“And the angel said unto them, ‘Fear not: for, behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy, which shall be to all people.’” Luke 2:10
Recently I attended four funerals in three days. Full disclosure: I only knew one of the people who passed away personally. The other funerals I had been hired to play oboe as part the memorial service. It was such a privilege to play music for those families as they grieve. I hope I never forget the sacredness of what we do as musicians/artists, creating space for the important work of lamentation.
By the end of each funeral, I did feel like I had a window into the person they were eulogizing; the retired Ivy League professor, the fireworks-enthusiast, the notorious toast-giver, the talented oboist who also loved horses.
She never missed an evensong.
He was so kind, he made tough feedback feel like a compliment.
He put his family before his work: today that is rare.
I would not be who I am today without his teaching.
Since the last funeral, I have been thinking about those families. I wonder how they are doing. Now that everyone has gone home, as all the food in the fridge starts to turn, reminding them of the one less mouth to feed and of their own lack of appetite—I hope they are OK. I worry they are alone, or feeling the loss more potently than ever with the curtain of nostalgia and immeasurable despair hanging over these days, the very days the world is telling of “good tidings of great joy.”
After the weekend of funerals, my family and I went to visit my grandmother for Thanksgiving, and my own kind of sorrow set in. It has been seven years since my grandfather died. It simultaneously feels like it was yesterday and forever ago. Since then, my grandmother, who we call Daba, has been slowly losing her memory. This visit she seemed particularly far away. It struck me this time so deeply, how we are losing her, too.
Ever since we were little, Daba had this obsession with printing movie-poster-sized pictures of us and hanging them everywhere. Walking through her home, the locale of so many of the happy memories, is like walking through a museum exhibition entitled “The Good Old Days.” And what struck me about those pictures this trip was how, when they were taken, I had no idea those were the days that should be cherished, those were the days we would all look back on with pain and sadness, because now the children are grown, Papa is gone, the house on Marsha Boulevard belongs to some other family.
Do you find yourself in this place here at the outer edge of Advent? Maybe you are a young mother wondering if you’ll ever feel like yourself again. Maybe you’re newly divorced, you have been forced to leave your home, or your sister is no longer speaking to you. Maybe you can’t seem to figure out how to find joy when your papa-uncle-brother-mother-sister-auntie-friend is gone. Maybe joy is a bit out of reach for you this Christmas. That’s OK.
Allow me to remind you that lamentation is an act of faith. When we lament, we believe that someone hears us. We believe that who we are and what we have lost matters in the grand scheme of things, especially to God. Psalm 13 says: “How long, LORD? Will you forget me forever? How long will you hide your face from me? How long must I wrestle with my thoughts and day after day have sorrow in my heart?” Faith does not require you to discount your pain. Grieving is biblical.
Ever since I saw those pictures at Daba’s, attended four funerals in three days, I am realizing more than ever that even with all the pain and sadness, with all the unspeakable tragedy in our world, maybe we will look back at pictures of now and realize that these are the good old days, too. For, if you are reading this, it means you are still here. You have loved so deeply and have the wounds to prove it; so have I. It is something to be grateful for, to have had the privilege to love, even in the pain of having had to watch it slip away.
The angels came to tell the shepherds that these were the good old days, too, as the familiar passage goes. It is no coincidence that they preface the whole thing with “fear not.” Maybe like us, it was hard for the shepherds to believe that the birth of this little baby would make a difference in their lives, especially after the angels left and life resumed as usual. Did it seem like "good tidings of great joy" as the early followers of Jesus watched him be put to death on the cross? They must have asked, “How long, LORD?” as we do now. For those of us who see "good tidings of great joy” as too much of a stretch this Advent, maybe we can choose to take the “fear not” part of the angels’ message to heart, instead. What a relief that they remind us not to be afraid! For me, it confirms that all this is scary, that we will have pain and experience loss, as we wait for this joy that they speak of, and yet we do not need to fear.
While grieving is biblical and lamentation an act of faith, so too is the persistent promise of great joy. Not just the angels, but the Psalmists speak of it, too: “Weeping may stay for the night, but rejoicing comes in the morning.” (Psalm 30:5)
It's important to say that it may or may not be tomorrow morning when this joy comes. In my experience, it likely won’t be. But as we wait together, this Advent, for a time when there is no more weeping and loss, no more funerals or Alzheimer’s, I am grateful to have loved and lost, for all that it is teaching me about God’s love; I'm thankful that there is room in our faith for grieving, anger, and doubt. I am grateful that there are people to help us clean out the fridge, to donate the clothes, to pick up the pieces as we mourn. Even in these scariest and darkest moments of loss, we are not alone. We must remember that we are still here, that we wait for all that he angels promised together. We do our best to cherish these good old days, even with all their sorrow, and we looked to the promised "good days" yet to come. If joy is out of reach this Advent, fear not, dear friend, fear not.