Advent Devotional - Part 8

Photo by Joanna Kosinska on Unsplash

Adoration of the Light

Not so long ago I sat in the pews of a church during Advent, snow falling outside, the warm light of candles within. A woman read from Isaiah 9:1-7 and then people in the pews sang, “O come, O come Emmanuel.” My young son sat next to me and whispered, “This is my favorite part!” Just as the chorus of the hymn rang out, “Rejoice! Rejoice!” He sang loudly, smiling at me. He was rejoicing. I was not rejoicing. In fact there was nothing terribly joyful about me at all. Every bit of pleasure was drained from Christmas for me that year. My husband had just been appointed as senior pastor to a new church. We moved from family and friends to a new place. I was lonely. Nothing felt comfortable or familiar about Christmas that year. The same woman who read the passage from Isaiah helped me to my car that evening. I was loaded down with the normal accessories of young motherhood. As we said our goodbyes and thank-yous, she paused and looked up into the deep darkness of the rural night sky. 

“We don’t ever have to walk in darkness and if we feel it creeping, we just look at Him.” 

What we look at matters. I was looking at the empty moving boxes piled up in my living room. I was looking at family parties I wouldn’t attend. I was beholding my loss rather than my Lord. That conversation in a dark parking-lot taught me more about the meaning of Christmas than all of the twinkling lights, trees, and parties I have ever enjoyed. While I still find pleasure in the dressings of the season, she taught me the real joy of Christmas is to “look at Him,” and ask in wonder like Mary, “How will this be?”

There is no human cleverness that sneaks up on the Incarnation as if to say— “Ah ha! I’ve got it! I‘ve figured it out. It is now my instrument to be used for my purposes.” No, it’s the other way around. The Incarnation surprises us. The truth of our need for the infant Christ is made acutely clear when we contrast our persistent unfaithfulness with the totality of God’s will to reconcile us to himself in holiness. He set the foundations of the earth and laid waste to unformed chaos with unadulterated goodness and order. He set humans over his creation; but we betrayed him, and so we were evicted from the light and life of his presence. The marvelous and unbelievable truth is that God did not want a home that did not include his children. His mighty acts of transcendent power rightly inspire fear and awe. He leads with pillars of fire and smoke. He parts impassable waters, brings rain and drought. He sends manna from Heaven. He routs empires with angel armies. He topples city walls with songs of praise and puts wisdom in the mouths of prophets that we may know his will and heart! But it is when God empties himself of all power and takes on sinful flesh to be a sin offering for us that we are moved to repentance and love toward him. He runs the gauntlet of Hell that we may be spared the eternal suffering of separation from him. 

Our God—the God of all existence—became a human being. 

The Incarnation begins the restoration of the intimate and ordered home that was destroyed by the disobedience of Adam and Eve. The Father has always desired fellowship with his children. We, in our fallen state reject God’s good order and receive the darkness into ourselves. "This is the verdict: Light has come into the world, but people loved darkness instead of light because their deeds were evil” (NIV Jn 3:19). In his mercy Christ does not leave creation in darkness. By his birth, death and resurrection we may now be led by the Light come to us from heaven, who desires not only to guide our feet in the path of peace, but to fill us with his own resplendence. We are meant to be Christ-bearers like his mother Mary, and like Mary it will mean a piercing of our own souls. When an angel of the Lord appears and reveals the miraculous birth of the Messiah to lowly, insignificant shepherds in the dark of night, they do not hesitate to be led by the light. They go and see. When Magi, led by the light of the star, bring the same news to Herod, King of the Jews, he appears as if he desires to honor this long-expected child, but in reality plots to kill him. Herod is ruled by the dark. Whether we have known Jesus our whole lives or for only a moment, our response to his presence matters.

In the Northern Hemisphere the celebration of Christmas comes at the edge of winter, which for many people in the world is a season marked by fewer hours of daylight and dropping temperatures. We welcome the reason to celebrate with festivities and decorations the occasion of the greatest Light entering our midst! In the natural cycle of seasons the months following winter may be brighter and warmer, but the eternal reality of the Incarnation means that all time preceding Christ’s birth is darkness, and all time ever after that moment is illumined by the Radiance of the Father’s refining fire of love for us. The winter of our spiritual exile is over.

See! The winter is past;

the rains are over and gone.

Flowers appear on the earth;

the season of singing has come

(Song of Songs 2:11-12, NIV)

Because Christ came we are eternally in the season of singing and rejoicing, and like the Shepherds our song must be, “O come let us adore him!”

*This blog is an adaptation of a previously published article from Firebrand Magazine.

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