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“Advent Light”
Isaiah prophesies:
“The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light;
Those who lived in a land of deep darkness—on them has light shined.” (Isaiah 9.2)
And Paul writes, “You know what time it is, how it now the moment for you to wake from sleep…The night is far gone, the day is near.” (Romans 13.11,12)
Advent is the time God gives us to look for the light, for the ribbons of a dawn that is about to break. Advent is the time God gives us to wait, to suspend judgment (that belongs only to God anyway), to look deeper than worldly appearances, to listen with more than our ears to who lies beneath the surfaces of what people say and do, to be more patient and gentle with ourselves and others than we are apt to do through the rest of the year. Advent is the time God gives to realize that others, yourself, and God are so much more than any one thing.
Yet how many times do you forget this about other people, about yourself, about God even and rush to conclusions that are, let us say, incomplete?
A couple you love dearly chooses to separate or divorce. After the initial surprise of their decision (which maybe—or maybe not—you sensed was coming), you find yourself searching for some definitive, clear truth about what happened. But did you hear the hurt and anger that was poisoning their lives? Were you aware of their non-stop sleepless nights wondering if they should—or could—stay together? Did you see them gasping for the breath to be simply themselves?
Or maybe it’s someone you think has it all together, all the
ingredients of whatever success means in
Or maybe it’s the dressed-to-the-nines woman who is still hoping she will be invited to her high-school prom.
Or the man who lavishes compliments on others while at the same time fearing that someday you will find him unlovable.
Or the man who hides how vulnerable he is behind a bravado of brash obscenities and slang.
Or the woman who hides how fragile her hold on her sanity, her life behind diet and exercise.
A Psalmist once exclaimed that each one of us is so “fearfully and wonderfully made.” How true that is. Advent is the time God gives us to appreciate that…not only about ourselves, but about others…and so become gentler, kinder, and more patient as we await the day when the whole of what it means for us to be human and the whole of what it means for God to be God comes to light.
“The people who walked in darkness,” Isaiah proclaims. We know those people. They are you. They are me. They are us. “On them has light shined,” Isaiah continues. We know that, too. We know that light. I used to think of that “great light” as a great, big sunburst. I used to think of it that way. I think now, however, this “great light” is more like the glow of a candle flickering in a stable somewhere that has a heart for everyone to enter, come close, and just be. Just be.
At the time of Jesus’ birth, if anyone had asked anyone else, “What’s the really important thing that’s happening in your life, in your town, in our province right now?” Those that answered that question would have quickly piped up, “It’s the census and, along with that, the taxes, military conscription, the economy, and our social position for the next fourteen years.” Who knew that the most important thing happening then was happening in relative obscurity? The birth to a peasant woman in an insignificant Palestinian village of an infant who would at his prime be hanging on a cross bearing the suffering of his family, friends and the world on his shoulders and displaying the full love of God for them all. At the time, who knew this truth about who this child who become?
Who knows the full truth about any one of us? God, of course. But who of us? None.
Just consider for a moment one example:
The actor Lee Marvin is buried in
Lee Marvin was a genuine hero. He won the Navy Cross at
Even more surprising is that Marvin once credited his sergeant with an even greater show of bravery on “The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson”:
“They gave me the cross for securing a hot spot about halfway up Suribachi. Bad thing about getting shot up on a mountain is guys getting shot hauling you down. But, Johnny, at Iwo I served under the bravest man I ever knew…We both got the Cross the same day, but what he did for his Cross made mine look cheap in comparison. That dumb guy actually stood up on Red beach and directed his troops to move forward and get the hell off the beach. Bullets flying by, with mortar rounds landing everywhere and he stood there as the main target of gunfire so that he could get his men to safety. He did this on more than one occasion because his men’s safety was more important that his own life.
That Sergeant and I have been lifelong friends. And this Sergeant Keeshan was the bravest man I ever knew. The Sergeant’s name is Bob Keeshan. You and the world know him as Captain Kangaroo.”
The point here is one point of Advent. God gives us this time of year to see, as best we can, other people through the light he offers us in the Christ-child. Through the light of that love through which God committed himself in love and sacrifice for each and every person in this world. The truth about a person in the light of this world is always deeper than we can fathom; the best we can know are just shards of their truth. The first, full, and last truth about the people we meet in the light of God is that each and every one is a child of God in whose face and hands and legs, in whose heart and mind and soul lives the Holy Spirit of God.
Not that God had to brag about or make a big splash. The light of God we wait for is going to be found not so much in the pomp and circumstance of this season but in the whispers of love you listen for, in the candles of light you look for in others, in the goodness and blessings you remember and hope for in just being alive and yourself.
Nor do life’s truest heroes have to make a big splash either. They go about their daily lives doing what they do best and in their own way earning our respect.
Fred Rogers said in one of his programs, “My hope for you at the beginning of this new moment in your life is that you take good care of that part of you where you best dreams come from, that invisible part of you that allows you to look on yourself and your neighbor with delight. Do your best to appreciate the gifts that you really are and always will be…to look for every opportunity that allows you to clap and cheer, loving your neighbor as yourself.” (Fred Rogers, Life’s Journeys According to Mister Rogers)
This Advent, take care of the welcoming, loving light of the Christ-child in yourself and look for that light in others. Take good care of that part because it helps you see and understand, accept and embrace your neighbor more fully than you ever have before.