My house sits atop a hill on the edge of a wooded ravine. When I stand at the window, as I do every night before bed, and look down, all I see is darkness as all light is swallowed in the dense underbrush. But as I look across to other hilltops, I see little points of light from distant homes.
When I think of this year’s Advent journey, the four weeks that will lead us to the birth of our Savior, the image that comes to mind this year is similar to this view from my bedroom window at night.
Darkness with a far off single light. That light, being Christ.
Our journey culminates with the birth that began the redemption of the world, a world-changing event of God truly with us. God no longer hidden behind a curtain in the temple, but God walking with us.
God so fully human, and fully divine because he still was God, allowed himself to share our fragile human form to experience the vulnerability of being an infant, to feel our pain when a youthful arm was broken in the fall from a tree, the knowledge of hunger when a meal was missed, to experience the gift of love from a mother and father, who cherished watching their child become a man.
This Christ is that distant light guiding us through the darkness.
These four weeks are our journey through the night, with that light always in view, to spend the extra hours of early winter darkness thinking about, reading about, contemplating, and praying about, our Lord Jesus Christ.
As the Light of the world, he came to save us from our darkness, a darkness we still live within.
Our need for this Advent is renewed each year not as an old tradition, but a journey to be experienced anew. With lessons because we are not the same as we were last year. Our relationship with God is always new, always building upon the past.
We are sojourners for the next four weeks, watching for Christ’s leading.
As we venture through the darkness, let us sing for Him,
O come, O come, Emmanuel.
What I’m reading now…
Advent: The Season of Hope (Fullness of Time series) by Tish Harrison Warren
This year, I want to immerse myself in the meaning of Advent. I downloaded this audiobook this morning, it’s short, only a few hours long, but I’m enjoying it.
If you have any other Advent book recommendations, please pass them along.
P.S. You’ll enjoy this classic rendition of O Come, O Come, Emmanuel
Beautifully written truth.