Advent Grief: Discovering the Light Shining in Our Darkness

For the next three weeks, I’ll be offering a series of reflections about Advent and the grief we experience in our lives, in our churches, and in our world.

Part One:  Singing Silent Night in a minor key

Grief’s appearance during Advent and Christmas rattles us like the ghosts who inhabit Ebenezer Scrooge’s Christmas Eve dreams. While our culture is inclined to avoid sadness, the reality is that grief can’t hide behind wrapping paper and tinsel very long.

My wife, Carol, worked as a hospice chaplain for most of her ministry. She reminds me that grief is the price tag for loving a person, a moment, or even an institution. The holidays enhance those feelings of loss. Yet, like Scrooge, we often find ourselves distancing ourselves from the grief that surrounds us. Dickens’ story traces Scrooge’s journey from hopelessness toward hope.

This is our experience, too. Like most pastors, I can name the many ways that grief has intruded into either my own life or the life of our church. Grief often shows up like an insufferable relative whose promise of a three-day visit stretches into three weeks. Grief arrives at our doorsteps and forces its way into our lives. The holidays only enhance those feelings. Suddenly, the twinkling lights of Christmas become blurred by tears.

Because of this, we try to offer additional pastoral care to family and friends touched by sorrow. We may offer special “Blue Christmas” services or other activities. You’ll find plenty of resources offering tips for providing ministry to the grieving during the holidays. I’ve always found Dr. Alan Wolfelt’s excellent books, articles, and other materials produced by his Center for Loss and Life Transition to be helpful. We flip through books by Henri Nouwen, Frederick Buechner or Joyce Rupp, all of which are filled with helpful wisdom.  Instead of reiterating their work, I am planning to use these posts to explore the experience of holiday grief in our lives, in our churches, and in our world.

I’ve been intrigued by the way my personal experiences of grief have often become linked to significant moments of my ministry. For example, when my father died a few days before I graduated from seminary, I could never imagine how my grief would influence my identity as a pastor.

Eight months later, I was leading my first Christmas Eve worship service as a pastor. As the congregation began singing “Silent Night,” candles were being lit. The sanctuary was packed as light enveloped the darkened places. Without warning, grief snuck up on me and stifled my voice.

Grief had caught me off guard. It was like neighborhood kids playing ding-dong ditch. It rang a bell within me and then ran away to hide. I could not sing a note.  It was not, as my less than empathetic senior pastor would later remind me, a good look for a worship leader.

Or maybe it was exactly what was needed. The experience taught me the importance of including “Silent Night” in December worship services even if liturgical purists disagreed. Including such treasured, memory-packed Christmas carols in other December worship services has been helpful in helping others avoid a surprise grief ambush.

Our worship in Advent needs to provide spaces where sadness and grief can live together, like the wolf and the lamb. We need to learn what it means to walk in moments of deep darkness, so that we can rejoice at the coming of the light of Christ.

Rev. Dr. Chris Keating
Pastor at Woodlawn Chapel Presbyterian Church
Chaplain, St. Louis County Police Department, West County Precinct (7th)