A Darkness to Awaken Us

I took a nap this afternoon, and woke to darkened corners and a pinkish hue in the sky that often accompanies twilight. It was a bit disorienting.

These early dark evenings are hard to adjust to. Not only because the light of day illuminates the landscape/cityscape before us, but also because we so routinely segment our day by what occurs between the time the sun rises in the east and sets in the west. 

As dark descends, I feel an internal angst. I have to remind myself that the day isn’t actually over. Ideally, there are still enough hours to finish all that I set out to do.

I’ve had the author Wendell Berry on my mind. I am leading a discussion on one of his novels in a new book club I attend. And so I decided to look up, once again, what he had to offer for Advent. If you know Berry, you know his writing is very pastoral. There are some beautiful poems that can be called Advent poems because of the way they evoke the scenes around Jesus’ manger. But today I was drawn to something that is attributed to Berry’s spoken words. In her book, Plan B: Further Thoughts on Faith, Anne Lamott quotes Berry as saying, 

“It gets darker and darker, and then Jesus is born.”

It sounds so simple.

But there is something deeper here. Maybe I’m reading into it. But I think that’s what we are supposed to do when we are on a road towards Hope. We grab onto every tiny glimmer like it’s a lifeline. A buoy in a storm.

Pastor and poet Evan Welcher wrote a piece for Christianity Today about this. About grief, and darkness, and how it’s often the unexpected that leads us out, if ever so slowly. He says,

“Sometimes all we need to start inching away from the darkness is an acknowledgment of the wreckage . . . I suppose that’s why the prophet Isaiah let us all know that the Christ would be ‘a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief’ (Isaiah 53:3). 

It gets darker, and darker, and then Jesus is born. The same Jesus that Isaiah told us would be a man who knew and understood sorrow and grief.

Did Jesus feel that sorrow, our sorrow, as a part of the Trinity before he plunged into human existence as a tiny baby? Was His grief over all those who had turned and lost their way, like reckless sheep without a shepherd? He can’t have stepped from eternity without a pocketful of heavenly sorrow. Or was his acquaintance with grief a reference to all of this earth creation’s longing to be redeemed?

Jesus was born into the darkness of the world and we called Him the light of life (John 1:4 paraphrase). Indeed, John’s gospel speaks much of this Light. One of the strongest promises we can bring into Advent is this:

The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it. (John 1:5)

And yet, during Advent we see the same way the prophets did. The now and not yet. My pastor describes it as looking at a large vista with many scenes to catch our eye, both in the foreground and far off in the distance.

Light entered the world when Jesus was born. The very hour of His birth was illuminated by the brilliance of the star and the chorus of the shining angels. But the real work of conquering death and darkness was still to come. God’s people still lived in despair and pain, wondering when relief would ever come. And unlike heroes of other religions, God sent His son into the very muck and mire the people wanted to escape. He came to live and work, to eat and drink, to laugh and cry. And, eventually, when He had grown in “knowledge and stature,” He came to show us the Way.

Hope’s spark had been lit. That is what we hold fast to when we repeat Berry’s words: It gets darker, and darker, and then Jesus is born.

If the weight of darkness feels extra heavy this season, pause to name it, to acknowledge it. And remember that darkness, like pain, “insists upon being attended to. God whispers to us in our pleasures, speaks in our conscience, but shouts in our pains: it is His megaphone to rouse a deaf world.” (C.S. Lewis, The Problem of Pain).

Together, let us look to the Light.

 

The Mysterious and Imaginative Truths of Advent

What do these all have in common? 
Madeleine L’Engle 
Stranger Things
Theology
Mystery
Luci Shaw
Unlikely heroes
Imagination

Read ahead and you will see.

In the introduction to her book, Journey to the Manger, theologian Paula Gooder lays out an argument for the interweaving of truth, wonder, and mystery in the Advent narrative. She says,

“Christmas presents to us, mostly in narrative form, some of the most wonderful truths about our faith—truths about a God who loves us, who was prepared to risk everything to live among us in human form, who drew the most unlikely people to him by doing this and who continues today to seek to draw people to him from all walks of life. . . Christmas is a feast that encouraged our imaginative engagement with the mysterious truths it seeks to portray.” (p. ix)

“This God chose a ludicrously risky means of redeeming the world he loves so much.” (p. xiii)

“The birth narrative of Jesus lays out in story, in poetry and in song, something of what we believe about this Jesus, Immanuel, God with us. It helps us to think imaginatively and creatively about the one we worship, he who came to us in the most precarious manner possible—born as a baby into poverty.” (p. xviii).

If you’ve ever been caught up in a story full of unlikely heroes, harrowing adventure, and miraculous victories, then you know this feeling. The mystery, and wonder, and truth available to us through story.

Scripture utilizes a variety of literary forms, but the Holy Spirit inspired the Gospel writers to record Jesus’ birth, life, and death as narrative stories. When I first sought to begin an Advent blog, I wanted a space to record and share Advent/Christmas poems I found. I had long loved the writings of Madeleine L’Engle, and was likewise drawn to her mystery-embracing poems about the Incarnation and Immanuel, God with us. Her words demonstrated the way that the Advent story can reach across time and space to meet our hearts exactly where we are.

Many writers, L’Engle included, use the most unlikely of characters to tell their story. This is true in her classic, A Wrinkle in Time. And it is true for the hit Netflix show, Stranger Things. I don’t want to give any of the final season away, so I will only say that the imagined world in A Wrinkle in Time becomes an interwoven theme as the show’s unlikely heroes continue to seek truth and imagine victory. I think this shows us something important about the way we tell stories.

Most literature can stand alone, but it is a beautiful thing when a story is strengthened by our understanding of a parallel narrative. Tales like C.S. Lewis’ Chronicles of Narnia can make reading about God’s redeeming power in Scripture all the more meaningful and miraculous. Writers like Wendel Berry and Luci Shaw can give words to the way we feel about God’s creation.

In the 1970s, two writers met at a literary conference at Wheaton College. Their names were Madeleine L’Engle and Luci Shaw. The two became quick friends and eventually collaborated professionally, with Shaw’s publishing company releasing many of L’Engle’s poetry collections. L’Engle passed away in 2007, and just a few days ago on December 1st, Shaw entered eternity.

Both writers have influenced the way I read and reread the Advent narrative each year. Because as Paula Gooder argues, we each bring our own imaginations to the manger. The way we picture the nativity scene is far from what it really looked like, but that’s ok. During Advent we cannot be gatekeepers for historical accuracy, because that is not the point.

The point is: We were a world without hope, and God sent his Son to become like us (though completely unexpected in appearance, motivation, word, and deed), ushering in a kingdom of eternal hope and salvation.

I will end with a poem by Luci Shaw.

It is as if Infancy were the Whole of Incarnation

One time of the year
the new-born child
is everywhere,
planted in madonnas’ arms
hay mows, stables,
in palaces or farms,
or quaintly, under snowed gables,
gothic angular or baroque plump,
naked or elaborately swathed,
encircled by Della Robbia wreaths,
garnished with whimsical
partridges and pears,
drummers and drums,
lit by oversize stars,
partnered with lambs,
peace doves, sugar plums,
bells, plastic camels in sets of three
as if these were what we needed
for eternity.

But Jesus the Man is not to be seen.
There are some who are wary, these days,
of beards and sandalled feet.

Yet if we celebrate, let it be
that He
has invaded our lives with purpose,
striding over our picturesque traditions,
our shallow sentiment,
overturning our cash registers,
wielding His peace like a sword,
rescuing us into reality,
demanding much more
than the milk and the softness
and the mother warmth
of the baby in the storefront crèche,
(only the Man would ask
all, of each of us)
reaching out
always, urgently, with strong
effective love
(only the Man would give
His life and live
again for love of us).

