An Advent Hen from outer space.
Christmas with David meant multiple church services, and I sat in the back row for each one, wrapped in an oversized sweater and wearing the Jackie O sunglasses Margaret pulled out of her desk drawer as soon as she saw me.
“Here you go, Tigger,” she said, coming around her desk with the glasses in her hand. “You won’t be the first woman who’s needed a little disguise in here.”
“Thank you,” I said, stepping into her embrace. “I know I look awful. I need to find a heavy-duty concealer.”
“There’s no concealer for a broken heart, sweetie,” she said. “But you do look a little bit like a panda bear.” She let go of me, gave me the glasses, and brushed my hair back from my face. “Just put those on and try to remember that it’s not always going to be like this.”
— The Wisdom of the Olive Tree
It’s human nature to forget, when you’re in the thick of an experience, that everything ends. Whether it’s the utter desolation of a broken heart or the exhaustingly ecstatic pre-Christmas chaos when you’re the parent of little kids, every experience — whether good or bad — is fleeting. Healing happens and our hearts beat on, Christmas passes and we move into a new season. For every experience, the key, as Margaret says, is to remember that it won’t always be like this. Something new is forever on the horizon.
The season of Advent we are currently in - the four weeks leading up to Christmas - invites us to embrace the anticipation of something new but not yet arrived as we await the birth of Jesus. Advent doesn’t ask much of us - just that we get still, reflect, and lean into the expectation of what’s to come.
Easy, right?
Yet somehow I fail miserably every year. Advent makes me antsy. When I hear Come, Thou Long Expected Jesus, I want to add “Seriously, get a move on” to every verse. But Advent, like grief and reconciliation and healing, has its own agenda and refuses to be hurried.
The sense of anticipation in the Advent season isn’t unique, of course — the expectant waiting for a new beginning is everywhere in the Bible. In fact, the first two lines of Genesis 1 introduce us to the theme: In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth. And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters. (KJV Gen. 1:1-2)
The earth without form that exists prior to God’s action is a fearsome place, disordered and lacking all of the rhythms and repetitions that give our lives security and predictability. Yet within this chaos, the seed of creation is already there, held in a state of suspended animation. My Old Testament professor likened the pre-creation state to a brooding hen that, within its motionless body, holds the quiet anticipation of a new beginning in the egg that will become life. God wills the world into existence by breathing ruach —spirit — over the formless void and calling forth that new life: a universe that pulsates with potential and possibility.
The Advent Hen holds the promise of creation…and of chaos on the car ride home.
The need to know that new beginnings are possible is essential. Knowing that we can start over and redirect our energy is what gives us agency and allows us to reimagine our lives and be bold and brave and hopeful. But sometimes — like as we emerge from a global pandemic to a world full of upheaval — we need a reminder that, despite everything, the potential for new creation still exists.
1968 was that kind of year, too. The VietNam War was raging. Martin Luther King, Jr. and Robert Kennedy had been assassinated. The USSR had invaded Czechoslovakia. Student protests in France and in Mexico had turned deadly. The nightly news brought all of this and more into the living room and dropped it in a dismal heap: Good luck and good night. If there was ever a time for questioning whether the potential for a different future still existed, 1968 was that time.
But on Christmas Eve, inside the capsule of Apollo 8, men who had taken enormous risks to explore the heavens opened up the Bible.
Looking down to Earth 118 miles below, where hope was in short supply, the astronauts of Apollo 8 read the opening verses of Genesis and reminded the world that from chaos, God created something wonderful.
Sometimes a bit of distance is needed in order to see things clearly.
Every time I hear the broadcast from Apollo 8, the first manned spacecraft to orbit the moon, it moves me. Apollo 8’s Christmas message captures a moment when an unexpected reminder pierced the veil of turmoil to reassure the world that chaos and disorder — like heartbreak and grief and fear —are temporary states. To reassure the world, just as Margaret assures Beth, that it’s not always going to be like this.
So, as we wait, fidgeting and impatient, in the Advent season, Apollo 8 reminds us that even in the darkest days, hope is forever simmering under the surface, waiting to be breathed into existence. The potential for tomorrow — for something new, something better — is always there; it’s up to us to give it life.
Listen to the crew of Apollo 8 here.