During
the Christmas season I noticed that many of our hymns and carols have some
archaic words that we sing perhaps without thinking about what they mean … they
are just part of the song, so we sing it and carry on …
The word
that caught my attention was thither … it is found in the fourth verse of O
Come all ye faithful … see how the shepherds, summoned to his cradle, leaving
their flock draw nigh with lowly fear, we too will thither bend our joyful
footsteps …
Thither
… it is a word that is both an adverb and an adjective … as an adverb it means
“to that place” while as an adjective it means “being on the other side”. The
word arises from the Middle English word thider, which in turn comes from the
Old English word Thaet and the Norse word Thatra … it is an ancient and very
archaic word … yet, it sits in the heart of one of our favourite and popular
Christmas carols.
Thither
is connected with the phrase Hither thither and yon … which is a more eloquent
and poetic way of saying “here there and everywhere!”
As I
looked into the background and usage of thither, I started thinking about what
a fun and cool sort of word it was, and how it acts as a red flag invitation to
consider moving forward carrying with us our understanding and experience of
the Christmas Season that is quickly drawing to an end with the arrival of
Epiphany on Tuesday …
Thither,
in its archaic tone, opens our eyes and our spirits to the possibility of doing
EXACTLY what the word means … we are invited by ALL of what has happened to of
go to that place – to go to the other side … to carry the Good News of
Christmas back from Bethlehem and out into the world!
The
power of the Nativity narrative is not believing that it actually happened, but
in fully appreciating what the story wants to tell us … the cast of characters
is about the invitation that is offered to ALL people …
The shepherds are thieves and bandits – marginal people
at best, and yet they were invited by angels and bright celestial lights …
The magi – not necessarily kings, or wise men, but from
the texts we are told they are mystics and magicians – the spiritual leaders of
their people … they are invited by the star sparkling in the sky, telling them
something momentous has just happened …
The young mom and the mysterious unknown father, who lays
aside the cultural expectations and faithfully stands by his betrothed bride despite
her carrying a child while being young and unmarried …
And in the background there are a myriad of other
characters and figures added by the setting, and added by the centuries of
telling and retelling the story with a spirit of awe and wonder …
The entire tableau means that EVERYONE from the highest
and most politically and economically powerful through the homeless refugee
huddled in the cold of a tent far from home … everyone is invited to come and
join in the awe and mystery of moment.
Everyone is invited to share and celebrate the Good News
we are called to live and share …
So the
notion of thither calls us to MOVE … to take the message of Christmas and
instead of packing it into a box this week as we take down the lights and
decorations and putting it ALL away for another year, we keep the message out,
and we share it by living and embodying it …
Ann
Weems gets this sentiment when she writes: (Boxed)
I
must admit to a certain guilt about stuffing the holy family in a box
in the aftermath of Christmas.
It’s frankly a time of personal triumph when,
It’s frankly a time of personal triumph when,
each advent’s eve I free them (and the
others)
from a year’s imprisonment boxed in the
dark of our basement.
Out
they come, one by one, struggling through the straw,
last year’s tinsel still clinging to their robe.
Nevertheless
they appear, ready to take their places again
in the light of another Christmas.
The
Child is first, because he’s the one I’m most reluctant to box.
attached forever to his cradle, he emerges
apparently unscathered
from the time spent upside down
to avoid the
crush of the lid.
His
mother, dressed eternally in blue, still gazes adoringly,
in spite of the fact that her features are somewhat
smudged.
Joseph
has stood for eleven months, holding valiantly what’s left of his staff,
broken twenty Christmases ago by a child who hugged a
little too tightly.
The
wise ones still travel, though not quite so elegantly,
the standing camel having lost its back leg
and the sitting camel having lost one ear.
However,
gifts intact, they are ready to move.
The
shepherds, walking or kneeling, sometimes confused with Joseph
(who
wears the same dull brown)
tumble forth, followed by three sheep in very bad
repair.
There
they are again, not a grand set surely,
but one the children (and now the grandchildren)
can touch and
move about to reenact that Silent Night.
When
the others return, we will wind the music box and light the candles,
and go once more to Bethlehem.
And
this year, when it’s time to pack the figures away,
we’ll be more careful that the peace and goodwill and
hope and joy
of the season are not boxed for another year …
(Boxed
(rev) by Ann Weems)
So, with
the Hope, Joy, Love, and Peace that we anticipated through our Advent journey,
we add the Grace and Goodwill of the season and join the last visitors to the
stable remembering …
The Church is Epiphany. We are the Magi, searching,
resplendent
in this world’s accouterments
of knowledge,
wealth and achievement.
But we are searching for something more.
And – of all unlikely places – in a stable
the Diety
appears.
The borning of our Lord bursts in upon our ordinary
lives
like fireworks
in the snow.
Only God would send a little baby King,
and we are on
our knees,
where we are within reach of our full personhood.
(Ann Weems – the church year is
Epiphany)
The call
to thither is about allowing the message of Christmas to transform us, and to
bring us to the fullness of our personhood … living our faith, celebrating our
faith, embodying our faith and being the people the invitation to Bethlehem
envisions us to become …
The
Christmas story is not about historical accuracy – Matthew and Luke contradict
each other with elaborate details that cannot be reconciled, while Mark and
John have no reference to the birth and childhood of Jesus at all … The visual
image of shepherds and magi gathered before the stable is a powerful and sweet
image … but it is a fiction created from the telling and retelling of the
story.
If we
step back and ask WHY?
Why are
the shepherds here?
Why are the magi here?
Why are
these folks gathered?
We find
ourselves stumbling over an invitation to ALL … a universal invitation to
transformation in the life and ministry of Christ and the Gospel he brought …
Today,
on the eve of Epiphany – the 12 days of Christmas – we are invited to go
thither … Do we dare follow the invitation?
Let
us pray …
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