It is almost the second Sunday of advent, and here I am just getting around to writing about the first. It isn’t for lack of trying. I wrote about a thousand words that somehow substack ate and I am frankly grateful. I was trying to say a lot of things and thus ended up saying pretty much nothing. Isn’t that always the way.
I grew up evangelical, but my mom had a deep love of advent, the candles, the songs, the things they stood for, the drawing out of the christmas story, the christmas journey. The first candle, she would say, as we rotated who would light it, is the prophet’s candle, or the candle of Hope.
A few days ago those words, in her voice of course, popped into my brain as I drove home from an emergency Walmart run so my fifth grader could be ready for the 12 days of spirit days counting down to Christmas break. We passed a sign that had been freshly hung, JESUS IS COMING, it told us in bold black letters on a bright yellow background. REPENT it said underneath the first sentence.
The REPENT I could have done without. I do believe that there is much to be repented of, but the way the sign was worded made it sound as if Jesus is a great hall monitor and we are all down here giggling at our lockers when we are supposed to be in class. I don’t think thats the message of Jesus coming. I don’t think God is the great kill joy in the sky.
But I do think we need prophets, those who proclaim the kingdom of God. Most of the prophets in the old testament were pretty dark, their messages were pretty dark and I have been thinking about that a lot lately as I think of the pairing of hope and the prophets. Hope, I think has the tendency to be wrapped as a package with a note on it that says “perhaps it isn’t that bad” or “things will surely get better tomorrow.” Things that simply may not be true. But when I pair the prophets with hope I hear something else.
We light candles at advent, during the darkest four weeks in the year. We light candles against the darkness. In order for the candles to mean anything, we at first have to admit that it is dark around here. In order for the fact that Jesus came, that Jesus’ kingdom is coming to be good news we have to first acknowledge the fact that the kingdom we currently live in is in desperate need of re-ordering. In order for hope to have its place, we first must admit that there is a lot of darkness around.
The world may package hope in a package with a note that says “actually it isn’t that bad” but Advent opens that up to find the truth, this is really really hard, and it doesn’t have to be like this. It could be better. It will be better. Jesus proclaims that things are in fact changing, even if all we can see is a pregnant woman on a donkey, plodding her way to her husbands family, massively uncomfortable but having already proclaimed the truth. It is extremely dark outside right now. But we light this candle to remember it doesn’t have to be this dark. The light is coming.