Heaven and Nature Sing: 25 Advent Reflections by Hannah Anderson

(reposting from 2023)

I read this book over this past Advent and I'm so glad I did! It's just beautiful... Thoughtful, reflective, contemplative, and deeply encouraging. 

We always want to be on guard against experiential eisegesis (i.e. exegeting a text through our own experiences) and/or reading ourselves into a passage and -- given the premise for this particular title -- I kept an especially scrutinizing eye open for that throughout. At the same time -- given all the rich complexities of our existence -- there is a place for colloquial communication, and God's words and ways should also be on our tongue night and day, spilling over... So taking all the above into consideration, all in all I think the author does a good job using each beginning anecdote as a springboard to the biblical text. 

She does an excellent job continually pointing us back to Christ, to what He has done, what He has already fulfilled -- and is doing still.

It brought me to tears in numerous places. Speaking of Simeon and Anna, she says:

"Something about the kind of testimony Simeon and Anna offered up in the temple helps keep our hope alive. Something about their certain joy helps stir up our own, even while we wait for our faith to be proved true. And while the Scripture points to Anna's and Simeon's devotion, it's their age that catches my attention. In their old age, they represent more than their own faithfulness. They represent the faithfulness of generations who have gone before them. They testify on behalf of all those who have waited and longed for a promise that they never got to see.

"In Hebrews 11, the author lists the names of Old Testament saints who 'died in faith, although they had not received the things that were promised. But they saw them from a distance, greeted them, and confessed that they were foreigners and temporary residents on the earth.' It was precisely the temporariness of their lives that inspired their faith. They were people who knew they wouldn't be around forever, and this perspective changed how they lived out the time they did have.

" ...As witnesses to the faithfulness of God, those who have gone before us encourage us to keep going and teach us to focus on the joy that is waiting.

"I can think of worse ways to grow old. I can think of worse things to become than a woman who goes on and on and on about the Promised Son and spends her days in prayer and fasting. I can think of worse ways to be taken up into that great cloud of witnesses.

"So when my eyesight fades and my mind begins to wander, when my children take me by the hand and have hushed conversations behind my back, I hope to be an old woman whose joy is undiminished, who babbles on about beauty and goodness and life. Who, though I lose my thoughts, never lose my songs, and whose quavering voice continues to herald the good news until her final breath: 'Even while I am old and gray, God, do not abandon me, while I proclaim your power to another generation, your strength to all who are to come.'" 

Tender and absolutely lovely, this one's joined my collection of favorites and I plan to pull it out repeatedly in future Advent seasons! <3