How can the Advent season help us move from despair to hope?

Revs. Dr. Alisha Lola Jones and Calvin Taylor Skinner delve into the significance of Advent and Christmas in the African-American experience. 

“Notes on faith” is theGrio’s inspirational, interdenominational series featuring Black thought leaders across faiths.

“African Americans were once a sober and serious people when we were living in Africa.  We were spiritual people, tied to the land but also attached to the whispering winds of eternity … our African religions are characterized by their warmth and sincerity and relevance and total reverence for life.”

In his 1995 sermon “Drunk on the Eve of Reconstruction” for the Morehouse Baccalaureate, the legendary Rev. Dr. Charles Adams, who transitioned this past week at the age of 86, delivered these words to awaken our consciousness about how our culture is socially engineered. As a global luminary who lit a path to our future, Adams’ voice echoes the tradition of the Black Prophetic tradition. The hope he preached is anchored in what the Christian tradition teaches us in this season of Advent, characterized by great expectations.

Adams cautioned us to be mindful of the ways the powers that be saturate our communities with products and activities that keep us in a stupor, unable to pool our resources, not unlike practices that stem from chattel slavery. It is well documented in our history that during the Advent season, plantations tore families apart by selling them to other plantations as gifts to the slave drivers. As documented in the narratives of the formerly enslaved — including those of Jermain Loguen, Harriet Tubman, and William and Ellen Crafts — to prevent separation, they often planned to escape to freedom just before the annual auction block. To prevent that escape, enslavers often pumped the enslaved with various “opiates” like liquor and rich food.

Inspired by Adams’ sermon, we are reminded to embrace a heritage that is rooted in native African spirituality and to examine what is preventing us from moving toward and residing in the Promised Land as a people.

What are the new opiates in our society as African Americans that keep us from moving beyond momentary success to generational wealth?

In the liturgical calendar, the Advent season carries a unique significance for African Americans. Advent means an arrival or visit. Among churchgoers, it is observed with prayer, reflection and hope over four weeks before Christmas Day.

Advent season offers space for us to tell the stories of our ancestors’ enduring hope as they awaited freedom and justice. Just as the Advent season prepares us for the birth of Christ, it also forecasts the anticipation of a brighter tomorrow during the darkest times of slavery. We rejoice that our story neither starts nor ends there. However, as we push ourselves towards a promising tomorrow, we should always look towards our ancestors who endured the hardships of those times, eventually ensuring our freedom.

It was on the plantation where our dear ancestors also developed an enduring testament of resilience, faith, and a deeply magnificent cultural heritage. One narrative comes from Martha Griffin Browne’s “Autobiography of a Female Slave, Ann,” Ann describes finding hope by seeing herself in the Jesus who was once “[L]owly,  outcast, and despised; born to the most hated people of this world…this Jesus is worshiped now.” As theologians who seek to decolonize our Christian faith tradition, we align with this understanding of a Christ directly connected to our African heritage and whose life and work identify with the oppressed peoples of the world.

Advent is a time for Christians to prepare and embrace “the reason for the season.” For many Christians, Advent is a time to look toward the celebration of the second coming of Christ. However, through the lens of the African-American experience, Advent also brings about an anticipation of renewal and transformation. Our ancestors established a rich hope that we can draw upon to encourage us along the path, fixing our eyes upon untold possibilities through divine hope, love and power.

Has there been a shift you have been planning to focus on this holiday? In a world so divided with conflicts between nations, we anticipate and hope for peace in all the world. With millions of our brothers and sisters in the Congo dying and being displaced due to conflict and the exploitation of natural resources, we anticipate and hope for peace in that land. With global hunger and many who do not have access to clean water, we anticipate and hope the systems that drive such despair will be dismantled and that we can keep the faith in our vision for our communities.

We also understand there are some who struggle to find this season as a time of hope or an invitation to new opportunities. You may find yourself feeling displaced by economic hardships, involved in hopeless relationships or desiring authentic relationships amid feelings of loneliness. Seasonal depression increases during this time, while other stresses seem exacerbated due to the holidays and their attendant triggers.

As you read this article, you or someone you know may be facing challenges where one cannot even fathom any joy or hope. However even in the midst of all we are confronted with, we can look to the ancestors who help us to point towards that which guides us through it all.

We invite you to take a pause and unplug from some of the things that frequently distract us: log off of social media, check off some of the items on the Christmas list or just check out from the hustle and bustle of daily demands. Take a moment to pause for the moment, reaching within to focus on that which lasts — and that is love and peace. You may need guidance or support, and that’s OK. As we have mentioned before, it’s OK to have Jesus and a therapist, too.

As Adams reminded us of our African spiritual heritage, it is the same legacy we can access to help guide us through our collective struggles and personal journeys. Connecting this to the great expectation of Advent, how can we be intentional in opening ourselves to our oneness to all of creation, inviting the ancestors and our children yet unborn to speak through the winds about the now and the eternity? Let us take hold of each moment to live life beyond ourselves.

We quake with great anticipation and expectation 

on the eve of our emancipation…

May we keep our eyes on the prize and lay hold of the promise.

We have learned well the lessons our ancestors have taught us.

We will not lose sight of what we have been planning for.

No — we are determined to make it to and abide in the Promised Land with all of our loved ones taken care of.

Rev. Dr. Alisha Lola Jones is a faith leader helping people to find their groove in a fast-paced world, as a consultant for various arts and faith organizations and professor of music in contemporary societies at the University of Cambridge in Cambridge, England. She is an award-winning author of Flaming? The Peculiar Theopolitics of Fire and Desire in Black Male Gospel Performance (Oxford University Press). For more information, please visit DrAlisha.com.

Rev. Calvin Taylor Skinner is dedicated to empowering frontline communities in Knoxville, Tenn. and the United Kingdom. He uses Faith and Policy to address energy justice, criminal justice reform, voter education/mobilization, electoral politics, and global affairs. Along with his wife, Rev. Dr. Alisha Lola Jones, they lead InSight Initiative, a consulting firm focusing on capacity building and live events production.

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