People, Look East: Advent and the Altar
One of our family’s favorite things about every Advent is the chance to sing many of the great Advent hymns. One of our favorites is “People, Look East.” The hymn is a wonderful reflection on the coming of the Lord, combining themes of preparation, sacrifice, hope, and, in the end, the joy brought by the coming of Our Lord on Christmas.
The first verse strongly expresses this idea of preparation:
People, look east. The time is near
Of the crowning of the year.
Make your house fair as you are able,
Trim the hearth and set the table.
People, look east and sing today:
Love, the guest, is on the way.
Traditionally, of course, this is how one prepared one’s home during the Advent season. The Christmas tree and other major decorations were saved for Christmas Eve. Advent itself was a time to clean the home and prepare it for the great feast of Christmas. Make the house fair as you are able, whether you are as poor as the Cratchits or wealthy as the Vanderbilts. But, preparation for that holy day is above all spiritual, not only physical. We prepare not only the house, but first and foremost, the soul. St. Paul calls our bodies “temples of the Holy Spirit.” Love the Guest is on the way: not only at Christmas, but at every Sunday in the Eucharist. We are to prepare the heart and soul during the Advent season.
The next three verses speak strongly of the theme of hope, and maintaining this hope even if things look dark as bare, as they will at this time of the year.
Furrows, be glad. Though earth is bare,
One more seed is planted there:
Give up your strength the seed to nourish,
That in course the flower may flourish.
People, look east and sing today:
Love, the rose, is on the way.Birds, though you long have ceased to build,
Guard the nest that must be filled.
Even the hour when wings are frozen
God for fledging time has chosen.
People, look east and sing today:
Love, the bird, is on the way.Stars, keep the watch. When night is dim
One more light the bowl shall brim,
Shining beyond the frosty weather,
Bright as sun and moon together.
People, look east and sing today:
Love, the star, is on the way.
Three separate times, we hear about the need to keep good cheer and persevere, even if things look dark and cold:
“be glad, though earth is bare”
“Even the hour when wings are frozen”
“Stars, keep the watch. When night is dim”
The earth is bare, the wings are frozen, the night is dim. It seems the darkest and coldest time of the year. This is the time when no one looks for flowers, light, or warmth. If there is a time when hope might seem most difficult, this would surely be it. And yet, we are commanded to “be glad,” “guard the nest,” “keep watch,” and, most of all, to “sing today,” a time when we might feel least like singing. And yet, the command is there, inescapable: “Sing today: Love the guest is on the way.”
Three Wise Men see the Star in the East.
From the St. Louis Psalter, 1190-1200, Public domain [1], via Wikimedia Commons
This is the virtue of hope, that lets us look forward to the coming of the Lord with good cheer, even though all else seems dark and grim, as dark and grim and cold as the year itself. And we are to wait in a spirit of sacrifice and perseverance: “Give your strength the seed to nourish,” and keep watch even in the dark and cold.
Why should we do this while looking East? Well, we do not know when Our Lord will return. He Himself said that no one knew the day nor the hour of that return. But, if we do not know when he will return, we do know from where. His birth was in a manger in Bethlehem, the East, and his second coming likewise, will be from the East. For as lightning cometh out of the east, and appeareth even into the west: so shall the coming of the Son of man be (Matthew 24:27). We look East, awaiting the Lord both in the stable in Bethlehem and also at the end of time. And we prepare our hearts for both.
This is why churches were traditionally built with the sanctuary and altar on the east end of the church: that during worship the priest and all the people look toward the Holy Land, and the direction from which the Lord will come again. Even when circumstances did not allow the church to actually be built facing geographical East (because of terrain or related concern), the tabernacle end of the Church, toward which people and priest faced, was considered “liturgical East.” Thus priest and people faced the same direction, Ad orientem, literally to the East, awaiting the Lord together. Only a few years ago, Cardinal Sarah urged priests to begin celebrating Mass ad orientem in Advent. And now is a time to reflect upon–to go back to, where possible–that practice.
All this is done to prepare, if we wait faithfully and with perseverance for the Lord’s coming, so that we will one day feel the joy spoken of in the last verse:
Angels, announce with shouts of mirth
Him who brings new life to earth.
Set every peak and valley humming
With the word, the Lord is coming.
People, look east and sing today:
Love, the Lord, is on the way.