Oh come, let us adore Him—
Christ—the Lord.

Pay attention. The stories always have more for us than at we first thought.

Seeds of Hope

 “Somewhere a seed just cracked open underground, completely certain that light exists.” – The Tiny Joy Project

Prophets, poets, and lyricists have written about hope since the day a great hope was first dashed in the Garden of Eden. A piece of fruit that appeared by the very breath of God’s Word snowballed us into a world where we would need hope. 

After the Serpent’s deception, God gave both a curse and a promise:

“And I will put enmity between you and the woman, 
And between your seed and her seed; 
He shall bruise you on the head, 
And you shall bruise him on the heel.” 
(Genesis 3:15 NASB)

That first fruit did not grow from a seed, but in His wisdom, the Creator implanted in every living thing, a seed. A seed that would look for the Light.

And every generation from Adam onwards sought to understand—who would this Savior be? Who would come to crush evil on its head? Where would he come from? How would we know?

Luke was well aware of this when he sat down to pen his Gospel account. I think we skim over the first few verses of his introduction, but today I was struck by them:

“Since many have undertaken to compile an account of the things accomplished among us, just as they were handed down to us by those who from the beginning were eyewitnesses and servants of the word, it seemed fitting to me as well, having investigated everything carefully from the beginning, to write it out for you in an orderly sequence, most excellent Theophilus; so that you may know the exact truth about the things you have been taught.”
(Luke 1:1-4 NASB)

In other words, “I have done the work for you, it’s all here for you to read. Pay attention!”

It’s no mistake that seeds are an image of hope; that we measure hope from conception to birth; that the Savior’s origin story begins as a seed, breathed into life by God Himself.

 

Waiting Together, in Hope

When have I ever felt “ready” (as in “prepared”) for Advent? Answer: probably never. A not-so-secret secret is that I don’t do much to make ready for this season of writing and reflection. The beauty, for me, is in the moment; the act of noticing and sharing what I’ve observed.

Author and podcaster Kate Bowler has a new social media series called “A Blessing and a Curse.” This morning, for the beginning of Advent, she wrote:

Not because the world is tidy or ready. (It isn’t.) But because this is how hope works:
One candle lit in the ruins.
One breath held in holy defiance.

This season is familiar ground for those who keep showing up.
Who wait for healing.
Who long for justice.
Who believe that even now, God is drawing near.

Welcome to Advent, friends.
The world is a mess, but God is coming, anyway.

Almost a decade ago, I read a Lenten blog by Addie Zierman about times when our whole lives, when the whole world, feels like Lent. Somber, weighed-down, incomplete. I don’t know about you, but that feels like 2025 to me. When we feel like the embodiment of Lent, we need to remember and proclaim the importance of Advent. The world is full of darkness. Current events are scary and confusing. Stories coming from news headlines can seem infuriating and debilitating. But this is when we need Advent the most. Light in the darkness. It is built into the very fabric of our winter holiday celebration to push back the darkness with light. 

The Advent season teaches us a lot about waiting. Advent waiting is full of expectation [see name of this blog!] and in many ways is an exercise in looking for the Light. This is not a passive waiting, but one full of curiosity, wonder, and hope. Waiting for understanding to bridge the gap between not-yet and “the fullness of time.” It is hard. But Advent teaches us it is not meant to be a frantic search. The Nativity story (as old as time itself) is stretched across four Sundays, causing us to pause and observe each theme and each character’s steady path towards the Christ-child’s feeding-trough throne. To pay attention. Here there is beauty and mystery, wisdom and comfort, if we only pay attention to the story before us.

I will end with a poem by Written to Speak author, Tanner Olson. He writes about this idea so wonderfully:

Advent begins quietly—
the way the fun slops into the sky
before we have the chance 
to say goodbye to the stars.
It starts small, soft, almost forgettable,
and yet something in us knows
this season is asking us to slow down
and pay attention.

We light one candle
to push back the dark,
to remind ourselves that hope
burns bright—
a spark that is just enough 
to keep us moving forward.
It comes in flickers,
in whispers,
in the gentle glow
of a God who has not forgotten us.

And maybe this is the hardest part—
the waiting.
The in-between.
The not-yet.
Trusting that God is working 
in the places we cannot see,
stitching together the things
we thought were falling apart,
breathing life where we assumed
there was only silence. 

But Advent tells us
a different story.
That even in the long nights,
God is doing more
than we can imagine.
That His timing is not absence,
and His quiet is not distance.

So we wait—
not with empty hands,
but with hands holding the truth
that light is on its way.

And we remember:
We are not forgotten.
We are not alone. 
God is filling our lives
with hope, peace, joy, and love—
often more than we know
what to do with—
as He invites us 
to slow down
and pay attention.

In this season,
we wait.
We hope.
We trust that God is doing 
Something more
than we can see.

Let us wait together, with hope.

Welcome to Advent

Dear friends (and those who may have stumbled upon this blog),

If you've joined me for any of the past sixteen years (wow!), then you are probably familiar with Advent. If you are a new reader, this will serve as an introduction:

In latin the word "adventus" means "coming." Within the context of western Christianity, Advent is the season of four weeks leading up to Christmas—the celebration of Christ's birth. It is a time of joyful expectation and preparation. The four weeks are marked by the four Sundays, on which the candles of the Advent wreath are lit.

The first candle is traditionally the candle of Hope, ushering us into the season with hopeful expectation and wonder. However, with so many church traditions comes a variety of names for each candle. Usually, they are organized around characters or themes as a way to unfold the story and direct attention to the celebrations and worship in the season. So, the sequence might be Prophets, Bethlehem, Shepherds, Angels; Expectation, Annunciation, Proclamation, Fulfillment; or Prophets, John the Baptist, Mary, the Magi.

Last year, I tried something new and used the broad theme of “all things new” to direct my reflections, breaking the four weeks into micro themes centering around courage, refinement, intersections, and curiosity. This year I’m going back to the basics. My Advent guides will be the traditional names of the Advent candles: Hope, Peace, Joy, and Love.

For four short weeks every year, we stop and see—with amazing clarity—God’s miraculous hand shaping the trajectory of human history. I have a hard time seeing this kind of perspective in daily life. Even with God’s sustaining grace, I am so often numb to the repercussions of Christ’s advent in my own life. This blog is an attempt to peel back the layers of those truths and meditate on the everlasting love God showed when he first sent us His son. 

And as we do that together, may our hearts be directed towards the greater Advent still to come. For we know this to be true: the infant Jesus we celebrate at Christmas has promised He will one day return. On earth again, we will see His fully divine power and might. 

So let us enter this season with expectation, ever blessed by those who have paved the way. I’m glad you have chosen to join me on the journey!
 

The Curiousity of Jesus

This final week of Advent is a short one, so we will get one reflection on the theme I selected: “Curious expectations (seek, and you will find).”

Author John Pavlovitz writes of a time when he was asked by a friend,, “Do you know why a bluebird finds worms?” The friend responded: “Because that’s what it looks for.”
“Much of what we discover in this life is about the questions we ask, the things we give attention to, and the way we invest our time.”

I am in a profession where questions fuel my daily work. At home, if I wonder about the way a plant is growing, or curious if I can substitute this ingredient for that, I ask. Often Google, but still, I ask.

After the prophet Malachi spoke to Israel one final time about a Promised ruler, the people of God were left wondering for 400 years.

“But you, Bethlehem Ephrathah,
    though you are small among the clans of Judah,
out of you will come for me
    one who will be ruler over Israel,
whose origins are from of old,
    from ancient times.”
(Malachi 5:2)

They could ask questions of their religious leaders, and ask God in prayer, “how long, O, Lord?” But for those who really, really wanted to know what the Messiah would look like, or where He would come from, were left in the dark.

