Advent. Happy time. Cookies, lights, carols and friends; crackling fires and cider and cards; warm memories and promising hopes. It is a time to shiver with delight and burst with the good will toward the "all" that scripture directs. With all this focus on light it hardly seems the time to call attention to the chilly darkness that is so much a part of our reality.
But advent, which literally means "coming", is precisely the time to take full stock of the bleakness within our view -- the brokenness and the grief, the cruelty and malignant manipulation of resources and opportunities toward the benefit of the few, the aching need of the impoverished and the violent hatreds of those at war -- to have any appreciation for the grace that God has in mind and in store. Advent is the season of hope, but what use is "hope" if what currently exists is everything you can ever desire? Hope is only relevant in the context of absence. If life already contains everything desirable, anything "coming" can only be bad news.
We needn't concern ourselves with such speculation. The life that surrounds us, while certainly full of blessing and good, is anything but perfect. The gap between the way life is and the way God intends it to be is not only broad, but deepening. The level of American incredulity at the revelation of how much certain peoples of the world hate and resent our "way of life" following the attacks of 9/11; the gasping disbelief over what we could no longer help but see when hurricane Katrina ripped the roof off the poverty of New Orleans are some measure of the denial and ignorance within which we have insulated ourselves from painfully cold reality. Yes, there are good people. Yes, there are helpful deeds genuinely and generously enacted. There is joy around and abroad, and sacrificial efforts to make life better. But...
...we can celebrate and cheer the "Good Samaritans" we see making noble contributions, and we do what we can to lighten the burden and soothe the misery of those we encounter along the roadside. But as Martin Luther King, Jr. once noted, "One day the whole Jericho Road must be transformed so that men and women will not be beaten and robbed as they make their journey through life."
So let us commend the good works of the many, but in this Advent season let us not allow our appreciation for such episodic nobilities blind us to the dangerous roads that still criss-cross this life so far, far east of Eden, and so painfully remote from the New Jerusalem...
...for which we hope.
But advent, which literally means "coming", is precisely the time to take full stock of the bleakness within our view -- the brokenness and the grief, the cruelty and malignant manipulation of resources and opportunities toward the benefit of the few, the aching need of the impoverished and the violent hatreds of those at war -- to have any appreciation for the grace that God has in mind and in store. Advent is the season of hope, but what use is "hope" if what currently exists is everything you can ever desire? Hope is only relevant in the context of absence. If life already contains everything desirable, anything "coming" can only be bad news.
We needn't concern ourselves with such speculation. The life that surrounds us, while certainly full of blessing and good, is anything but perfect. The gap between the way life is and the way God intends it to be is not only broad, but deepening. The level of American incredulity at the revelation of how much certain peoples of the world hate and resent our "way of life" following the attacks of 9/11; the gasping disbelief over what we could no longer help but see when hurricane Katrina ripped the roof off the poverty of New Orleans are some measure of the denial and ignorance within which we have insulated ourselves from painfully cold reality. Yes, there are good people. Yes, there are helpful deeds genuinely and generously enacted. There is joy around and abroad, and sacrificial efforts to make life better. But...
...we can celebrate and cheer the "Good Samaritans" we see making noble contributions, and we do what we can to lighten the burden and soothe the misery of those we encounter along the roadside. But as Martin Luther King, Jr. once noted, "One day the whole Jericho Road must be transformed so that men and women will not be beaten and robbed as they make their journey through life."
So let us commend the good works of the many, but in this Advent season let us not allow our appreciation for such episodic nobilities blind us to the dangerous roads that still criss-cross this life so far, far east of Eden, and so painfully remote from the New Jerusalem...
...for which we hope.
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2 comments:
Yes, it is certainly chilly outside and when I watch the news I feel cold fear inside too. I have to keep focusing on the light. In fact, the darker things are the more brightly the light shines as you point out in this reading. I look forward to sharing time, company and worship with folks at First Christian--that is definitely a bright light in my week. I'm going to hang Christmas lights outside today because Hope is. Good Day, Tim
Good job. Jim
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