“The
light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.”
- John 1:5
When
the world seems interminably shrouded in darkness and despair, we feel helpless.
Terrorism, racism, war, poverty, disease—at times it seems like too much to
take. So some react with anger, calling for bombs to be dropped or new laws to
be passed or officials to be fired, but whether such measures are taken or not,
the darkness remains, sometimes recognizable and sometimes springing up in a
new form. Some react with sadness, weeping at the evil in our world and
wondering where it will come from next. And some react with weary apathy, unwilling
to expend the emotional energy on problems without solutions and tragedies
without consequences.
Whatever
form your response takes, it seems to be unavoidably rooted in helplessness and
hopelessness. We have come to believe that there is nothing we can do to stem
the tide, that we are too small and the darkness is too overpowering. These
things, whether mass shootings or impoverished families or terrorist attacks,
these things just happen. There’s nothing you or I can do but wait for the next
inevitable headline.
Into
such a season of darkness steps the light of Advent, the hope of a child born
to save us from the sin that haunts us. In the birth of Jesus we are reminded
that God is no passive Lord, watching us suffer from a comfortable distance,
but that He is the one who became flesh and dwelt among us. In the stories of Mary
and Joseph, we are reminded that the Savior was not raised by kings, but by commoners,
that no person is too small to be used by God. As we remember that starlit
night that angels rejoiced alongside shepherds, we draw hope from the sight of
heaven touching earth, and pray that it might be so again.
The
hope of Advent is the joy of a promise fulfilled, but it is also the expectation
that God’s work is not yet completed, that there is still time to bring people
the hope of Christ. As a child of God, may you never be so discouraged by the
darkness of this world that you lose sight of the light. Nothing, the angel
told Mary, will be impossible with God—may that promise motivate and inspire you
to keep serving when you want to curl up in the fetal position, to keep loving
when you want to lash out in hatred, to keep hoping when you feel hopeless. For
even when the darkness threatens to overwhelm and overpower you, you can
assured of this in Christ—the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness
has not overcome it.
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