First Sunday of Advent, December 3, 2023
(click here to listen to or read today’s scriptures)
One day at a time,
Sweet Jesus, that’s all I’m asking from you.
Why do you let us wander, O Lord, from your ways, and harden our hearts so that we fear you not? Return for the sake of your servants.
Fletcher Hannah played his guitar and taught me something of how to play mine, all of us together on Kogudus Renewal teams at prisons across Illinois. We spent weekends at Stateville and Menard, where the executions took place. We met for retreats at minimum and medium security “correctional centers.” We sang prison-ready songs, like “Just As I Am,” “I Saw the Light,” and “One Day at a Time.”
Sweet Jesus.
I haven’t seen or heard from or about Fletch for a long time now. I hope he’s still singing, that his bare, gravely voice which always found the right notes and could silence rowdy prison crowds faster than a locomotive, has not ceased. Our teams brought together nine or ten mostly Lutheran guys to lead worship, chapel, and small groups of six or so inmates. None of us knew too much about what we were doing, but God took care of us all, inmates and team.
Before each talk we sang several songs. In the evening we sang more songs. On Saturday and Sunday morning we sang “Father Abraham” and did child-like exercises with each stanza, adding a moving arm, leg, head, and finally turning around while we also turned every part we could: Right arm, left arm, right leg, left leg, turn around, sit down!
These memories get stirred up on the first Sunday of Advent. The residents of Menard and Stateville, Danville and Lincoln, Graham and Robinson, were not going home for Christmas. Many of them had not been home for years, and some would never be. Their dark memories and darker prospects weighed heavy on some of them. We sang of hope, but we left each evening, and we left for good on Sunday afternoon. We reminded them of the other world, which they could mostly forget about until someone came in to remind them.
O Lord, you are our father; we are the clay and you are the potter: we are all the work of your hands.
And yes, we sang that song too: mold me and make me, this is what I pray. Change my heart, O God.
At Christmas we added songs they wanted to sing, but often wept while they did. Mary, Did you Know? Away in a Manger. Silent Night, Joy to the World, O Come O Come Emmanuel. The King is Coming.
Happy faces line the hallways
Those whose lives have been redeemed
Broken homes that He has mended
Those from prison He has freed
Little children and the aged
Hand in hand stand all aglow
Who were crippled, broken, ruined
Clad in garments white as snow …
These guys often knew their Bibles better than we did. I often thought of being in their place.  A little loss of self-control at just the wrong moment … there but for the grace of God go I.
Now the precious Advent texts are upon us, four Sundays of purple, pink and finally white candles symbolizing hope, preparation, love, joy and victory.
Praise God, He is coming for me!
(Isaiah 63, Psalm 80, 1 Corinthians 1, Psalm 85, Mark 13)
(posted at www.davesandel.net)
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