Due to the oppressive circumstances of foreign rule during the Exile, and then under the Roman Empire, people began putting their hopes in a mighty warrior who would lead them against their giant foes. But the Savior of the World did not arrive like a King, nor did He rally troops for an earthly battle.

Pavlovitz calls the birth of Jesus “one of the greatest surprises on the planet.” Everything about Jesus was unexpected. He goes on to say, “He was conceived in mystery, born in anonymity, and surrounded by people of little renown. That was unexpected. But these would not be the only surprises associated with Jesus’ presence. He would grow to teach of the wisdom of childlikeness, the elevated status of humility, the counterintuitive love of one’s enemies. Who Jesus would become, and the kind of life he would call his followers to lead, was the ultimate script-flip.”

Jesus understood the questions that surrounded Him, and chose to teach His disciples and everyone around Him to live with curiosity. To seek God’s will, to question injustice, to ask, “can I be healed?”. We see this most clearly in Jesus’ interactions with children. He cautioned his disciples to not turn away the children, because from them we can learn child-like faith.

If you’ve spent any time with a child, you know they are full of questions. Wonder and curiosity spill out of their mouths like waves. Sometimes it seems like you can see the wheels spinning as they prepare another inquiry.

Jesus taught in parables. Not to confuse, but to show that blessings, wisdom and beauty can come from unexpected places and people, as God shows up in the most unlikely ways.

I wonder how often young Jesus asked Mary and Joseph to recount His birth story. Scripture doesn’t allow us to see adult Jesus interacting with His earthly origin, but I imagine it was one of His favorite stories, and later fueled aspects of His parables. God didn’t need to have His son experience life from embryo to man, but He did. And in that way, we have a Savior who understands the everyday cycle of life and love, of loss and pain, of mystery and yes, even death.

This is a gift we are given each Advent. To journey along with our Savior as He welcomed His first, brand new day, heralding the beginning of a Life that would be sacrificed in order to make all things new.

I like the way Pavlovitz puts it:

“Every day we open our eyes and greet the sun, we are gifted a Christmas miracle. You wake in and walk into this glorious new day—into the delivery room of the present. You have this entirely new, never to be repeated opportunity to bring peace and compassion into a space that so needs it. Hope is being born again with the light arriving. Today is a birth day. This is the greatest of good news.”

Half way through December I began reading the book, Advent for Exiles, by singer Caroline Cobb. It’s an Advent devotional focused on the prophecies and stories of the Old Testament. And while I didn’t have the time or space to include her words this year, I want to end with one of her important points from Day 9. In lyrical terms, she calls us exodus people, observing that Jesus’ first coming brought about a new exodus, at His second Advent, Jesus will bring about a perfect and lasting exodus. She says,

“This is why we rehearse our redemption week after week at church: listening to the gospel story, singing songs of our deliverance, and taking part in the new Passover meal in the bread and wine of communion. When we do this, we are looking back on the new exodus Jesus initiated in his first advent. But we are also looking forward, staking our hope in his promise to bring us all the way home, until at last we are safe on Zion’s golden shore.”

I think this is why Advent is so important. We repeat the story to ourselves each year not just for nostalgia or Christmas tradition, but because we need to hear it. We need to be reminded of the God who came low and unexpected, full of hope for the weary, peace for those in pain, joy for the down-trodden, and love for the lost.

Then the angel said to them,
“Do not be afraid, for behold,
I bring you good tidings of great joy which will be to all people.
For there is born to you this day in the city of David a Savior,
who is Christ the Lord.
(Luke 2:10-11).

 

He Entered the Dark to Bring Us Light

Today we observe the shortest light of day and the longest dark of night. For many years, I didn’t count the winter solstice as a part of my Advent tradition, but about ten years ago I was introduced to the solstice’s place in the church calendar with Blue Christmas. In the midst of preparing our hearts for Christ’s birth, Blue Christmas is a time to reflect and lament the hurt and brokenness that exists in the world, and acknowledge that our God hears and sees us calling out to Him from our deepest needs. On this side of the Nativity story we know God’s answer comes (past, present, and future) in the form of His Son, prophesied to be the great Light in the Darkness.

Author and speaker Annie B. Downs has a quote that I’ve seen online multiple times this week. She says,
“I (almost) always come limping into Advent, desperate for light, but almost too tired to look for it. Then I remember: the Light came looking for me and that’s the whole point.”

During the first Christmas of the pandemic my family decided to social distance and not spend the holiday together in the same city. It was weird and lonely. And so I took a mason jar and filled it with candle stubs from old Advent wreaths. I kept the jar with me all day and into the night. And it made the day feel less dark.

What power light holds! It's no surprise our holiday decorations focus so much on light. They pierce the darkness of winter like they have a story to tell.

We don’t often think about how the star over Bethlehem appeared to anyone else in the Nativity story. Imagine Mary and Joseph’s surprise when their dreary dwelling was suddenly cast in a beam of light. They were in the dark—both literally and spiritually—until Jesus was born and entered the dark. Scripture doesn’t give us an exact time when the star appeared, but if the wise men were able to say to King Herod, “Where is he who has been born king of the Jews? For we saw his star when it rose and have come to worship him” (Matthew 2:2), then it must have been as soon as Jesus let out His first cry into earthly air. The star’s light became a herald for the Light.

I also see this as a bookmark to the darkness that occurred when Jesus hung on the cross, preparing to breathe His last breath. If the Creator would direct the heavens to showcase a brilliant star at Jesus’ birth, why would He not respond in kind at the devastation of His Son’s death. The same Mary who treasured these things in her heart, present at both her son’s birth and death, probably noticed this too.

How much more noticeable the light when it is surrounded by darkness. How much more debilitating the dark when it is devoid of light.

The God who hung the sun, moon, and stars in the sky is the same God who sees us in our pain and own personal darkness. He knows that we need more than just words to bring us hope. And so He uses all of creation to point us to Him.

There is a stanza in the Advent hymn, O Come, O Come, Emmanuel that says:

O come, thou Day-Spring, come and cheer,
Our Spirits by thine Advent here;
Disperse the gloomy clouds of night,
And death’s dark shadows put to flight.

Jesus Himself is our day-spring, or sunrise, in modern terms, an echo of Isaiah’s prophecy about the coming light:

The people who walked in darkness
have seen a great light;
those who dwelt in a land of deep darkness,
on them has light shone.
(Isaiah 9:2)

Desiring God writer Jon Bloom reflects on this stanza of the hymn and Jesus’ role as the approaching dawn in his article, He Came to a World in Darkness. Bloom says,

“These luminous words of hope were first spoken 2,700 years ago to a fractured Hebrew people who were watching with anguish as a fearful night fell upon them. It looked as though Israel’s lamp would be forever extinguished. But the prophet foresaw that, beyond this fearful night, a great dawn was coming.

. . . Jesus came into the world as light and became the light of the world. And his light shone in our darkness. But he did more than shine. He set in motion the eternal destruction of our darkness by taking it upon himself. . . and His healing rays have been spreading throughout the world ever since.”

As soon as sin entered the Garden of Eden, we became a people walking in darkness. May we let this long night help that to soak in. From that point onward, we needed a Savior. Someone to not only show us the Light, but actually extinguish the dark. At the first Advent we received the one who would grow up to say: “I have come into the world as light, so that whoever believes in me may not remain in darkness” (John 12:46). But we are waiting for a second Advent: a time when Christ will come again to defeat death and darkness forever.

Until that day, we have a Creator who allows us to experience darkness. Without it, we would have no need for light; we would not fight for truth and justice and hope. But we are not alone in this dark. In the most radical intersection of all, we have a God who came down in human form to show us the way.

