But this year more than any year previously I have been appreciating Advent.
Sometimes Advent is just seen as a period of anticipation, the run up to Christmas, a name for the weeks where we try to focus on remembering the true 'reason for the season' in amongst all the pre-Christmas busyness that seems to take over December.
As far as I understand (and I'm not claiming to be an expert on this subject by any means), that's part of it but not all. Advent is a season of waiting - remembering the long-awaited arrival two thousand years ago and acknowledging that we wait for the second coming now.
And as we wait, we, along with all of creation, groan. We ready ourselves to remember and to celebrate the birth of the promised King, to remember that "the true light that gives light to everyone" came into the world. To remember that "the light shines in the darkness and the darkness has not overcome it."
The true light has come. And yet we still wait. We still see so much darkness in the world. There is light - hallelujah! As believers, we are light. And yet we await our King's second coming again, when he will be like the light of the sun, burning so fiercely as to extinguish every inch of darkness.
I like how it is put in this opinion piece:
"To practice Advent is to lean into an almost cosmic ache: our deep, wordless desire for things to be made right and the incompleteness we find in the meantime. We dwell in a world still racked with conflict, violence, suffering, darkness. Advent holds space for our grief, and it reminds us that all of us, in one way or another, are not only wounded by the evil in the world but are also wielders of it, contributing our own moments of unkindness or impatience or selfishness."
This year, perhaps more than any other year, I've been aware of the brokenness of this world. Of the ugliness of sin. Of the tragic effects of sin and the Fall. I've seen a lot of things to mourn and grieve over these last few months, and it is right that they be mourned and grieved over.
And I'm deeply reassured that I don't have to rush into Christmas. Before we sing 'Joy to the world', we can sing 'O come, o come Emmanuel'. I can take time to pause and acknowledge that there is pain and loss and brokenness in this world. That the world is not as it should be. That there is depth to the darkness.
But it's not a hopeless mourning. It's an intake of breath, the expectant pause, before the music rings out. We are hopeful people - literally hope-full. As we look back and celebrate the amazing truth of "our God contracted to a span", we look forward to the day when there will be no more death, or mourning, or crying, or pain, because the old order of things will have passed away.
I can look at the darkness and face it head-on because I know that the light has come, and I appreciate the light all the more for having first looked hard at the darkness. And I know that one day there will be no darkness, when the King comes again.
O Come, Thou King of nations bring
An end to all our suffering
Bid every pain and sorrow cease
And reign now as our Prince of Peace
Rejoice! Rejoice! Emmanuel
Rejoice! Rejoice! Emmanuel
Rejoice! Rejoice! Emmanuel
Shall come again with us to dwell
(Source)
