Advent Week 1 - Outpost Against the Darkness

“Almighty God, give us grace that we may cast away the 
works of darkness, and put upon us the armor of light, now 
in the time of this mortal life in which thy Son Jesus Christ 
came to visit us in great humility; that in the last day, when 
he shall come again in his glorious majesty to judge both the 
quick and the dead, we may rise to the life immortal; through 
him who liveth and reigneth with thee and the Holy Ghost, 
one God, now and for ever. Amen” – First Sunday of Advent from The Book of Common Prayer

The reality of the matter is that we live in darkness. It presses in on us from every direction threating ever more to consume us. Advent for me is a time when like in a lightning storm on a summer night the whole landscape is illuminated in dramatic detail. The lightning flash reminds us in the dark that that truth is not in the darkness, the truth of the world around us can only be seen in the light. The truth of ourselves can only be seen in the light.

The lighting flashes; we see the landscape, then the light fades and darkness again is all we know.

Christ came 2,000 years ago as a bright lighting flash brilliantly illuminating the landscape of a cold and dark night. And as soon as that light came it departed again. The world is again dark. It is again cold. We are dark. The Light left with a promise, rather with two. The first promise told us that He would again come back with blazing light that would once and for all vanquish darkness and the evil that takes refuge there. The second promise is that He would send the light into our own lives.

There are times and seasons like summer days where God’s light shines all around me and I can feel it’s warmth. And there are seasons of bitter cold, days of darkness, wondering if I’ll ever see the light I knew so well ever again. Advent holds in tension the violent push and pull between light and dark. We see it in the world all around us. I feel it deep down inside of me.

Advent calls us to remember that Christ did come. He in fact came and walked this earth. His coming alone reoriented and shifted the enter order of the cosmos. And Advent calls us to hopefully look to the speck of light in the distance that promises his return. We live in the in between, the now but not yet, that awkward moment between the sunset and the dawn when little flashes of lightning are our only revelation of the world as it is.

Advent is represented in part by the lighting of candles. A candle stands as a small outpost holding the darkness at bay. I think that is what Jesus was getting at when he declared his followers to be “The light of the world.” He has given us his light, so that we may be small outposts keeping the darkness at bay.

May Christ be Your Light

May you sit in and enjoy the tension of Advent

May you hold on to the promise of Christ’s Light

May you be a small light, an outpost against the darkness.

Grace and Peace,

Justin Friel