I love author Kaitlyn Bouchillon’s poetic reflection on this darkness and light. I will end with this:

“. . . The night will seem to swallow everything in a matter of hours, but we’re inching toward the promise, and in His kindness, God saw fit to enter the dark and start the clock.

For now, loss lingers . . . but one day, the day will go on forever. One day, night will be no more (Revelation 22:5). One day, all will be forever bright. But for now, as we limp through the dark, may we remember:

The countdown is on. The clock is ticking. Closer, closer, closer. Always, Light is pushing back and coming for us. And today, on the very darkest day as night stretches as far as it can go, the earth joins in with a declaration spread across creation:

From here on out, the light gets shorter. From here on out, it only gets brighter. No matter how deep the darkness, Hope has something to say. Even now, dawn is on the way.

Next week we’ll celebrate the Light of the world that pierced the night, the One who still wakes the day and paints the sky, the One who couldn’t stand to do anything other than come closer, closer, closer.”

This is Emmanuel. God with us.

Unexpected Partners

This week I've been reflecting on radical intersections in the Nativity story. There are miraculous coincidences of time and place, unlikely pairings, and unexpected participants, just to name a few.

One I had not focused on before sprung to mind as I was reading Hannah Brencher's Day 12 Advent devotional. I'll set up the scene: 

And while they were there [Bethlehem], the time came for her [Mary] to give birth.  And she gave birth to her firstborn son and wrapped him in swaddling cloths and laid him in a manger, because there was no place for them in the inn. (Luke 2:6-7)

We all know how pristine and romanticized the stable/cave looks in picture books and nativity scenes, but if we put ourselves in Mary and Joseph's shoes, this was not the ideal place for a birth. The city of Bethlehem was bustling with people, but scripture doesn't indicate anyone was there with this young family experiencing the birth of a child for the first time. They were alone. Except for God. And He had been there from the very beginning.

Brencher says,

"At that moment, she [Mary] and God partnered to bring this baby into the weary world.

I have to burn this picture into my brain to remind myself that God uses the most unideal circumstances to accomplish his most significant purposes.

The whole story of Jesus' birth is entirely unassuming.

It's anonymous.

It wasn't the talk to the town.

It wasn't making the news.

It was a birth in a relatively obscure area— out of sight and tucked away— and it wasn't until the star appeared that the news spread, "Immanuel is here. He is finally, finally with us.'"

Other than the creation of the world, the Incarnation was the biggest thing God had ever done. We surmise from Genesis 1:26 that the whole Trinity was present when the world was sung into being. God wouldn't need a human for another creation, would He? And yet, He chose to partner with a young woman in order to bring His Son into the world. A very radical intersection, indeed.

What kind of hope does this give us?

Sometimes when we speak about prayer, we refer to the idea that we are partnering with God in order to make something happen. Prayer should be a dialogue, for sure. But it is God who does the partnering. We have no power to corral Him into joining us. Instead, adult Jesus taught His disciples to pray in a certain, humble way when they had requests of God; to make themselves available for God's good works.

We aren't privy to Mary and Joseph's prayers, either in the times before they encountered God's plan of Incarnation, nor when they are huddled together in a quiet, dirty corner of Bethlehem waiting for Mary's contractions to increase in speed. But they were fully aware of the immense weight/honor they carried, being the earthly parents of this Precious Son. If this child was to grow up and bring about miraculous salvation, surely God had His hands on every step of their (and His) journey--including the intimate and messy act of delivering a baby.

What messy things in our lives could benefit from a divine partner like Jesus? (The answer is all of them). We need not be embarrassed by a less than perfect setting or set of circumstances. God--Father, Son, and Holy Spirit--is always ready to join us in the mess. That is what it means for us to call Jesus, Emmanuel. God with us. God choosing us. God partnering with us. For His glory and our good.

 

The Gardener's Great Stump Reversal

This year, Desiring God is basing their Advent reflections on verses from the quintessential Advent hymn, O Come, O Come, Emmanuel.

In his article, "He Came to a World Condemned,"
guest writer Brian Tabb reflects on the hymn's fourth verse: O Root of Jesse. [Note some lyrics might differ from the version you know]:

O come, O Branch of Jesse’s stem,
Unto your own and rescue them!
From depths of hell your people save,
And give them victory o’er the grave.
Rejoice! Rejoice! Immanuel
Shall come to thee, O Israel.

If you’ve celebrated Advent at all, you probably recognize the reference from Isaiah 11:1-3,10:

1There shall come forth a shoot from the stump of Jesse,
    and a branch from his roots shall bear fruit.
2 And the Spirit of the Lord shall rest upon him,
    the Spirit of wisdom and understanding,
    the Spirit of counsel and might,
    the Spirit of knowledge and the fear of the Lord.
3 And his delight shall be in the fear of the Lord.
10 In that day the root of Jesse, who shall stand as a signal for the peoples—of him shall the nations inquire, and his resting place shall be glorious.

But there is another verse, earlier in Isaiah’s prophecies that references this mysterious stump:

“…And though a tenth remain in it [the cities that are laid waste],
    it will be burned again,
like a terebinth or an oak,
    whose stump remains
    when it is felled.”
The holy seed is its stump.
(Isaiah 6:13)

We often recognize this branch of Jesse's as showcasing the Messiah’s Davidic ancestry without realizing that the branch is growing out of a rather lifeless remnant of a tree. Neither in Isaiah 6 nor 11 is the stump a hopeful image. But rather, it is the branch that grows from it, which signifies hope.

If the prophecies had been given earlier in David's chronology, maybe the phrase would make us think of the mighty trees like the cedars of Lebanon rather than cut down promises. But by the time Isaiah is speaking to God’s people in exile, the line of David is in fragments.

Tabb helps us with the chronology from David onward:

"In 2 Samuel 7, Yahweh promises to set his love on this son of Jesse and to establish his descendant’s kingship forever. The Davidic dynasty continues for centuries, and most of these rulers are hardly men after God’s heart like David. When King Jehoiachin is banished to Babylon (2 Kings 24), David’s line is reduced to a lifeless stump."

From the perspective of the Old Testament, anyone could ask, how can the Messiah come from this? Anyone would be wary of God’s promises under these circumstances. Nothing looked hopeful. But hidden in Isaiah’s prophecy (and verse 4 of this hymn) is a lesson about God’s faithfulness towards David’s ancestors.

In the beginning of his gospel, Matthew records Jesus’ genealogy. If you’re not a history nerd, genealogies can be boring, but the “easter eggs” found in just these six verses are not to be missed.

2 Abraham was the father of Isaac,
and Isaac the father of Jacob,
and Jacob the father of Judah and his brothers,
3 and Judah the father of Perez and Zerah by Tamar,
and Perez the father of Hezron,
and Hezron the father of Ram,
4 and Ram the father of Amminadab,
and Amminadab the father of Nahshon,
and Nahshon the father of Salmon,
5 and Salmon the father of Boaz by Rahab,
and Boaz the father of Obed by Ruth,
and Obed the father of Jesse,
6 and Jesse the father of David the king.
(Matthew 1:2-6)

It was not common for women to be named in Biblical genealogies, but Matthew takes great care to include three specific (gentile!) women: Tamar, Rahab, and Ruth.

I wish I had time to go into their individual stories, but suffice it to say these three women’s lives looked like lifeless stumps—until the Lord intervened and turned their lives around. God’s common grace of course covers far beyond our human understanding, but He had a special plan for these women and their offspring. From a seemingly hopeless existence, God brought new life—both belief in Him and a fruitful legacy.

Brian Tabb writes,
" . . . the old hymn [and Isaiah 11] draws our attention to a rich biblical theme of hope on the other side of calamity, renewal from the rubble, deliverance through devastation.”

