Life Eternal Vouchsafed to us in Baptism
By The Rt. Rev. Anthony Clavier
I grew up in rural England, in the rather grim years after the Second World War when luxuries were scarce, televisions unknown, but the postman came twice a day. My mother was a district (visiting) nurse. She had one weekend off each month, and so Sundays and even Christmases were often solitary occasions for me.
Back then, it seemed to me that Christmas happened suddenly, one might even say dramatically. At some stage on Christmas Eve, a tree, roots included, took its place in our house. I knew it had been there, waiting patiently in the shed, because one of my tasks was to keep the sacking-covered roots watered. Together, Mother and I would decorate the tree, open the Christmas cards and place them on the mantle shelf, and place the wrapped presents from relatives around the tree.
And then the bells would begin to ring. Eight bell ringers, no doubt fortified by Christmas cheer, rang out the message that Christ was born in Bethlehem. Off I went, from about the age of seven, all by myself, through dark lanes – outside decorations were unknown in England then, and anyway the electric bills would have been too expensive – to serve as an acolyte or sing in the choir while Mother was either nursing the sick, delivering babies, or at home in bed.
Christmas Eve seemed to arrive suddenly, yet somehow it had taken four weeks of anticipation and preparation for its dramatic arrival. Each Sunday, the Advent collect was read, together with the Collect for the Day. That constant repetition, heard not only on Sunday, but also at weekday masses – as the one and only acolyte, I was a busy youngster – drummed into one’s mind not only words but the amazing rhythm of the ancient prayer. "Cast away the works of darkness"; "put upon us the armor of light"; "this mortal life"; "visited us in great humility"; "in the last day"; "we may rise to the life immortal" – these phrases filled our imaginations and hastened our prayers. I learnt prayers, snippets of Scripture, psalms, and hymns unconsciously and, despite the passage of seventy years, they remain in my brain – and they still appear, often unsummoned, at the right (and sometimes wrong) moments.
During the Advents of my childhood, there were no flowers in a church which was normally ablaze with their colors beside the altar, in the Lady Chapel, and around the font. The altar frontal and clergy vestments were deep purple. Advent wreaths were unknown in England. And then there were the sermon topics for each Sunday in Advent: Death, Judgment, Hell, Heaven. Altogether, looking back as I write, it all sounds thoroughly lugubrious.
It wasn’t. The villagers – whether they worshipped regularly, occasionally, or only rarely – knew the pattern of the Christian Year. Their parents, grandparents, and ancestors had all worshipped in that same building, generation after generation, pastored by parish priests whose names were recorded on the church wall, dating back to the thirteenth century. To get to the church, they walked through the graveyard in which their forebears rested. The facts of life – birth, reputation, hells lived or perhaps anticipated, heavens experienced and hoped for – were around them in plain sight.
Those Advent themes of Death, Judgment, Hell, and Heaven were recited in lessons, hymns, and sermons in anticipation of the coming of Jesus, whose nativity sets us free. He was born in Bethlehem, he is born in us at every Eucharist, he will come again and we shall rise to the life immortal. Because he lived and died as one of us, we can face death and judgment, we can confront the devil and all his works, and we can remain in that life eternal vouchsafed to us in baptism.
I know I sensed these truths long before I could articulate them. Christmas was for me Deep Magic. Was this in part because of the order in which I experienced Advent and Christmas? I learned that preparation came before celebration, that reality was confronted before its cure was revealed. It is because we die, because we stand naked before God, "unto whom all hearts are open, all desires known and from whom no secrets are hid," that Jesus was born among us, a drastic remedy for a drastic malady. To trivialize sin is to trivialize Christmas.
After Mass, I wandered home in the dark, often in company with church-goers or boozy patrons of the pub, built near the site of the medieval church’s ale house. Would my mother be home or not? Even if she wasn’t, somehow, when I woke up on Christmas Day, a pillowcase full of presents hung at the foot of my bed. I’d scramble out, wrap myself in my dressing gown, and unpack the gifts. If Mother was back, this gave her time to sleep longer. If she wasn’t, my cereal and milk were waiting, and I knew how to make a cup of tea. Whatever I had to face, Advent and Christmas were in their right order and came before presents were opened. This year, as in every year, Advent and Christmas will nourish me with faith and a sure hope, strong enough to overcome that deep inner sadness, the sadness of a little boy alone on Christmas Day.
The Rt. Rev. Anthony ‘Tony’ Clavier was born in Yorkshire, England, at the beginning of World War II. Bishop Clavier’s father was from the West Indies and an officer in the Royal Tank Corps who won the Military Cross at Dunkirk. His mother was a Yorkshire district nurse-midwife. Bp. Clavier has been in the United States, on and off, since 1967. As a student of church history, his particular emphasis is on Anglicanism in the late sixteenth to late eighteenth century. As an ordained priest for more than 50 years, Bp. Clavier has served in parishes in Arkansas; South Dakota; France, where he was dean of the Institute of Christian Studies; West Virginia; La Porte, Indiana; and is now vicar of St. Thomas’ Episcopal Church, Glen Carbon, and St. Bartholomew’s Episcopal Church, Granite City, in the Diocese of Springfield. Bp. Clavier is co-editor of The Anglican Digest and an occasional blogger for The Living Church magazine.