Of Bears and Penguins

Advent, Day 21:

Tonight, my Aunt and I joined an old friend at her church's carol service.

We belted out the classics, we watched the kids perform the Christmas play. We sat holding our candles as the sanctuary darkened and the little flame made it's way around the church. And once all were lit, we struck up with Silent Night.

More years than not, I've sat in my childhood church in Texas and done that, and my Mom and I have always commented on how surprisingly light it gets when everyone's candle is lit. Which is of course, part of the point - to see that lots of little lights together can shine up a room.

This year I was struck by that again, but I was struck by something else as well - it was shockingly dark in the church. It was dark as pitch. The faces of my friend and Aunt became hidden in it, the shoulders of the folks in front of me disappeared. It was dark. It was impenatrable, and it was shocking in a cold, insidious, frightful, cloying sort of way.

The older children brought their candles to each row to began the lighting, and as they walked from the front, they too were surrounded in that darkness except for a flame that seemed impossibly small in front of them. While the flame burned brightly, energetically, merrily, while it lit their faces, softened and gentled their features, the dark still clung about their shoulders and back, and just in front of them outside the reach of their candle. I was glad when enough of the front rows were lit, so that their backs were warmed in the light.

I thought, "My God, will we really send the children out into the dark? My God, will we ourselves go out into the dark?"

Personally, the tragedies of this year in my own life have made me more keenly aware of sorrow in the lives of others. Not that I didn't know sorrows before, and not that I wasn't compassionate towards others before, but somehow this year has deepened that, has made me more compassionate, more likely to suck the air in over my teeth and say, "Dear Jesus," in a voice tremulous and low and then be silent.

Sadly, this year sorrow has not only left its mark on my life, but upon the lives of friends dear to me. Grandparents, and parents have died. Marriages have fallen apart. Parents have fallen gravely ill. Babies have not grown as they should. Lately it seems that most of the conversations I have come with some ill tidings.

We live in a perilous place. A downright dangerous, and dark place. A place where sometimes there is no reason, where truth can lay hidden, where bad guys prosper, where good guys get left behind.

I wrote that it's awfully tempting to think that we're not quite as bad a sinner as that person over there. I think by the same token it's true, or at least, has been for me in times past, that it's easy to think that our world isn't quite as fallen, or bad, or despoiled and dark as it actually is. To possess the knowledge that the world needed a savior in Christ, but to mostly go about thinking, "Oh it's not as bad as all that, really."

But it really can be shockingly, chillingly dark. Which can be seen in the depth of the sacrifice Christ made. If it weren't really as bad as all that, then maybe Jesus could have negotiated different terms, have paid a settlement, have served a sentence, but the magnitude of the darkness was so great that no partial payment would do, and so our Lord went to the cross, where His own life's spark was extinguished. His magnificent, beautiful heart that had kept Him going for 33 years stilled. His breath that spoke love to people, that calmed storms, that blessed water into wine for the joy of celebration, that multiplied simple food to feed all, that laughed with friends, that rebuked that which needing rebuking, and comforted that which needed comforting, His breath that breathed out laughter and tears, and breathed in all the beautiful world around him, was stilled. And His hands, hands that healed, hands that planed wood, hands that pulled in nets over the side of the boat, hands that greeted His mother, His hands became cold.

The world we inhabit was so dark, that Our Lord died in order to begin the end of the darkness.

Which is the second consideration of advent - we consider not only the Lord's first coming, but His second when He will make complete the redeemption that He started when He breathed His last, and carried on when He broke death's wicked bonds, and continues till now in the hearts of people and until He comes again to end the darkness forever.

There can be a tendency to not acknowledge the dark, or rather to diminish it. To throw platitudes at it - Well things are bound to start looking up, look on the brightside, count your blessings, be too blessed to be stressed, find a silver lining, something good will come, don't focus on the negative, find the positive, etc.

Here's a small part in my own heart - sometimes when people start talking about what's dark, and sorrowful, I shy away from them. I start looking for a cowbell to give them so that the clanging can tell me when they're coming. I think we all do that a little - that's why there's that joke, "I asked someone how they were? Then they told me, and I realized I didn't." Those clangers can be seen as wet blankets, sad sacks, Debbie Downers.

But acknowledging the frightful darkness need not diminish joy, need not diminish gratitude, need not diminish the brightness of Christ. Perhaps quite the opposite, in looking at the darkness in its fearful aspect, maybe the full glory of Christ's sacrifice, the brightness of His earthly and now resurrected life can be seen more brightly, more strongly.

It's fear that keeps us from saying the dark is really as terrible as it is, as though if we don't say how bad it actually is, we could diminish it's power, keep it somehow at bay.

Oh, but Friend, what is it that the Angels said from the darkened night sky: "BE NOT AFRAID."

What I know is that I've got no strength, nor power, nor ability to keep the darkness at bay, for myself, for those I care about, for the world around me. But though the darkness surround me, I have Christ, who is light.

For in David's royal city, was born unto all of us a Savior. One for whom a way was prepared through the wilderness. Christ the Lord, who is the light for all the world, a light that is not hidden. The one in whom there is no darkness. Jesus who is our champion and conquering hero against the darkness. And where light goes, darkness flees - perhaps not quickly, or easily, but flee it does.

The darkness may be a little frightening, but I trust that Christ makes His light my own.

Saving grace again. Strength for today and bright hope for the day after. Joy through it all, deep, abiding, consuming ravishing Joy, for I have not been abandoned. No Christ, with His light, sought for my soul, and not just mine, but all men and women. That we might know Him, and the one who sent Him, and in them abide in light forever.

And all God's people feared not, and said Amen.