Does anyone feel like we need this in-breaking of the kingdom of God a little more this year? Simply saying that there’s suffering in the world, we’re a country that’s more viciously divided albeit in my short life time, and the community-wide, familial, and personal tumult is not enough. Simply acknowledging this reality is not enough. Frankly, because that attitude breeds complacency and apathy. We need to be urgently praying and seeking God’s will in the big and small ways so we can bring peace, joy, love and hope to the world, in our communities, and within our own hearts.
A dear friend recently shared this quote with me. It’s from Bobbi Patterson, long-time faculty at Emory University’s Department of Religion. “As this darkening grows drawing us closer to a spark of incarnate light generating long-haul love.” I love that. I’ve been meditating on it since she sent it to me. You see, we expect that with darkness, grief, sadness, despair, suffering, a greater darkness, but the opposite is true. That’s when we cling to that spark of incarnate light. That’s what Advent is all about. An in-breaking of the kingdom of God in the form of the most vulnerable thing on Earth, a baby, who came to proclaim release to the captives, recovery of sight to the blind, to set us free of our societal, communal, and personal bondage. As it is written in Isaiah 9:2, “The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light; those who lived in a land of deep darkness— on them light has shined.”
May you draw closer to God’s Incarnate Light. It’s available for each of us. No one is separated from the love of God, and Bobbi’s right, it’s a “long-haul love.” We love even when it’s difficult, even when it’s costly, even when hatred is spewed. We’re called to be the light of Christ and, as Robert Louis Stevenson says, “to punch holes in the darkness.” Gator Wesley always does an Early Christmas Eve service and I prefer not to sing the traditional “Silent Night” choosing instead “Joy to the World.” I love how the entire service is dark and somber and then it transitions with that last hymn, each person has his or her own light and when all of the candles are lit, it’s definitely effervescent light. May we make him room; the light of Christ radiating out of each of us and shining in the world. Come Lord Jesus, Come.
Joy to The world! the Lord is come
Let earth receive her King
Let ev’ry heart prepare him room
And heaven and nature sing
And heaven and nature sing
And heaven and nature sing
Joy to the world! the Savior reigns
Let men their songs employ
While fields and floods, rocks, hills and plains
Repeat the sounding joy
Repeat the sounding joy
Repeat the sounding joy
He rules the world with truth and grace
And makes the nations prove The glories of His righteousness
And wonders of His love
And wonders of His love
And wonder wonders of His love
Blessings on the Journey 