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.

Advent Waiting and Hanukkah Miracles

As a Jewish believer in Jesus, one of the most meaningful things I do each year is observe Advent. It is a practice in remembrance and reflection, drawing from the most ancient stories that point towards a future Hope. One such story is celebrated during the Jewish holiday of Hanukkah. It is a wonderful celebration of a miraculous time in Jewish history. Like so much of Israel’s past (both included and excluded from canonized Scripture), the story of the Maccabees is a foretaste of the Messiah’s victory—a victory over sin and death.

Hanukkah celebrates the Maccabees successful guerilla warfare against their Selucid-Greek oppressors and an oil miracle that allowed the Jewish people to rededicate the Lord’s Temple with a fully functioning menorah.

When Jesus walked on earth, he traveled to Jerusalem to celebrate Hanukkah—the Feast of Dedication. The events are recorded in John 10 and only two chapters earlier, Jesus declares Himself the Light of the World. With all this talk of light and re-dedication (in Jewish tradition eight is a number symbolizing newness), those around Jesus asked him,
“How long will You keep us in suspense? If You are the Christ, tell us plainly.” John 10:24b

Thinking back to the miracles enabling them to celebrate the Feast of Dedication, the people pictured an Anointed Savior like Judah Maccabees, someone who could be victorious against the Romans like the Maccabees were against the Seleucid.

But Jesus did not come for that kind of fighting. He came armed with Truth and Light, delivering the ultimate of miracles: newness of life, not just for the Jews, but for all.

In modern times we have the benefit of looking back in commemoration with rose-tinted glasses. We see the glory and triumph, the need for celebration. But in the middle of the first Hanukkah and first Christmas—life was hard. Harder than hard.

A few years ago I quoted from a Desiring God article entitled, "Christmas Doesn’t Ignore Your Pain." In it, David Mathis writes,

“. . . Christmas does not ignore our pain. When we open the pages of Scripture and turn to that first Christmas, we find, without doubt, that all was not merry and bright. The new glimpses of merriness that do emerge fall against the backdrop of misery and disorder. Those first rays of brightness shone in a land of deep darkness. . .

More significant than Joseph’s or Mary’s pain is the pain and sin and suffering and ruin for which Jesus came. The angel declared to Joseph, “You shall call his name Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins.”

. . . If God’s people, not to mention the nations, weren’t needy — desperately so — there would have been no Christmas. Christ did not come to put on a show or make a cameo in history. He came to bring life to the dead, to rescue the perishing, to heal the sick, to destroy the works of the devil. For centuries, misery and darkness had been compounding. Only in coming to such a depraved and disfigured world would his arrival signal hope for any real merriment and brightness."

The story of Hanukkah took place in the middle of what we now call the 400 years of silence. The Jewish people were living oppressed, and they didn’t know if God was even there anymore. There were no prophets to give them a word from the Lord. But God heard the prayers of His people and He never stopped laying the groundwork for an ultimate Deliverer. In the fullness of time, God sent His son to be born in lowly, dirty circumstances. To show us a way out of the darkness. And to make all things new.


Baruch atah, Adonai Eloheinu, Melech haolam, shehecheyanu v'kiy'manu v'higiyanu laz'man hazeh.

Blessed are You, oh Lord our God, King of the Universe, who has given us life, sustained us, and brought us to this season.

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.

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.

". . . And just when everything is bearing down on us"

Dietrich Bonhoeffer’ wrote extensively on theological topics, including the incarnation and birth of Christ and Advent. Some of his great sermons where from the times he left Germany and traveled throughout Europe and across the ocean to the United States.

But when World War II began, Bonhoeffer’s deep and practical faith fueled an active resistance to Hitler’s regime. In 1943 he was imprisoned and spent much of his last years incarcerated before being killed in 1945 at the Flossenbürg concentration camp. Rather than diminishing his faith, his imprisonment bolstered his commitment to sharing a theology of suffering with those who would listen. Much of his writing from these years was in the form of letters.

The following are two quotes. One from a sermon in 1928, the other from a letter to his fiancée in 1943. Both are deeply insightful examples of trauma-informed theology, reminding us that Jesus and the Advent characters are no strangers to the hardships and pain of this world.

“Celebrating Advent means being able to wait.
Waiting is an art that our impatient age has
forgotten. It wants to break open the ripe fruit when
it has hardly finished planting the shoot.... For the
greatest, most profound, tenderest things in the
world, we must wait. It happens not here in a
storm but according to the divine laws of sprouting,
growing, and becoming.”

- from an Advent sermon, December 1928, compiled in Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s Christmas Sermons.

“…And just when everything is bearing down on us to
such an extent that we can scarcely withstand it,
the Christmas message comes to tell us that all our
ideas are wrong, and that what we take to be evil
and dark is really good and light because it comes
from God. Our eyes are at fault, that is all. God is in
the manger, wealth in poverty, light in darkness,
succor in abandonment. No evil can befall us;
whatever men may do to us, they cannot but serve
the God who is secretly revealed as love and rules the
world and our lives.”

- from a letter to fiancée, Maria von Wedemeyer from prison, December 13, 1943, compiled in God is in the Manger.

 

Welcome the Wind

As believers in modern times, we often take our salvation for granted. We don't tend to think about what salvation looks like; what it really means. But the prophets of old, as 1 Peter tells us, marveled at what salvation would look like, and who it would actually be for. Could they even picture us, living in the 21st century?

