The Light is Coming - The First Sunday of Advent

The central theme of Advent and especially to this first Sunday is a firm declaration to “cast away the works of darkness and put on the armour of light,” for as we read in Mark, “the Son of Man” is coming with “great power and glory.”

Let us be clear: the God depicted here is not a serene and docile deity. Isaiah calls upon a potent God who would “tear open the heavens and come down, so that the mountains would quake.” And our actions in response to this coming should be no less robust.

At first look, we welcome such a dominating and mighty God to respond to our needs and concerns. Yet we who believe in a divine being from whom all things flow, also know that such a transcendent force can “bend history.” Put bluntly, if we are not prepared for God’s response to our prayers for the Creator’s presence, the appearance of the divine can be unsettling and threatening to our very lives and our very order. Such a forceful manifestation can bring about significant change. Our desire for the Lord’s coming brings with it risk as well as reward.

There is a little-known fairy tale by the Brothers Grimm entitled “Der Mond,” or in English, “The Moon.” It is a short tale that was adapted by the German composer Carl Orff into an opera. It involves four young rowdy misfits from a land where there is no light – no sun in the day and no moon or stars at night. These are people who “walk in darkness.”

These lads travel to another land where they find the moon hanging on a tree. They steal the moon and bring it back to their land where they charge people money for their use of the moonlight. Eventually, as happens to all of us, they grow old and die. As each one dies, one quarter of the moon is cut away and buried with one of its owners until there is no more light. In the opera, Petrus, “who rules the sky,” descends to the dead and retrieves the four pieces of the moon and hangs it in the sky for the benefit of all.

Yes, this tale is a retelling of the age-old belief that God brings light to the people who, in the words of the prophet, “walk in darkness.” Yes, this is about the season of Advent, which alludes to an arrival, a beginning. It is best understood as a dawning, as in the early morn of a new day. Yes, like the four misfits, this is a time when we come upon and marvel in a new Light. Yes, like the four young men, we can hoard and hide the light. And yes, we, like Petrus in Carl Orff’s opera, are called to share this light with the world.

There is an intrinsic understanding that, no matter what, we welcome the coming of the Lord and that it can happen at any time. Indeed, during the course of our lives, God appears and reappears. At times, we are that very light to the world in what we say and what we do. When we are called to serve and share a warm and friendly smile, we are restored; God’s face shines through our own countenance, and we are saved.

The expectation is that we are God’s hands, God’s light on this earth. God calls us to shine a light, to be witnesses to his mercy and love; not only through our words, but also in our works. We are called to feed the hungry, clothe the naked, and visit the prisoner. When we serve those in need – like the student who needs tutoring, the lonely homebound person who needs company, those who have lost their homes and possessions because of a hurricane, earthquake, flooding or fire, or those who mourn – we, as in the words of the spiritual, “rise and shine.” We are witnesses to the Lord’s coming – symbolically on Christmas Day, and for real today and all the tomorrows of our lives.

Those who first sang the words of the spiritual, shackled by the chains of slavery, looked with hope to a new day – to a brighter day when the darkness of this inhumane treatment would give way to the light of freedom. Indeed, in response to their oppression, they sang these words with faith and hope. And in this age when we encounter personal and communal challenges that test our mettle, we would do well to join these forebearers in our common history by not cursing the darkness but always seeking the light. Yes, this is the meaning of Advent.

Jesus says in the gospel reading, “Beware, keep alert; for you do not know when the time will come. Therefore, keep awake – for you do not know when the master of the house will come, in the evening, or at midnight, or at cockcrow, or at dawn, or else he may find you asleep when he comes suddenly. And what I say to you, I say to all: Keep awake.”

Amen.

Remembrance Sunday

This is a true story about a man called Joseph Bowen, his brother William Bowen and their cousin The Rev'd. Oliver Bowen. William Bowen was my grandfather but this story is the same for millions of families through out Europe.

PONTYCYMMER RIFLEMAN KILLED IN ACTION

On Saturday last, Mrs Elizabeth Bowen, 51 Alexandra Road, Pontycymmer, received the sad official notification that her husband, Rifleman Joseph Bowen, 2nd Kings Royal Rifle Corps, was killed in action in France on 26 July. Rifleman Bowen joined the Army soon after the outbreak of war, and had seen 14 months' active service in France. Prior to enlistment he worked as a collier at the Blaengarw Colliery. He was highly respected throughout the valley, and we regret to state that he leaves a widow and three children to mourn his loss.

Glamorgan Gazette September 1st 1916

The Commonwealth War Graves Commission has the following information...
Joseph Bowen died 25th July 1916, service number /5283, buried Warloy-Baillon Communal Cemetery Extension, Plot 5, Row B, No 23.
There is no other information.

But the book: Men Who Died In The Great War shows that he was born in Amroth, enlisted in Bridgend, resided in Pontycymmer Glamorgan, and died of wounds.

These simple details hide the agonies he must have gone through and do not tell of the misery experienced by his family afterwards, especially his wife and three small children. All over Europe, the same high price was being paid by other ordinary families. For these thousands of families, there had always been hope that their men would return.

William Bowen of Pantygog, my grandfather received the following letter from The Rev'd. Oliver Bowen BA, Cardiff (late of Pontycymmer):-

My dear Cousin,
I have at last been able to fulfil my promise to visit Joe's grave. I have passed through many trials since I came out here, but this experience is quite unique. I failed to reach the cemetery before the darkness came on, and not knowing the number of the grave I had to search for it with the aid of an electric torch, but eventually I found it.
It would be difficult to describe my emotions as I stood by his grave in the dark. Many things came into my mind as I stood there for a while. I felt I was a lonely mourner representing his family far away, and I realised in some measure the sorrow which would have been theirs had they stood at the same spot.
When I thought of his mother, and wife and children especially, my tears mingled with the sacred soil that covered his mangled body. However, other thoughts passed through my mind. I recalled him as I saw him a month or so before he received the fatal wound, and I had the feeling that the grave is not his goal. He seemed to me to have survived that death, and to be vividly near to me in spirit.
It will be a consolation to you all to know that his, and all the other graves in the cemetery, are tidily and even beautifully kept, showing the humane work of sympathetic hearts and hands. The cross stands at the head of the grave bearing his name, number and regiment, and the date of his death in the Somme battle.
He is surrounded by a goodly company of heroes from all parts of the British Empire, and I wished it were possible for me to send a message of consolation to the loved ones of all whose bodies lie there after they had made the supreme sacrifice. I am sure it will have been some comfort to you all to know that I have stood by his grave.
I remembered that Joe volunteered at the call of duty, when he might have kept out of it altogether, and as I turned to come away I thought of the words, "Greater love hath no man than this that a man may lay down his life for his friends." When I return home on leave I will give you more detailed information. With love to Aunt and all the family,
Yours very affectionately,
Oliver.


Some 92 years after, the graveyard is still as well tended as it was then. It lies between the towns of Albert and Amiens along a long straight road that Roman army built to help communications with the different parts of their empire. As straight as the road is, Joseph Bowen must have felt every bump and jolt along it as he was taken from the field of battle to a medical station. His must have been a painful and protracted death: one that he could never have visualised; one thankfully that his immediate family could never know about.