The Bible is full of stories of miraculous reversal. The Messiah’s family history is full of them. So, it is no surprise that Jesus would turn everyone’s expectations on their head with his arrival and life on earth. Born in a lowly feeding trough, raised in a backwoods town like Nazareth, and traveling around with no plans for food or lodging (far from a glorious resting place!)—this was hardly the description of a savior.

But that is just who He is. Even at the end of His life, Tabb reflects, as “Jesus is hailed as ‘King of the Jews’ not by joyful subjects but by jeering adversaries, He is lifted up on a cross. Ironically, the Branch from Jesse’s stem is impaled on a life-taking tree. . .  The crucifixion looks like the death blow to these prophetic hopes for a forever king. Then, in the greatest reversal of all, the broken Branch bounds out of the tomb on the third day. . . This messianic king ‘conquers’ in a most surprising fashion: not by crushing rebels but by dying in their stead and then standing victorious over the grave."

If that’s not a fruitful branch from a lifeless stump, I don’t know what is. Like a withered twig, Jesus was broken and crushed for our sins, but that did not stop God’s plan—it was the very center of His inverted design to bring all peoples back to Himself. From the beginning in Eden, the wise Gardener chose the way of Emmanuel to turn our darkness into light.

And so we rejoice with the hymn’s refrain:

Rejoice! Rejoice! Emmanuel
shall come to you, O Israel.

 

Blue Christmas: The Light Will Overcome

I first heard the name, “Blue Christmas” in 2015. Before that, I hadn’t given the Winter Solstice much thought. It didn’t seem to connect to anything I saw in my faith traditions. But when I learned about the longest night of the year’s place in the church year calendar, I knew it was something I needed to embrace.

Blue Christmas falls on the shortest day and longest night of the year. It is a time to reflect and lament the hurt and brokenness that exists in the world and acknowledge that God hears and sees us calling out to Him in our deepest need. Everything about this echoes the heart of Advent.

Historically, Jesus wasn’t born in the middle of December. It wasn’t until the year 336 AD that emperor Constantine formalized the celebration on December 25. But nothing is created in a vacuum. Within the Greco-Roman world, this was already a time for celebrating a return to the longer days of light.

Author and speaker Kate Bowler comments on this in her Advent devotional, The Season of Waiting, and waiting . . . and waiting . . .:

“When the early church chose December 25 as the date to celebrate the Nativity, they must have been aware of the powerful symbolism of midwinter, when the seasons turn, when darkness, at long last, begins to diminish.

In one of the early medieval antiphons sung on the seven evenings before Christmas Eve, Jesus is hailed as 'O, dawn of the east, splendor of light eternal, sun of justice.'

We still sing in our carol, O Come, O Come, Emmanuel:
'O come, O Dayspring, come and cheer Our spirits
by thine Advent here, And drive away the shades of
night and pierce the clouds and bring us light.'

. . . Light is so much a part of the Advent season.” (p. 20)

But before the Light, it was dark. And if Advent teaches us anything, it’s that we need darkness in order to more clearly see the Light.

It’s more than a study in contrasts, however. It goes deeper than that. On the first day of Creation we learn that the Earth was “formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep” (Genesis 1:2). And then God says, “'Let there be light,' and there was light. God saw that the light was good, and he separated the light from the darkness. God called the light 'day,' and the darkness he called 'night.' And there was evening, and there was morning—the first day." (Genesis 1:3b-5).

Peeling away the darkness, bringing order to chaos, restoring life—these are all acts of creation and redemption.

The answer to the darkness of grief and loneliness, fear and pain, suffering and loss is not about less darkness. The answer is found with the arrival of Light.

This is the model God initiated with Jesus’ birth. His answer to the age-old cries of His people was not to take away the oppression of empires, the casualties of disasters, famines, and wars, the chronic stain of sin. Instead, He introduced something new: The Firstborn of Creation, the Light of the World. Not to be a conquering superhero, but to sympathize with our weaknesses and enter the darkness like one of us.

Kelley Nikondeha writes in The First Advent in Palestine,

“He (Jesus) didn’t escape the heartbreak or the haunting presence of empire. He was not spared the personal trauma of loss or the difficult learning of how to live without a loved one. . . Before he carried the cross through the narrow streets of Jerusalem, his body carried loss in Nazareth. This is incarnation. Not inhabiting a body of privilege, exempt from poverty and violence, but living in a body thick with the trauma common to most in Galilee and Judea. God incarnated this pain in his own human body. It became a part of His human experience and was woven into God’s eternal memory." (p. 96)

This is vital in our understanding of Jesus’ humanity, and speaks volumes about His all-encompassing love for us. Only, there is a difference between Jesus and the common human. While He walked this Earth marked by trauma and suffering, He also carried within Himself the Light of Life.

When the Gospel-writer John chose to bypass a record of the Nativity story, he created a beautiful exploration of these truths. He opens his book with a parallel to Genesis 1:

“In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning. Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made. In him was life, and that life was the light of all mankind. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.” (John 1:1-5)

Further on, John ends chapter 16 of his Gospel with this verse, a promise from Jesus to His disciples. And to us also:

“I have told you these things, so that in me you may have peace. In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world.” (John 16:33).

Tonight is long. Our numerous dark nights seem to stretch endlessly before us. But tonight we name them. We acknowledge the brokenness and pain in this world and in our lives. And then we hold on to this promise: the Light will overcome.

". . . Weeps and Waits, in Hope"

This evening I want to share something to prepare us for Blue Christmas on the 21st. This is a quote from Sherri Gragg's book, Advent: The Christmas Story.

 

Fleeing in the Dark

In a few days we will observe Blue Christmas, or the Longest Night of the Year. It is a time within Advent to reflect on suffering and pain and to express grief and heartbreak—while simultaneously focusing on Jesus’ promised hope.

In some ways, these last few years have felt like one long Blue Christmas. This has been a very, very long longest night. I suppose reading about Advent from a trauma-informed perspective this season hasn’t helped brighten the mood, but I am a firm believer that the muck and mire of Advent is much more real and relevant to our healing than any amount of holiday cheer and tinsel. I love twinkle lights. I love the way they softly light a room. But they only spread their glow in a darkened space.

We often talk about light piercing the darkness. And that is exactly what Jesus, Light of the World, did. But because he came to us as fully God and fully human, at Advent we celebrate “God with Us”—Immanuel. Jesus joined us in the darkness. And yes, He leads us towards the Light. But when he was still a baby and even a young man in Judea, not much had changed. He experienced heartbreak, the oppression of an empire, poverty and violence.

Kelly Nikondeha writes,

“These advent narratives reveal the Incarnation as more than God entering a human frame. They are also the revelation of God engaging with human trauma of a specific place and specific people. God experienced the excruciating reality of empires and economies from the position of the weak and powerless ones. God absorbed loss and pain in that body. The Incarnation positions Jesus among the most vulnerable people, the bereft and threatened of society. The first advent shows God wrestling with the struggles common to many the world over” (p. 102).

That first Advent, Jesus and his family had to flee for their lives. They became refugees in a foreign land. They left everything behind.

We know this was God’s will. Baby Jesus could not have been killed by Herod (the Great) before Herod Antipas got to witness his death sentence 30-odd years later. But I have always wondered at this part of the Advent story—or rather it’s brief reference. I just finished talking about Emmanuel, God with us, but when Joseph received the dream-message that Herod was on the look-out for Jewish baby boys, they quickly left. Jesus left. If ever a time was needed for saving, this was it. Mass murder happened that week. And everyone wondered, “where is God in our suffering?”

On this side of the Biblical account, we know that God was not absent. But we also know that it never seems that way in the midst of disaster and trauma. Maybe this is an example we can share when people (or ourselves) ask, “why does God allow suffering?” or “where was God when that happened?”

