Apparently at my very first parents’ evening at primary school, my teacher winced as he said cautiously “Lucy sings with enthusiasm”.  In secondary school, the music teacher instructed me simply to mouth the words in any whole-class singing event.  For those of you that know me, please don’t laugh therefore when I write that song is so much in my thoughts today. Carols are around us in shops, on the radio, at community events, at school nativity plays… . Many of them are favourites suited to Christmas Day even though we are still in the Advent journey towards that celebration. I’m not being a carols Grinch here – though I admit to slight irritation at Christmas songs being played in a Midlands motorway service station in the last week of October! – because this is an opportunity of music shared to bring the real Christmas story into lives that perhaps have not yet discovered it.

Joining together in song seems particularly appropriate for this Sunday, Gaudete Sunday, when we will light the third candle in our Advent wreaths, the candle of joy. This Sunday celebrates the preparing of the way for the coming of Jesus: the coming of Emmanuel into our lives at Christmas and the coming again of the King of Kings into the world restored.  We hear words from Isaiah, drawing together singing and joy to celebrate the confident hope of God’s saving grace –

And the ransomed of the Lord shall return,
    and come to Zion with singing;
everlasting joy shall be upon their heads;
    they shall obtain joy and gladness,
    and sorrow and sighing shall flee away.   (Isaiah 35:10)

The canticle for Gaudete Sunday is another song, the Magnificat, in which Mary told out her praises to God –

‘My soul proclaims the greatness of the Lord,
      and my spirit rejoices in God my Saviour,’  (Luke 1:46-47)

Song seems such a natural and beautiful way to come together to celebrate God’s love and grace.  And that’s what joy is: the experience of God’s love and the celebration of God’s grace, and the natural outpouring of thankfulness and wonder at these gifts.

This Sunday, as we focus on joy in the midst of the sombre soul-searching of Advent preparation, and in the setting of a much-troubled world, we are focusing on the gift of Light into our darkness, Comfort (God’s strength and presence with us) in our struggles and fears, and the encouragement and confidence that comes when with all our senses we perceive and recognise the signs of God around us in many ways.  This deliberate perceiving and recognising are what Jesus told those who came on behalf of the imprisoned John the Baptist is all that was needed to understand the truth of who Jesus is, God-With-Us. (Matthew 11:4-5) That’s a great reason to sing and dance (which is all that ‘carol’ means).

As we hold this alertness, this deep-looking this Advent, we can look forward into next year to continuing this, to tuning our lives to joy so that every day our souls tell out the greatness of the Lord as our offering of praise to God and as our gift to those we encounter, to children’s children and for evermore. 
 
Lucy G.

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