Tag: Advent 2021

A Light in Our Darkness

Darkness is not an actual thing. We can define it as ‘the absence of light,’ meaning we understand darkness primarily by what it is not, instead of what it is. So, when we talk about long nights and early sunsets, we are naming the ways the light is absent from us, more than we are naming this present darkness.

But though, darkness is a non-thing, it is something we each experience and know. We know it when we see it, or better, we know it when we can’t see at all. We know what it is too be a people who have lost their way. We know how a nation which once boasted about becoming a city on a hill, set up systems which enslaved African Americans, dispossessed native cultures from their land, and forced other people of color into indentured servitude. We know the darkness of a Christian church, which spoke of new life in Christ, while hiding and excusing abusers in our midst. On a more personal level, we know what it means to stumble in the dark, without a clue as to what direction we are heading or how we will get there. We know our own disconnect between enlightened words kindly spoken, and dark deeds and our murky, wayward thoughts.

And here we are in Advent, once again, remembering when Light came into the world and we watch, and wait, and hope for the Light of Christ to break into our darkness once again:

The people who walk in darkness
Will see a great light;
Those who live in a dark land,
The light will shine on them.

Isaiah 9:2

In him was life, and the life was the light of all people. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it.

John 1:4-5

Do we believe that Christ can be light in our darkness? Right now? Today? Too often we treat Christianity or spirituality as a means of coping with the darkness we find ourselves in. We treat Jesus as “this little light of mine,” as just a night light, so that when we wake in the night, we are not too afraid to go back to sleep.

Jesus is the Light that came into the world. The light of all people. He did not come and is not coming to be your little night light. He is coming to banish the darkness. When a light shines in the darkness, the darkness doesn’t overcome it, because it cannot. When light enters the dark, it is dark no more.

Jesus has come and is coming and with him, we can see our way through from darkness onto light. The systems of oppression, the deeds done in darkness, and the hidden sins of smooth-talking abusers, and charismatic charlatans are exposed for what we are. We can see clearly and live into new ways of being.

The Advent light that we watch and wait for, is not a way of coping with dark—a dim-watt bulb for the dim-witted. It the bright morning Son which illuminates a new way of being in the world and allows us to see new possibilities. A light in the darkness is the first step toward the social revolution of the Kingdom of God.

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Come Lord Jesus and light our way to a better way and a better world.

A Light Against Darkness

Yesterday marked the beginning of Advent, and this year, it was the start of Hannukah, the Jewish “Festival of Lights.” It is somewhat of a minor holiday in Jewish tradition, owing its prominence in our culture to the fact that it is celebrated around the same time of year that Christians celebrate Christmas. But the festival of lights recalls a dark period in Jewish history. Judah had returned to its land and had rebuilt Jerusalem and the Temple, but for centuries it was ruled and dominated by powerful neighbors (Babylon, Persia, Greece). In 167 BCE, a Seleucid monarch, Antiochus IV Epiphanies, set up an altar to Zeus inside the Jewish Temple. Apocalyptic Daniel refers to this event as “the abomination of desolation” (Daniel 9:27; 11:30-31). It was a dark time for the Jews

This event scandalized the Jews in Jerusalem and led to the Maccabean revolt. Jacob Maccabees restored the temple with an 8-day rededication ceremony, lighting the menorahs in the Temple courts (which is inspiration for Hannukah). The Maccabean revolt would lead to the formation of the Hasmonean dynansty (140 BCE-37BCE) which ruled for a hundred years before the Herodians rose to power. (1 and 2 Maccabees in the Old Testament deuterocanonical books tell this story).

I am not Jewish, I don’t celebrate Hannukah. The closest I come is a rousing rendition of Adam Sandler’s Hannukah song. This is not my tradition to appropriate. But as I began my reflections this Advent on Darkness and Light, I think there is something worth paying attention to. I respect my Jewish friends and they have lots to teach me.

The lighting the menorah at Hannukah, was about rededication, restoring what had been profaned when Antiochus IV desecrated the temple. For Jewish people, it a festival about maintaining their Jewish identity in the face of a dominant culture, that is often antagonistic toward their community. It is an act of political resistance.

When we light our Advent candles and wait for the coming of the Lord, we too are doing something counter-cultural designed to stave off the dark. To light a candle of hope for the coming of Christ, is to take a stand against the powers, the principalities, and rulers of this age.

It is the 21st Century, and we have seen our own abomination of desolation. We have seen so-called followers of the Prince of Peace beat the drums of war. We have seen those who proclaim Christ as healer and savior, turn their back on the oppressed widow, orphan and the aliens in our land. We have watched as followers of Jesus have chosen personal freedom and autonomy over compassion, care and community in ignoring mask and vaccine mandates. We have witnessed (and sometimes participated in) the desecration of the image of God in people we don’t see politically eye-to-eye with. And when people are called to account for ways in which they have victimized, bullied, and oppressed people, we denounce accusers for the political correctness and their counter-culture. We fight for the freedom of the abuser instead of fighting for the life of the abused.

Light the Advent candle. Light it in hope that the world we live in, is not the world we will live in. Light the Advent candle. Light it in hope that it doesn’t have to be this way. Light the Advent candle. Light the Advent candle and know: a light shines in the darkness and darkness has not overcome it (John 1:5).

A Light for Dark Days

My ten-year-old son, James sat at the dinner table one evening in late November. His siblings had all scarfed down their supper and had all retreated to their own corners of the house. James was still picking at his dinner. With a furrowed brow and a look of consternation, he said, “I don’t understand why it gets dark so early.” We talked about the time change and the winter solstice and how the days will keep shortening until the week of Christmas when the days will again lengthen, ever so slightly. 

 This is a hard time of year for lots of us, for lots of reasons. The dark and the cold seep into our bones and we feel poignantly the grief and the loneliness we carry (with us always but this time of year with us in a different way). As the December dark descends on us with its shortened daylight we fight the dying of the light with whatever light we can muster. We buy gifts and share our family newsletters. We make Christmas candy and cookies and string up lights and decorations. Our Christmas ornaments all hung on the tree, as we sing along to our favorite Christmas CD and watch our favorite Holiday movies. We feel the joy these things bring, but always too, the lingering, long dark.

The promise of Christmas is that those of us who have “walked in darkness
    have seen a great light; those of us who have lived in a land of deep darkness—on us light has shone” (Isaiah 9:2). The Roman occupied province of Judea in the first century (present-day Palestine) was likewise a dark place to live. Injustice and violence, grief and loss, sickness and death, were the lived reality of the day. But then Christ was born and a new light came into the world. Imperceptible at first—just a babe wrapped in swaddling cloth, laying in a manger—but the week of Christmas, the days began lengthening, ever so slightly. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it.

My hope for us this Advent and Christmas is that we will train our senses to watch for the light, and see the ways that Christ shines in us, even when the days are dark and the nights are long. May the light of Christ’s coming continue to pierce our darkness as we await the light!