Jesus had arrived as a baby. It was glorious, good news of great joy! But the story wasn’t over.

The story isn’t over.

Our God is a good who prepares the way.

The long night will not last forever. But without it, we cannot see the Light.

Anchor of Hope

I want to explore something I haven’t had time to research or think about; a topic I may blunder a bit. I also want to be cognizant of the women (and men) who reading these thoughts may be triggered by current or former pain. You are seen and loved.

In her chapter on Mary, Kelly Nikondeha makes a brief comment about the gospel writer’s contrast between Mary’s virginity with Elizabeth’s barrenness (p.46). I don’t know if I have ever picked up on that comparison before. Both circumstances bring to mind a sense of longing, and buried pain. We may immediately feel more empathy for Elizabeth who had dealt with unexplainable infertility for her whole married life. Possibly Mary’s longing was rooted in her desire for the protection of a husband in the tough and wild landscape of Roman-run Galilee. Only, before her marriage could be finalized, she was “found to be with child”—a scandalous offense, and the very opposite of security in the home of a husband. Scripture doesn’t tell us much about how Mary was treated when her family and community found out she was expecting a baby outside of marriage (I wonder if they would have even wrapped their minds around the idea at her still being a virgin—that wasn’t how biology worked), but we don’t have to look far to understand the cultural expectations of the time.

For both women, virginity (though pregnant) and barrenness were huge burdens to bear.

We aren’t given a glimpse at Elizabeth’s mind and heart prior to hearing Zechariah’s message from the Angel Gabriel, but during her confinement she remarks, “The Lord has done this for me. In these days he has shown his favor and taken away my disgrace among the people.” (Luke 1:25). Being the wife of a priest, she held some regard in her own rite. But in a culture so centered on the blessing of children, surely her childlessness was a topic of shameful gossip among her neighbors.

Even after receiving news of such a miraculous promise and beginning to feel the quivering of a baby in her womb, a lesser woman would have held doubt and pessimism. Thoughts like, “this is too good to be true,” or “I don’t deserve this” could have swum through her mind.

Yet, when Mary comes to visit Elizabeth, we are told in Luke’s gospel that Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit and exclaims: “Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the child you will bear! But why am I so favored, that the mother of my Lord should come to me? As soon as the sound of your greeting reached my ears, the baby in my womb leaped for joy. Blessed is she who has believed that the Lord would fulfill his promises to her!” (Luke 1:41-45)

Her joy is doubled. And it is infectious. (The Holy Spirit was definitely helping a lot.) Mary’s next words (according to the writing of Luke’s gospel) are what we call the Magnificat—from the Latin, “My soul magnifies the Lord.” Instead of laying out a litany of her woes: scary visit from an angel, pregnant before being with Joseph, Joseph wanting to divorce her (though graciously quietly), any and all scorn from her community, Mary only has praise for her Lord.

In her Advent devotional, The Season of Waiting (and waiting, and waiting . . .) writer, professor, and speaker Kate Bowler explains longing as “the experience of feeling the lack, the recognition, that things are not as they should be” (p. 18). She describes this as the quintessential feeling of Advent. “Advent recognizes the absence of peace, yet the exquisite certainty of its coming” (p. 19).

On this eve before the third week of Advent, I wonder at the ways God prepared Mary and Elizabeth for their separate “comings.” We aren’t privy to their inner thoughts, their hopes and dreams; only the way they choose to respond.

In this case, their actions speak louder than their words (and their words are glorious!)

The virginity of Mary and the barrenness of Elizabeth aren’t perfect opposites, but their contrast can help us see God’s response to all of our waitings, especially those rooted in “groanings too deep for words” (Romans 8:26).

I’ll end with this from Kate Bowler’s devotional:

“Sometimes in the darkness, we dare not hope because it feels too expensive.
There is no energy available for that, humanly speaking.
But hope isn’t wishful thinking.
It’s an anchor into the future.
Because of this, we can bless even our darkening days,
knowing that the earth will once again tilt toward the light.
And it will be a glory that blazes everywhere,
though now we catch only glimpses.
In the meantime, and that’s what we have—the meantime—
let’s come into the light and bless the waiting, because it will not be in vain” (p.22).

Mary and Elizabeth’s pain was redeemed in miraculous ways. We can’t expect anything less for women in Jesus’ family tree (look at Ruth and Rahab!). Yet on this side of eternity, many of us won’t see the newness God promises as an Earthly blessing. His blessings are both miraculous and mysterious. And because of that, we can both rejoice with these Advent women, and be Advent women ourselves, longing in hope.

Waiting in Traffic with Immanuel

It’s been a few days since I’ve written. I set out to write something last night, but before I would even begin to type, I felt my eyes drooping into sleep. . .

As the workdays end, I often feel like I have sufficient energy to tackle the evening with dinner-making, dishing-washing, and (this season) Advent-writing. But then I get into my car and head out on my commute home. By the time I’ve parked on my street, lethargy is seeping in. There are many reasons for this; chronic pain and the early setting sun don’t help. But this being Advent, I began reflecting on the longness of journeys home and the reality that chaos and uncertainty are exhausting. Commuting is essentially an exercise in perseverance (and often long-suffering!). For those two take a train or bus, it can be s fairly passive waiting for movement from point A to point B. Driving, one gets the added disadvantage of contributing to the ebb and flow of with little to no ability to adjust course or speed up.

All I want to do is get home. I don’t want to wait.

How much of life is like that? And how much of Advent is like that? I often find myself wanting to rush through Week 1 of Advent, to get the “waiting” theme over with. While there is rich theology in the exploration of hope and longing, and it’s pretty much the principal motif of this blog, sometimes I just want to “arrive” at the Nativity narrative. It seems a little more ordered, less open for interpretation, yet at the same time ready for deep contemplation.

Writer Laura Jean Truman reflects on this idea of waiting (in traffic). She says,

“Brake lights all the way down. . . I want to reach into this picture and wipe away everything in front of this sunset like ugly doodles on a whiteboard—clean out cars and utility polls with a wet rag and see the sunset that’s all clogged up behind chaos.

Instead, here we are in Christmas traffic, vibrating with bad news and family drama and fears for ourselves, our neighbors, and our earth.

I used to try to make holy and tidy Advent seasons, to wipe away everything unpleasant or ugly or too-human.

But if God was born in a garage during tax season on a roadtrip—maybe the work of Advent isn’t trying (uselessly) to wipe away everything chaotic. Maybe Advent is crying in the walk-in closet - wondering if Mary cried, too, that she had her first baby so far from home and family and friends. Maybe it’s showing up imperfectly, reminding ourselves that if something is worth doing it’s worth doing poorly, tending gently to our shame - wondering if Joseph felt shame, too, about inadequacies and imperfections as a dad raising this Messiah.

Advent isn’t for the ones who have succeed in wiping chaos away. The good news of Advent is “this too shall pass”. . . We are the weary world that isn’t rejoicing yet. Advent is for us. We are the people walking in darkness who don’t even believe we’ll see light. Advent is for us.

Advent honors the ugly and chaotic, and doesn’t tell us to pretend it’s OK when it’s not. Advent doesn’t say “act hopeful!” Advent doesn’t tell us to stop crying.

Advent whispers:
whether you feel hope or fear,
whether you wait patiently or anxiously,
whether you’re trudging forward or gave up and sat down on the path,  
the good news is that God comes anyway—right in the ugly. Right in the mess.”

I’ve never felt like my practice of Advent writing has shied away from the messiness of life, but this year it’s been really hard to focus. It feels a little bit like being in a traffic jam.

Jesus didn’t have to deal with cars during his time on Earth, but he did do his fair share of traveling (even with caravans as a small child). And He never declared those journeys as lost time. Maybe a part of His divine nature wished He could move through time and space in the blink of an eye, but as a human, he was humbly walking under the Father’s lead. And in God’s economy, nothing is wasted.