Here is the passage:

Concerning this salvation, the prophets, who spoke of the grace that was to come to you, searched intently and with the greatest care, trying to find out the time and circumstances to which the Spirit of Christ in them was pointing when he predicted the sufferings of the Messiah and the glories that would follow. It was revealed to them that they were not serving themselves but you, when they spoke of the things that have now been told you by those who have preached the gospel to you by the Holy Spirit sent from heaven. Even angels long to look into these things. – 1 Peter 1:10-12

These are not usual Christmas verse. In fact, they seem to direct our gaze towards Jesus’ suffering and glory (death and resurrection). But all of this is for us. The cross was not the first moment of Christ’s suffering. He lowered himself into our lives—full of pain, suffering, and loss. It is one of the great mysteries: that we share in his suffering because He first joined us in ours.

When God answered the centuries-long prayers of Israel by sending His son, He was knowingly allowing his children to encounter a long list of hard things. Yet the hiccups in the Nativity story don’t often faze us. 2000 years later, they don't seem like a big deal. But if you've ever struggled with a season God has you in (raise your hand if you're human), then you know. The little things all matter. Zechariah's muteness; Mary's shame; Joseph's uncertainty; the long, hard journey to Bethlehem; nowhere to stay once they reached Joseph’s hometown; having to rest among smelly animals; no one to help Mary deliver her baby; having to receive unexpected guests; the Wise Men encountering an unfriendly King Herod; Mary and Joseph having to flee to Egypt, and the list could go on. Those are just some of the things that Scripture records. But every bit of struggle, inconvenience, and hardship is important to the narrative.

I don’t think the prophets would have been surprised. They served a God who didn’t wipe away calamity but walked through it with them. The people of the Old Testament—even having to rely upon priests and prophets—understood the concept of Immanuel much better than we do; much better than first century Israelites did as well.

But if we stop and think, each of our salvation stories (the big S salvation, and the daily act of “working out our salvation with fear and trembling”) reflects the road Christ took. Even before His birth, the road was fraught with both “suffering and glories.”

Sometime this past summer I listened to author KJ Ramsey speak on a podcast. She told the story of a biodome in Arizona, a man-made biosphere meant to research the possibility of sustaining life on a far flung planet. The plants were growing well and quickly, but one thing the scientists neglected to include: wind. You see, the trees grew so tall, yet their roots were under-developed. Trees need wind. The push and the pull, and sway and the rustle of leaves actually strengthens the tree’s root system. The struggle is necessary for a strong tree.

So too with humans. That is the beauty of the Nativity story. It reminds us to welcome the wind. And to trust that God knows and sees the gales He is leading us through. For His glory and our good.

"The First Night" and Christmas' Pain

Nativity picture books are a wonderful way to tell the story of Jesus’ Advent and birth. But as I read through these beautifully illustrated stories, there is something missing. It is a key component of Advent. And if we aren’t careful, leaving it at the door will rob us of a very important message about Christmas.

In his article, Christmas Doesn’t Ignore Your Pain, David Mathis writes,

The real Christmas does not ignore our pain. When we open the pages of Scripture and turn to that first Christmas, we find, without doubt, that all was not merry and bright. The new glimpses of merriness that do emerge fall against the backdrop of misery and disorder. Those first rays of brightness shone in a land of deep darkness. . .

More significant than Joseph’s or Mary’s pain is the pain and sin and suffering and ruin for which Jesus came. The angel declared to Joseph, “You shall call his name Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins.”

. . . If God’s people, not to mention the nations, weren’t needy — desperately so — there would have been no Christmas. Christ did not come to put on a show or make a cameo in history. He came to bring life to the dead, to rescue the perishing, to heal the sick, to destroy the works of the devil. For centuries, misery and darkness had been compounding. Only in coming to such a depraved and disfigured world would his arrival signal hope for any real merriment and brightness.

I don’t know about you, but misery and darkness aren’t themes I see in many picture books. It’s often too deep a subject for young readers’ blossoming minds and hearts. Yet, as I wrote about last Blue Christmas (December 21), we need the darkness to more fully see the light. A story is the most powerful when the protagonist has to overcome a great obstacle or challenge. So why are all these nativity stories so docile and quiet?

Today’s picture book is a perfect example of this. B.G. Hennessy’s The First Night, illustrated by Steve Johnson and Lou Fancher is almost pure Nativity fact. No extraneous details or additional animals are there to help tell the story. It’s simple and beautiful. But after reading Mathis’ article, it struck me how much it was devoid of pain.

But I don’t really think it is. The author opens the book with John 1:14: "And the Word became flesh, and dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory, glory as of the only begotten from the Father, full of grace and truth."

Maybe it’s that grace and truth tend to shine brighter than the pain. The pain of Mary, of Joseph, of a waiting nation, of an over-crowded Bethlehem, of a baby who would grow up and suffer and die for us, the ones desperately in need of God’s presence among us. He lived a painful and difficult life, yet flowing through His veins was a sustaining joy that could not be quenched, even by death.

Mathis continues,

The great joy the angels announced at that first Christmas can sustain us as well. Christmas doesn’t ignore our many pains; neither does it bid us wallow in them. Christmas takes them seriously, more seriously than any secular celebration can, and reminds us that our God has seen our pain and heard our cries for help and he himself has come to deliver us.

 The last few pages of The First Night read,

There was a mother, a father, and a baby.

The baby lay on a bed made of hay.

The baby was seeing this world for the first time.

He saw the swaying lantern, the donkey, and the woolly lamb.

He felt the night air,

his soft blanket,

his mother’s arms,

his father’s hands.

And in that warm, dark stable

His life began.

The scene looks so serene. But it was not devoid of darkness. That is where God intended for Jesus' life to begin. With this humble beginning in a dreary and broken world, He grew up to become our Light of Life.

We cannot forget that Christmas includes our pain. Without it, there would be no reason for Jesus to come at all.