Bleak, that’s a good word to describe the weather today. It is only early in the day but the greyness of the light suggests barren landscapes and barren trees. It suggests that the birds have stopped flying and that all living creatures have gone underground. There’s a song written by Gustav Holst by that title.
In the bleak midwinter, frost wind made moan
Earth stood hard as iron, water like a stone;
Snow had fallen, snow on snow, snow on snow
In the bleak midwinter, long ago …
This is about a world in which hope had frozen like the water in a pond, and there was no thought of life springing from the earth, so hard as it was. And above that, the snow covered the ground, insulating the frozen earth. All living creatures moaned in the frost and bleakness of the world.
But there is a force that cannot be contained within this limitation, a power that is “on high” and we call God. A dynamic that drives out all elementary constraints, that softens the earth and has the first sprout appear like a candle flame in the dark. It is as though the sight of this shoot is enough to make the spirit of winter panic and flee. For it knows that the spring is coming, and that after that summer cannot be withheld.
Our god, heaven cannot hold him, nor earth sustain;
Heaven and earth shall flee away when he comes to reign
In the bleak midwinter a stable place sufficed
The lord God almighty, jesus christ
The Christian story tells us of a budding stem that will arouse the whole of creation, unseen and seen. There will be songs of joy and love. Hope will fill the air, men will go to work restoring the earth, flowers will decorate the hillside and the houses. Women will give birth and with every child, hope is restored. The song, “Es ist ein Ros’ entsprungen” sings this for us …
Lo, how a Rose e’er blooming
from tender stem hath sprung!
Of Jesse’s lineage coming,
as men of old have sung.
It came, a floweret bright,
amid the cold of winter,
When half spent was the night.
The question arises in the joy of such hope is what I am to do with it? To what degree can I partake in the arousing spirit of hope and joy. Or, as Holst sings …
What can I give him, poor as I am?
If I were a shepherd, I would bring a lamb;
If I were a wise man, I would do my part;
Yet what I can I give him: give my heart
And so, with every bleak morning, there should rise in our hearts such a love song in anticipation of the potential of spring that is a living witness to the love of God. A strange love that eludes us, that we cannot grasp or contain, that we cannot own but which we can give. Give to whom? Perhaps to the next heart that we meet, in our house, on the street, in a shop or at work. Who knows? That is our part.