If we’ve learning anything from Scripture it’s that God uses any and all thing for His glory and our good. It’s on the journeys that we learn unexpected lessons. Some journeys take longer than others. Some feel more full of chaos. But the good news is that Jesus is there, right alongside us. Immanuel, God with us.

The Life-Cycle of a Tree Stump

Seeds are really good at waiting. The seeds of trees have to have amazing perseverance. From the time they are dropped in the ground (by human hand, animal droppings, or “buried treasure”) until the tiniest sprout becomes a towering tree, most trees in the forest span years longer than a human life.

There are many images of trees and seeds in the Bible. The tree of life, the faith of a mustard seed, the cedars of Lebanon, the fig tree. But what about the tree when all that’s left is a stump? How many more years before a mighty cedar (or maybe it was a cypress, sycamore, acacia, balsam, or juniper) falls from storm or carpenter’s hand. And all that’s left is a stump.

Isaiah writes in chapter 11 (v.1-10):

"There shall come forth a shoot from the stump of Jesse,
    and a branch from his roots shall bear fruit.
And the Spirit of the LORD shall rest upon him,
    the Spirit of wisdom and understanding,
    the Spirit of counsel and might,
    the Spirit of knowledge and the fear of the LORD.
And his delight shall be in the fear of the LORD.
He shall not judge by what his eyes see,
    or decide disputes by what his ears hear,
but with righteousness he shall judge the poor,
    and decide with equity for the meek of the earth;
and he shall strike the earth with the rod of his mouth,
    and with the breath of his lips he shall kill the wicked.
Righteousness shall be the belt of his waist,
    and faithfulness the belt of his loins.
The wolf shall dwell with the lamb,
    and the leopard shall lie down with the young goat,
and the calf and the lion and the fattened calf together;
    and a little child shall lead them.
The cow and the bear shall graze;
    their young shall lie down together;
    and the lion shall eat straw like the ox.
The nursing child shall play over the hole of the cobra,
    and the weaned child shall put his hand on the adder's den.
They shall not hurt or destroy
    in all my holy mountain;
for the earth shall be full of the knowledge of the LORD
    as the waters cover the sea.
In that day the root of Jesse, who shall stand as a signal for the peoples—of him shall the nations inquire, and his resting place shall be glorious.”

It sounds like something, or Someone, magnificent is going to come from a withered tree stump. What does that mean? There is historical and theological significance to this motif, as we’ll see in a moment. But agriculturally, this is not necessarily an anomaly. New branches shoot up from tree stumps all the time. What’s amazing is the time it takes. Time that cannot be rushed because the Creator created the life-cycle of seeds and plants just the way he did.

On R.C. Sproul’s ministry website, Ligonier, there is a devotional based on this passage of scripture. The author writes,

“Let us not miss the significance of all the prophet is saying. First, Isaiah speaks of ‘the stump of Jesse’ (v. 1). The image here is of a tree that has been so devastated that only a stump remains. Jesse, of course, was the father of King David (1 Sam. 16:1–13), so Isaiah is speaking of the Davidic line of kings. . . [But] David's line would decline to such a degree that it would be essentially left for dead. History tells us this is exactly what happened, with David's royal dynasty all but dying out as a result of God's judgment of His people through Assyria and Babylon. Nevertheless, Isaiah also saw that while the Davidic line would seem to be dead, life would remain within the stump. A shoot—life barely detectable at first—would emerge. But once this shoot went forth, it would become a mighty tree. A king of humble origins would be a signal for the nations after the exile (Isa. 11:2–10).”

The author goes on to reference John Calvin’s commentary on Isaiah. He emphasizes that the shoot from the stump will come “from Jesse”, not “from David.” Calvin believes this speaks to how low the family line had sunk. It no longer appeared to be a royal family (emphasis on David the king), but a lowly peasant family (which they were, emphasis on Jesse the patriarch).

Sound familiar? A peasant family from the line of Jesse? When David was first anointed king he was truly the least obvious choice. As Jesus grew in his ministry, he was certainly not the leader-type or messiah people expected.

Humble beginnings. Small seeds. Miraculous outcomes.

One of the things that fascinates me the most is when I see my smallness against God's bigness. The movement of time and space and history up against God's eternal plan. Scripture is full of these images we can see woven through the Old and New Testaments, all adding up to the story we are retelling this season. The story of Jesus’ arrival.

When sin first entered the Garden of Eden (another tree!), God could have enacted his plan of salvation right then and there. But instead, He demonstrated great patience in order to unfold a plan that would teach us important lessons about faith and hope and love. For those who celebrate Advent with a Jesse Tree, the ornaments do just that: recount the rich story of God’s faithful and often astounding redemption design.

God is in the business of making all things new. And while supernatural shortcuts (miracles) are known to occur, in His providence, the normal, garden-variety life is lived according to the Creator’s intended rhythm. Things take time. The cycle of living things takes time.

I don’t think a tree knows what it means to be impatient, but the waiting still takes perseverance and care from outside of itself. Human waiting is hard. But just as a gardener watches over the things in his garden, we can rest assured that God is with us as we wait. He is holding this promise in His open hands: because of the Shoot that sprung from Jesse’ stump, we too have the hope of new life. And the resting place will be glorious.

 

"A Thrill of Hope the Weary World Rejoices"

Many of the songs we sing during Advent and Christmas carry deep theology, but we often miss it for the comforting and catchy tunes, as well as the nostalgia and tradition.

Have you ever stopped to read the lyrics to “O Holy Night?” Originally written as a French poem in 1843, the text was soon put to music, and then in 1855 it was translated into English by John Dwight, who was a minister, abolitionist, and music critic. His translation is a song of juxtapositions, showcasing the light of Jesus’ birth against the world’s darkness. It reminds us that Jesus’ coming changes everything.

And then, in the fifth line of verse one: “A thrill of hope the weary world rejoices.”

There is no punctuation to help us determine the causality of this simple, yet impactful, phrase. Does a thrill of hope cause the weary world to rejoice? Is the weary world proclaiming, “a thrill of hope!”? Should we just enjoy the poetic rhythm and not try to analyze the meaning?

I did a quick Google search for this fifth line. I shouldn’t have been surprised. In the last few years, a lot of people have been writing about our weary world, and wondering when we will be able to rejoice again, and what we will have to rejoice about. These have been hard years. Hope has not felt like a thrill, sudden and exciting. Often, hope has been hesitant and held tightly with uncertainty. That has been our reality as humans prone to disease, disaster, and disorder on this planet Earth.

But if we were to take our view beyond ourselves, to the far reaches of heaven, from whence Jesus came, wouldn’t we see hope differently? Jesus did not come for a world full of hope and promise. He came for a world full of weariness and worry.

Author, Shannan Martin writes, “Without the weariness there is no thrill of hope.”
This doesn’t mean we seek out or celebrate weariness. But it does mean there is no shame in our need for a Savior. We can honestly say, “for when I am weak, He is strong" (2 Corinthians 12:10b).

Weary and waiting, let us be a people who expect the thrill of hope that only Jesus can bring.

Awaiting, We Wait on the Lord

Today we lit the first candle of Advent: Wait.

In the following weeks we’ll see Anticipate, and Prepare, and Celebrate.

Looking back, there are many seasons in life that closely mirror these four themes. They are seasons that hold hesitancy, with maybe a splash of pessimism and a heavy dose of realism. We all wait for something. Often not letting hope get the better of us. We don’t want to be disappointed, after all. But then we are given a glimpse of what’s ahead, and our hearts shift towards anticipation. There is something worth hoping for. And yet, we don’t want to get ahead of ourselves, so our expectation remains passive and hesitant. Then, all at once, things begin to move. The patterns shift and things start falling into place. It’s time to prepare. To ready the stage for what is coming next. We are still waiting, but now it is active, and full of palatable hope. There is an assurance that all this waiting has been worthwhile and valuable. Then one day, we realize we have cause to celebrate. The thing we have been waiting for has arrived!

