You do not have to go very far these days to find causes for despair. Financial worries. Senseless violence. Terrorism. Poverty and illness. Many look around and come to the conclusion that the world looks very bleak indeed.
          Should you be feeling this way, you are certainly not the first. In fact, way back in Isaiah’s time, the people cried out to God, “O that you would tear open the heavens and come down” (Isa. 64:1)! It is on this note of despair that the season of Advent begins. Yet, the season is one of hope, and we are reminded that the Lord is, in fact, near.
          For many hundreds of years, God’s people pleaded with him to come and save them, and God did come in Jesus Christ. The heavens were torn open, just as Isaiah suggests, and the Spirit descended on Jesus in the form of a dove (Mk. 1:10). God had come to live among God’s people.
          At Christmas time, we celebrate that coming and remember that God is not far away but is Emmanuel – God with us – God who has come among us in flesh and blood through Jesus. Advent (which means “coming”) leads up to this celebration of the birth of our Saviour.
          At the same time, Advent lifts up for us how we still long for the coming of Christ. Even back in the first century, Christians were asking, “How long, O Lord?” (Rev. 6:10). They were experiencing persecution and imprisonment and torture and death. They longed for Jesus to return and put an end to it all.             Indeed, Jesus’ return is promised in the Scriptures. The disciples are told that Jesus “will come in the same way as you saw him go into heaven” (Acts 1:11). We believe and we proclaim that Christ will come again. In the mean time, we are called to live not in despair, but in hope. And our hope is in Christ.
          Jesus will return in power and glory, but he is not absent in the mean time. Rather, he is with and in and among his people by the power of the Holy Spirit. He is, and he continues to be, the light that shines in the darkness.
          If anything, the things that we see happening in our world should confirm for us that human sinfulness is, in fact, a problem. While Jesus has won the victory, God has continued to give us the freedom to choose. Some choose greed and violence and power over others. Others open themselves to the Holy Spirit and allow God’s salvation to be made known in their lives. These are the people who are called to continue to be Christ’s presence in the world.
          Advent this year will take us from pleading to preparing to proclaiming to participating. In all of this, God is near, and Christ is seen in us through what we say and do. Not only is Christ the light in the darkness, but we are called to let that same light shine in and through us.
          Christmas was quite purposely placed at the time of year that is the darkest in the Northern Hemisphere. By Christmas Day, already the days are getting brighter and longer. Once again we are reminded, “The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it” (Jn. 1:5).

          In Christ,

          Pastor Lynne Hutchison