A thrill of hope, a weary world rejoices
For church school leaders, the advent season signals the beginning of the end of another academic term. For most of us, this means we’re feeling rather weary by this point. Physically, yes, but also mentally and emotionally. The work we’re called to is both incredibly rewarding and immensely challenging. The fatigue and heaviness we can often feel in light of our responsibilities, school and staffing challenges, (not to mention the general state of the world), can seem at odds with the forced merriment that gets dialled up around us this time of year.
Holly jolly Christmas music blasts from our radios. Happily ever after hallmark films fill our tv screens. The Christmas marketing machine contrives a compelling case that life would be all sparkles and smiles if we just bought a new L-shaped sofa.
Amidst all these false promises and pretenses, I find myself breathing a sigh of relief as our local church gathers each Sunday to quietly light another candle on the advent wreath.
Hope. Peace. Joy. Love.
Light shining in the darkness.
In so doing, I am reminded that Advent is a time not of false promises and pretending, but honest and gritty waiting and wanting. A time of naming our hard realities and deepest longings, whilst looking forward in hopeful anticipation of what is to come.
A time that holds space for the darkness, for the “not yetness”, but is not overwhelmed by it. (John 1:5)
A time that allows us to sing above the commercial noise, incessant distractions and underlying despair, songs like “O Holy Night” and “O Come, O Come Emmanuel”. Old carols that remind our weary souls of the “thrill of hope” we have in Christ. That though the world “lay in sin and error pining”, Christ came to set us free - and is on his way back to finish the job. To “disperse the gloomy clouds of night and put death’s dark shadow to flight”.
This is the hope of Advent, that the Light has come and is coming.
That the darkness is real, but its days are numbered.
Afterall, the Christ child was not born into a winter wonderland but a world of chaos, of violence. The incarnation happens within the context of infanticide (Matt 2:16). The angels sing (Luke 2:13-14), whilst mothers weep (Matt 2:18). Mary and Joseph are forced to flee their home and live as refugees (Matt 2:14). This is the messiness into which the Messiah enters. The darkness into which the Light shines.
Author Jonathan Martin puts it this way:
“We still inhabit a world as dark, violent and chaotic as it ever was. It does not slow down, nor become more patient, more merciful or less demanding. The world carries on as it always has. Only one thing is different about this night than all the ones that came before, and it is this:
God
is
with
us.
God is
with us.
God. is. with. us."
“Book of Waiting: Reflections on Advent and Christmas”
Christmas reminds us of the unshakeable truth that God is with us. Advent invites us to hold space for the people, places and situations where we long for more of His presence to come.
And so this Advent I invite you to join with me in praying one of the earliest recorded prayers of the church: the aramaic word “Maranatha” which simply means “Come Lord Jesus.” The latin word “Adventus” means the very same thing: “Come”.
Maranatha, Come Lord Jesus, Come.