Advent: The Uncanny Mirror of Birth and Death

A reflection on this paradoxical season

Death hangs heavy over our Advent this year.

One year ago during Advent, I was pregnant with our third child and full of anticipation for the Christmas season and the year that would follow. Our fixer-upper home would be freshly painted, cute and organized. Our concrete floors would soon be covered with fancy tile that looked like wood (but was much cheaper!). The lumpy mess of our backyard would be evened out and surrounded by a fence that could actually contain our sweet, massive dog. And, in spite of the normal dysfunctions and struggles that come with family, we were surrounded by healthy, happy loved ones. Taking part in the joyful anticipation of Advent was a natural response to all the good gifts around us.

Our little Charlie Brown tree last year, complete with concrete floors and unfinished walls

You can probably see where this is going.

In so many ways, this has been a wonderful year. We welcomed a healthy third child into the world, saw new places, spent time with family, and completed some work on our house. But, due to a long list of factors that I won’t go into here, this was not the year we had expected.

This year as we prepare for Advent, our house and yard look much the same as they did last year. With three adorable, tiny barbarians, our home is rarely cute or organized. Our floors are still bare concrete. The backyard is still lumpy and ineffectively fenced, and it is now also filled with bits and pieces of the massive tree limb that snapped during a windstorm.

And, rather than anticipating birth, this year we are grieving one death and preparing for another. This dark anticipation lurks in the cooling weather like a thick, low-lying fog that seeps into cracks and crevices. Death has touched our family this year, and we know that it’s not finished yet.

Sadness and numbness and anger and doubt are on constant rotation, sharpening and deepening the joy my husband and I take in the vibrant shrieks and giggles of our children. But this season of our life is changing my relationship with Advent, giving me a peek into the uncertainty and fear and struggle that are infused with the wondrous dawn of our liturgical year.

I’m learning that every Advent is shadowed by death.

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When I was growing up, we were the weird neighbors who bought a Christmas tree on December 23^rd and left it up until Groundhog Day. (On a good year, that is. There were at least one or two years when the tree stayed up until St. Patrick’s Day and was a definite fire hazard). Our Christmas lasted from Christmas Eve to Epiphany; the first four weeks of December were devoted to Advent.

But, despite the bemused reactions we received from our neighbors and friends, I loved everything about our little counter-cultural Advent.

I loved the old Advent wreath that we lit every evening at dinner. Day by day I watched the candles slowly melt into a little staircase, with the first candle burning down to a stub by the time Christmas rolled around. There was one year that a shrinking candle set fire to one of the plastic leaves, causing a section of the Advent wreath to go up in flames (I’m probably exaggerating, but that’s how I remember it). My ten-year-old self was so proud to be the first one to notice and yell “Fire!” in the middle of dinner.

I loved the Jesse Tree made from little clipart printables that we colored every morning leading up to Christmas. I was a story-centric child, and following a millennia-long tale, in all its messiness and beauty and grandeur and intimacy, lit a fire in my imagination.

I loved that we set up the Nativity set piece by piece over the four weeks of Advent. First the stable, then the animals. A few shepherds scattered nearby. Plastic Playskool cows comingling with antique porcelain sheep. On Christmas Eve, Mary and Joseph arrived. And then, sometime between bedtime on Christmas Eve and dawn on Christmas morning, baby Jesus mysteriously appeared in the manger.

It was this slow preparation, those weeks of anticipation, of knowing that the best was yet to come, that made Advent so special in our house.

In my childhood home, Christmas Eve was the day we decorated our Christmas tree. It was a day of apple cider in the crockpot, potato chips piled high on the dining room table, Christmas music blaring over the speakers. It was a day of squabbles over whether the tree was crooked, a day of plugging in strands of lights to see if they still worked, a day of hanging tinsel that made the tree glimmer like a mirage. (Actually, my mom hung the tinsel. My brother, sister, and I got into tinsel wars and left piles of shiny silver strings all over the floor.) It was a day of digging my favorite ornament out of its box – a 1996 Hallmark Keepsake Springtime Barbie, armless thanks to my too-exuberant love – and finding the perfect spot on the tree that would keep it out of the reach of pets and younger siblings.

When the tree was decorated, the tinsel shrapnel cleaned, and the music quieted to soft instrumental hymns, the day flowed naturally into the candlelit beauty of Christmas Eve Mass.

Advent holds so many beautiful memories for me. It was a time of light in the darkness of winter, and I loved that light. As a child and even into adulthood, I was focused on the bright light of Advent and Christmas, and I did my best to ignore the darkness.

But, just as I was fascinated by the messy, providential story of Abraham’s family, my own life, with its complications and joys, tensions and sorrows, is changing my understanding of Advent. My relationship with this liturgical season is an ever-unfolding story that defies tidy endings.

In the last days of my grandfather’s life, when he lay on a hospital bed clutching a rosary, I prayed for him from halfway across the country. During those prayers, I had a strange flashback to my labor with my youngest baby.

The Lord is my light and my salvation; whom should I fear?

(Psalm 27:1)

Do not fear: I am with you;

do not be anxious: I am your God.

I will strengthen you, I will help you,

I will uphold you with my victorious right hand.

(Isaiah 41:10)

God is our refuge and our strength,

An ever-present help in distress.

Thus we do not fear, though earth be shaken

And mountains quake to the depths of the sea. …

Be still and know that I am God!

(Psalm 46:1-3, 11)

These are well-known passages, read and recited to comfort all those who suffer or grieve. But as I read these lines, the images that came to me were of my own experience in a hospital bed, clutching a rosary while these words played on a soothing loop in my headphones. Like my grandfather, I too had been waiting, increasingly unaware of my surroundings as I surrendered to what my body was doing. But, where my grandfather was awaiting death, I had been awaiting the birth of my son.

While I prayed for my dying grandfather, this uncanny parallel of birth and death swirled around in my thoughts.

Ven. Fulton Sheen said of Jesus, “It was not so much that his birth cast a shadow on his life and thus led to his death; it was rather that the Cross was first, and cast its shadow back to his birth.” Jesus was born to die. A year ago, I would have glossed over this statement, vaguely aware that Fulton Sheen was probably onto something (because he was, you know, a pretty smart guy). But this Advent, with death pushing so close, I am learning that there is more to Advent than the light. There is also the terrifying, unknowable darkness, the unnatural separation of death.

But, despite that palpable chasm of darkness, the light is still there.

The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it. (John 1:5)

This year Advent is showing me another side of its story: the darkness that blots out the artificial lights we create for ourselves, letting us more clearly see the Light that leads us where we are meant to go. Advent leads us to the Birth that led to the Death that changed everything. Death is not the end of the story; it’s the beginning. And, rebellious and stubborn though I may be, I am learning to see in this world’s sufferings and grief the stepping stones that will pave the road to Heaven.