As humans, we are prone to such fickle emotions. If only we could sustain this joy infinitely. Instead, our celebrations often peter out and we find ourselves back at square one much sooner than we’d wish.

Were it not for divine intervention, we would get nowhere with this model of expectation.

And so, God placed eternity in our hearts. A seed of longing that pulls (and sometimes drags) us on this life journey from Waiting to Celebration. During Advent we are invited to literally “act” out our hope, recalling time and again the seasons of lack against the Lord’s abundant faithfulness.

Last year, Tish Harrison Warren wrote, “Advent is a season of hope, and part of practicing hope is noticing where we need it.”

Where do we need hope? What lament are we trying to name?

Those are personal questions. And yet, at Advent they are universal and timeless questions. In Advent, we feel the yearnings of the ancient Israelites alongside our own.

The Advent narrative has its origins way back in the Garden of Eden, however within the geographical timeline of the Biblical history, what springs to mind is the gap between Malachi and Matthew (and Luke, our main Nativity narrator). A single, thin piece of paper separates these two books in most of our Bibles, and yet the calendars tell us about 400 years passed between Malachi’s final prophecy and Zechariah’s priestly obligations recorded in Luke.

In her book, The First Advent in Palestine, Kelley Nikondeha offers a unique, trauma-informed perspective on these so called “silent years.” Drawing from the Apocrypha (books outside of the accepted canon of Scripture), Nikondeha recalls the story of the Maccabees she read about in her mother’s Catholic Bible. If you are familiar with the Jewish holiday, Hanukkah, then you’ve probably heard of the Maccabees (“Hammers”) —the guerilla-style fighters who claimed back the temple from the Seleucid Empire.

Even as a student of history, I had forgotten when these events took place along the Biblical timeline. They land smack dab in the middle of the 400 “years of silence.” Only, Israel wasn’t just sitting around peacefully. These were centuries wrought by captivity and pain. Long before the Roman problem we meet in the Gospels, the people of Israel suffered under a long line of empires. So, it seems only natural that “messiah” types would arise to help save the day. The Maccabees definitely fit the bill. They had a miraculous victory and an even more miraculous re-lighting of the temple’s eternal flame (modern day menorah). And yet, their liberation was short lived. Their triumph had come through violence and despite their success in re-kindling the temple light, the Maccabees did not choose to inaugurate God’s peace. Before long, Israel was under the thump of another empire yet again.

Many faith traditions do not have the story of the Maccabees in their canon of Scripture. We may never know this side of heaven why God allowed some stories to be removed and others retained. But the story of the Maccabees shows us that waiting on God should not be passive. We are not called to take up weapons and “hammer” upon our earthly enemies, but there is a much better set of spiritual armor (Ephesians 6:10-18) available to us. Because while we wait, and watch, and work, we do indeed battle darkness.

Nikondeha says,

“The stories told around and about the birth of Jesus set our sights on a deep theology for troubled times, then and now. Advent pays attention to the people, places and politics of generations awaiting God’s arrival. To approach Advent in its fullness, we approach it from an uncommon entry point: the darkness of suffering, the struggle of a long waiting.

Confronting the hard landscapes of the past allows us to understand the terrain God entered one starry night. The first Advent began in darkness and danger. . .  Advent came to a traumatized landscape and people.” (p. 6)

While God did not send another prophet after Malachi for 400 years, and the Maccabees personally felt that God had no guiding words for them, He was by no means silent. He was upholding His people as they suffered long, with hope and small flickerings of light.

“What does it mean to say, ‘God is with us?’” Nikondeha asks. “It's harder—and more hopeful—than strands of twinkling lights. When we engage the darkness before God's arrival, we come closer not only to the first Advent but also to each one since. In Advent, we learn that God is always coming to our troubled times” (p.23).

So, we end with a different look of the word, Wait. This Advent, as we await whatever we are waiting for, let us remember to wait on the Lord. For, if He is with us, then He surely knows the landscape of our troubles, and holds it all in His hands.

Blue Christmas: Wearily We Look to the Light

During a Passover Seder meal, it is traditional to spill a bit of wine from your glass at the mention of each of the ten plagues that God visited upon the Egyptians. The leader often says something like this: “We cannot allow ourselves to drink a full measure. Our own loves are diminished bye the recollection of this catastrophe. We express our sorrow that the Egyptians had to suffer punishment.”

So too with Blue Christmas.

Christmas and the season of Advent leading up to it are all about hope, peace, joy, and love. Those are the traditional names of the candles we light around the Advent wreath. But there is great suffering in this world. And it must be both acknowledged and grieved.
And so, on December 21 we set aside the longest night of the year to do just that.

But we don’t sit in darkness in self-deprecation. We recognize that the darkness of night makes the light of dawn so much more anticipated and awesome.

The other day as I was scrolling through Instagram, I happened upon a suggested post from ShannanWrites. She said, “Without the weariness, there is no thrill of hope.”

She, of course, is referring to the first verse of O Holy Night:

O holy night, the stars are brightly shining,
It is the night of the dear Savior’s birth;
Long lay the world in sin and error pining,
'Till he appeared, and the soul felt its worth.
A thrill of hope the weary world rejoices,
For yonder breaks a new and glorious morn.

I think we can safely safe we live in a weary world. And it appears wearier still from the effects of political unrest, racial tensions, economic hardship, and an on-going pandemic.

But in the “good times,” we have no need for hope. It’s only in desperate circumstances that we cling to hope that things might change for the better. This dichotomy is so striking. God is forever in the business of Light, but He permits the darkness so that we can better see the Brightness that has always been shining. We can call Him by name: Jesus, the Light of the World (John 8:12)--God with Us, Immanuel.

Tish Harrison Warren speaks often of this in her book, Prayer in the Night. I did not imagine this would be an Advent book, but so many themes have aligned this year. Allow me to share a few passages (note that all page numbers are from the eBook version):

“Mysteriously, God does not take away our vulnerability. He enters into it. Jesus left a place where there is no night to enter into our darkness. . .  To look at Jesus is to know that our creator has felt pain, has known trouble, and is well acquainted with sorrow. But our hope in suffering is not merely to gaze on the biography of an ancient man frozen in the pages of the Bible. The story of the gospel is not a mere mantra or a relic of history. It is alive and on-going. The work of Jesus continues, even now, in our everyday lives. So in hardship we do not look to Jesus solely as one who has been there before, once upon a time in a distant past. We find he is here with us, in the present tense. He participates in our suffering, even as, mysteriously, in our suffering we participate in the fullness of Christ’s life. (p. 92-93)

The hope God offers us is this: He will keep close to us, even in darkness, in doubt, in fear and vulnerability. He does not promise to keep bad things from happening. He does not promise that night will not come, or that it will not be terrifying, or that we will immediately be tugged to shore. He promises that we will not be left alone. He will keep watch with us in the night. (p. 103)

Redemption itself does not skip over the darkness, but demands that every last tear run. (p. 157)

As Christians, we take up watching as a practice, a task even. We stay on the lookout for grace. We proclaim that even in the deepest darkness there is one we can trust, who will not leave us. We believe that even if the worst comes to pass there is a solidity to beauty, to God himself, that will remain. Our posture of waiting does not deny the horrors of the night, but it bets on the morning to come. . . So, we pray for those who watch. (p. 165)

May we hold onto this truth. And let us pray this night for those who watch, and wait, and weep, weary and wore down by a myriad of weights. For yonder breaks a new and glorious morn.