Dawn is Breaking. Resist the Night.

Photo by Maxim Tajer

It's (almost) the most wonderful time of the year—that time of the year when in defiance and resistance, we stare down the darkness of the world, holding fast to the reality that the Light has come, is at work among us, and will one day come again to vanquish darkness and usher in peace once for all. Well, in theory, at least. I suspect this attitude doesn't characterize this season for you. Me neither. But I want it to. I want it to characterize my whole being.

I think I love Advent so much because it captures all we are meant to be—a community of hope afloat in a sea of darkness and death. It acknowledges what we all know down in our core. Something is very wrong. As Fleming Rutledge says, "Advent begins in the dark." In this simple phrase, she helpfully redirects our gaze to a season breaking in on us, one that recalls and anticipates God's breaking into the world, a celebration, and expectation of apocalypse.

In Advent, we simultaneously look back and look ahead to the Light's coming into the world. Taking stock of this should force us to shudder. The world is irreparably dark. And when Light shines into darkness, darkness is eradicated. This is what the scriptures mean by the judgment of God. This idea, characterized as the great and terrible day of the Lord by the Old Testament prophets, was one of justice rolling down upon the earth. Yet, if we are honest, we contemplate neither judgment nor darkness this time of year. And I think I know why.

Boisterous and bully, quiet and helpless.

We live among two Christmas seasons. The boisterous bully of a season we are familiar with, marked by Santa Clause, presents, and joy (or at least its synthetic stand-in, indulgence), drowns out its counterpart. The other Christmas season, the one of darkness and judgment, refuses to leave the shadows, not in cowardice but defiance. It is a season that refuses to pretend the world is something it is not. Because of this, we don't want much to do with Advent. It's small, dark, quiet, and helpless. And rather than promising to save us via indulgence and distraction, it reminds us we need saving. Much like the first coming of Jesus, Advent is quiet, sure, hopeful, and at first glance innocuous.

These two seasons could not be much different—one a season of self-indulgent diversion, the other a season of substantial darkness and genuine hope. One season offers the continuation of darkness. The other may help us meet the God who frees us from it.

Please don't misunderstand me. I love Christmas time. I love the music, the lights, the tree; I am here for it all. But this loud version of the Christmas season does all it can to fill our worlds with false light. For this reason, Advent doesn't feel impoverished and dark, full of the dread of death and judgment. The loud version of Christmas offers you everything you need to numb yourself to the reality of the world's injustice, death, and chaos. Because of this, we easily forget Jesus' claim that we are sheep among wolves.

A world of death.

It is hard for us to live with the reality that we exist, fully alive, in a world of death. We've instead capitulated to hollow holiday celebrations. We no longer look like strangers and foreigners in the world. Advent's first Sunday being preceded by Black Friday almost ensures any attempt to free ourselves from this cycle ends before it can begin. Joy to the world, we get more stuff. After all, it's almost impossible to care about the darkness when the deals are this good.

Nonetheless, whether we confront it or not, we live in a world of darkness, in dire need of liberation from a Light outside ourselves. Humanity, this earth, all of it, is subjected to the same fate—death and decay until resurrection. This is Advent's confession. By starting here, we can begin to reclaim one of the core virtues of God's people, hope.

The temptation will be to live in denial, to refuse to acknowledge the absolute breadth and depth of our and the world's poverty. It hurts to do this. It costs us something. And so we tell ourselves things aren't that bad, even in the middle of a pandemic that has claimed the lives of over 5 million human beings.

Still, it is easier for us to go on our merry way than to involve ourselves with unimaginable darkness. In this way, we make peace with our fate. We learn to coexist with death, shrugging it off, becoming complacent. After all, the darkness has become quite comfortable. But Paul sharply brings things back into focus for us "Who hopes for what he already has? But if we are hoping for something that has not yet come, we wait for it patiently, expectantly, eagerly (Romans 8:24-25 my paraphrase)." By nature, real hope can only come from a place of dissatisfaction and resistance. A belief that things must and will change.

Red pill or blue?

So we are faced with a choice. The red pill or the blue as it were. Do we take Advent's journey into the darkness and wake up to the harsh reality of the world we live in, creating space and need for the Light? Or do we instead lull ourselves back to sleep with distraction, indulgence, and coping mechanisms dressed in semi-religious celebration? Will we, like Jesus, enter into the darkness and stand in expectation and dissatisfaction, waiting, hoping, expecting? Or will we whitewash the darkness in us and around us with veneers of cheer—eating, drinking, buying what we want in the name of Jesus' birthday?

This year doesn't have to be the same for you and me. We don't have to drown out the darkness but can stand in resistance against it. What if this Advent became a real turning point in our vision of the good life? And herein lies the dread of judgment and justice. When that great and terrible day of the Lord comes, what might He require of me? But this dread turns to joy when we realize that buying into Jesus's upside-down vision for the good life doesn't cost us anything. On the contrary, we find ourselves gaining life.

Advent is a season of hope. As such, it is anticipatory and impoverished. It begins in the darkness‚—the darkness among us, the darkness opposing us, and the darkness within us. We see it, name it, and from that uncomfortable place, resist it—all the while attempting to do so in a wash of black Friday deals and mass consumerism.

Will you join me in resistance? Over the next month, will you commit to joining me in prayer and contemplation on living as a people of hope? Can we invite God to help us see and acknowledge the poverty and injustice around us in big and small ways while asking how God might want us to reorient our lives towards living into Jesus' vision of love for God and neighbor? Every Friday, we will post an advent reflection in an attempt to cast a vision for how God's coming into our world has truly freed us to love and stare down the darkness.

Dawn is breaking.
Let's resist the night.