuel” song, composed by an anonymous 15th century French composer as a Requiem Mass chant. But in 1851 English composer Thomas Helmore published his adapted tune as we now know it and paired it with a modern translation by Mason Neale now commonly used in Protestant Churches.
With darkness vs light as a binary choice, modern North American culture inevitably prefers a chirpy, jingle-belling, cornea-shrinking Halogen light to Advent’s shadowy, foreboding context. We want our angels to be cherubim, chubby 
infants with harmless allure. We don’t want scary interruptions.
We don’t want smelly, uncouth shepherds stinking up our Nativity creches. We cringe at the thought of pagan sages being the model of pilgrimages to honor the Christ child, or of astrological phenomenon guiding their way.
We don’t want Jesus to be a refugee: first, in utero, sheltered in Mary’s womb as she and Joseph, in compliance with Roman decree, traveled to Bethlehem for census registration, Caesar’s means of calculating tax liabilities and compiling military conscription lists. Then again fleeing as an infant to hated Egypt, memories of Hebrew slavery still fresh, in order to escape Herod’s henchmen in their bloody campaign to snuff out potential kingly rivals by means of gruesome executions of male babies in Bethlehem.
We have not yet learned, as Valerie Keur suggests, that Advent’s darkness might be a womb rather than a tomb.
As filtered through Western intellectual and cultural traditions, the Bible—Christian Scripture—appears to have a pronounced bias favoring “light” and opposing “darkness.” Surely there is plenty of evidence to justify that assumption. But another reading is also possible, a minority report, one more pronounced in Christian mystical traditions, where the Holy One is encountered in darkness.
“Then the people stood at a distance, while Moses drew near to the thick darkness where God was.” (Exodus 20:21) (For more on this theme, see “Carpe Noctem—Seize the Night.”)
We greatly prefer the certainty of creedal conformity, which is in fact a way of taming God’s purpose and presence, to apophatic theology, whereby we can positively say what God is not but cannot, in the end, make a copyright claim on God’s promise or build a wall restricting the Holy Spirit’s movements.
Yet, consider these things: according to the psalmist, fearlessness comes to those who trek “the valley of the shadow of death” (23:4); the goodness Gospel news comes “to those who sat in darkness” (Isaiah. 9:2; Matthew 4:16). To these faithful ones “the treasures of darkness” are promised (Isaiah 45:3).
Hope is not hope outside the context of threat. The labor of spiritual formation comes by way of entering shuddersome occasions with the confidence (despite our trembling voices and shaky knees) that God is not yet done, that death has lost its sting, that nothing can separate us from the love of the One who takes delight in us; and, in the end, is able to save simply because we are delectable, despite our flaws, in Heaven’s reckoning.
Paying attention—up close and personal—to the plaintive voices, the melodies of lament and arias of agony, of those left behind, the left out and leftover, those considered surplus and disposable by existing principalities and economies and social consensus. Their destination is our proper journey into the pathos of God, the One who dares to reside in the heart of human violation and despair, in the depth of every apocalyptic season, determined to shine healing light on every abscess, to humble the heights and lift the arroyos, to flip the script on every damnable, arrogant narrative, to announce dawn’s joy to all whose nights have marinated in tears.
If the beatific consummation seems to tarry, be patient. (See Habakkuk 2:15.) Its arrival is assured, for those with ears to hear and eyes to see, those with readied, empty hands and hearts made supple by mercy’s sway.
For on that day “all flesh shall see the glory . . . the salvation, of our God” (Isaiah 40:5, Luke 3:6).
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Benediction. “Before the ending of the day, / Creator of the world, we pray / That with Thy wonted favour Thou / Wouldst be our guard and keeper now.” —English translation of the first verse of “Te Lucis Ante Terminum,” performed by St. Martin’s Chamber Choir
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“O Come, O Come, Emmanuel”
New lyrics, old hymn
O Come, thou fount of Mercy, come
And light the path of journey home
From Pharaoh’s chains grant liberty
From Herod’s rage, confirm thy guarantee
Rejoice! Rejoice! Emmanuel
Shall come to thee, O Israel!
O Come, thou Watchful Keeper, bestow
Glad heart, warm home to creatures below
Give cloud by day and fire by night
Guide feet in peace with heaven’s delight
Rejoice! Rejoice! Emmanuel
Shall come to thee, O Israel!
Secure the lamb, the wolf no longer preys
Secure the child, no fear displays
The vow of vengeance bound evermore
God’s holy mountain safe and adored
Rejoice! Rejoice! Emmanuel
Shall come to thee, O Israel!
Arise, you fear-confounded, attest
With Insurrection’s voice confess
Though death’s confine and terror’s darkest threat
Now govern earth’s refrain . . . and yet
Rejoice! Rejoice! Emmanuel
Shall come to thee, O Israel!
O spring, from Jesse’s root, the ransom flower
From Mary’s womb, annunciating power
Bend low you hills, arise you prostrate plain
All flesh shall see, all lips join in refrain:
Rejoice! Rejoice! Emmanuel
Shall come to thee, O Israel!
O Come, announce the Blessed Manger’s reach
All Herod-hearted, murd’rous plans impeach
Abolish every proud and cruel throne
Fill hungry hearts, guide every exile home.
Rejoice! Rejoice! Emmanuel
Shall come to thee, O Israel!
—Ken Sehested
