An Advent Calendar: Day 18

“A cold coming we had of it,

Just the worst time of the year

For a journey, and such a long journey:

The ways deep and the weather sharp,

The very dead of winter.”

And the camels galled, sore-footed, refractory,

Lying down in the melting snow.

There were times we regretted

The summer palaces on slopes, the terraces,

And the silken girls bringing sherbet.

Then the camel men cursing and grumbling

And running away, and wanting their liquor and women,

And the night-fires going out, and the lack of shelters,

And the cities hostile and the towns unfriendly

And the villages dirty and charging high prices:

A hard time we had of it.

At the end we preferred to travel all night,

Sleeping in snatches,

With the voices singing in our ears, saying

That this was all folly.

Then at dawn we came down to a temperate valley,

Wet, below the snow line, smelling of vegetation;

With a running stream and a water-mill beating the darkness,

And three trees on the low sky,

And an old white horse galloped away in the meadow.

Then we came to a tavern with vine-leaves over the lintel,

Six hands at an open door dicing for pieces of silver,

And feet kicking the empty wine-skins.

But there was no information, and so we continued

And arrived at evening, not a moment too soon

Finding the place; it was (you may say) satisfactory.

All this was a long time ago, I remember,

And I would do it again, but set down

This set down

This: were we led all that way for

Birth or Death? There was a Birth, certainly,

We had evidence and no doubt. I had seen birth and death,

But had thought they were different; this Birth was

Hard and bitter agony for us, like Death, our death.

We returned to our places, these Kingdoms,

But no longer at ease here, in the old dispensation,

With an alien people clutching their gods.

I should be glad of another death.

                                T. S. Eliot -  Journey of the Magi

During Advent we - just like the Magi - are walking the road leading toward the Birth of the Child. A birth apparently joyous for us, and for the world - although difficult, and in difficult conditions, for that young family, then. And a Birth that, although it was "the coming of the light unto the world" (and thus, in principle, an occasion of joy), "the world [which was and is in darkness] did not know him" (except for a few people - like the Magi) - and rejected it. And so, this Birth is actually a birth unto Death. As his mother will soon learn, as well: "a sword shall pierce your very soul." And thus we learn that this newborn Child is actually destined for Death - a pierced death on the cross. And yet that Death will not be the final word, either. It will be instead the death of the "old dispensation," of the "world," as it is (i.e. in darkness) - for the sake of the triumph of the Light, of Life eternal. And yet that life eternal is only conquerable at the price of death - the death of the "old man," and of the "world as it is." And thus in order to truly acquire the meaning and immense gain of this Birth, that death of the "world" (in us) needs to take place in each of us. And, as described in T.S. Eliot's poem, this is what the Magi felt, and realized.