Please join in if you know the words:
Here we come a-wassailing
Among the leaves so green;
here we come a-wand’ring
so fair to be seen.
Love and joy come to you,
and to you your wassail too;
and God bless you and send you a happy New Year,
and God send you a happy New Year.
Happy New Year! — even though it is still November, we are welcoming a new year and new season today with the beginning of Advent — one of Hope, Joy, Peace, Love, and waiting the coming of Christ. Today we have lit a candle, as we will do each week, to fill the dark night and grey day with the faith that we will find our way toward love, peace, and joy. We hold up a single candle each week to help deflect us from hopeless wandering so that we are freed instead to wander together with hope.
As the old English song that I opened this sermon with says, “here we come a wandering, so fair to be seen.”
The song is about the medieval European practice of wassailing. The word wassail means “to be in good health” or “to wish good health to others.” Beginning in the thirteen-hundreds, group wassailed by gathering to sing songs that would help ensure a good harvest (especially of apples), and eventually became another words for door-to-door singing and caroling.
For a people who based their living off the growing of apples, wassailing the apple trees involved gathering as a group to sing to the oldest and best apple trees in the village to help ensure a good crop. Cider was poured out, and loud noises were made to scare away any spirits that might prevent a bad crop next year for the apples.
Maybe some of you have similar rituals of banging pots and pans or playing instruments or singing loudly at the beginning of a New Year — some of which may come out of this wassailing tradition.
Another thing that comes out of the wassailing tradition is the beautiful anthem that the choir just sang, named “Jesus Christ the Apple Tree.” The song is based on an old English poem that overlaid the Christian imagery of Christ onto the pre-Christian tradition of wassailing the apple trees. Over the centuries “Jesus Christ the Apple Tree” has become an Advent song because of its thematic connections to waiting, restoring faith, and the spiritual renewal that comes with Jesus.
I have a special affinity for this song . . . [story of St. Paul’s School Lessons and Carols.]
When this song is sung, for me, the season of Advent can fully begin.
With the help of our church deacons and friends yesterday morning, here in our sanctuary, it’s clear as well that Advent has begun. The Advent wreath has come out of its dusty, summery slumber in a storage closet to take center stage for a month. It is the holder of our four candles of Hope, Peace, Joy, and Love. Together they symbolize the passage of the four weeks Advent in the liturgical calendar of the Western church.
We have lights in the windows to embody the light of Christ entering the world, to visually represent the anticipation of what may be coming with the joy of Jesus’s birth. The evergreen garlands as well represent the eternal life that we associate with Christ — we get to appreciate the rare plants that stay green all year long, even throughout the winter.
And the manger is set up outside, representing the location of Jesus’s birth when there was no room anywhere else for a baby to be born.
The scripture reading from the prophet Isaiah this morning that is often read during the first Sunday of Advent reminds us of some symbols of Advent that we do not see in the sanctuary. Namely swords and spears. Isaiah says that a day is coming but is not yet here when the people will take their weapons of war and transform them into tools of farming and maintaining plants and apple picking. The swords and spears that Isaiah references represent a future hope that we also see in Jesus, that a new spirit and force is coming into the world to overcome the destructive forces that seek to defy the life-giving and life-creating wonder of God.
When I lived in New Hampshire, I was aware of a well-publicized annual event called “Guns to Gardens” that was organized at a local church.1 At the event, people could turn in their unwanted firearms which would be turned into garden tools, scrap metal, and artwork. This was especially important because in New Hampshire there is a state law that any guns surrendered to the police are either stored by the police or sold back into the community. Because of this, the churches realized (perhaps inspired by Isaiah), that there was no significant method for reducing the number of weapons in the community, and that unwanted firearms would keep cycling back into new hands. And, so, in the parking lot of the Methodist church in Concord, dozens of guns each year are bent and melted into something new.
In Advent we hope for a new start with Christ that “Nation will not take up sword against nation,” and no longer will “they train for war anymore.” Advent is about waiting for the coming of something divine at Christmas, and it is also about dreaming about what is next and what is new for all of us. Isaiah reminds us that Advent isn’t only peaceful, but engaged fully with the breaking open possibilities of the world.
Friends, our hope is not unfounded. There is something new that is coming into the world. As the prophet says, look now, do you not perceive it?
The evergreens wassails to us, have hope.
The animals at the manger wassail to us, have hope.
The advent wreath wassails to us, have hope.
And we wassail to each other this Advent a message of hope.
Happy New Year. And Amen.
