# Advent #

```{note}
This was a monthly newsletter article written probably in December
2000 or 2001. It certainly reflects the commentaries I was reading at
the time.
```

Advent is about darkness, about living in darkness, about waiting for
the light in the darkness. The dark is an uncomfortable place to be,
especially in winter. The nights are cold. The sun's rays in the
daytime do not warm but only highlight the overwhelming presence of
the dark. The nights grow ever longer until the winter solstice, the
longest night of the year. Then there is light, the light that shines
in the darkness. The light the darkness cannot overcome. The light
that lights everyone, the light of life. But I am getting ahead of
myself. Advent is about darkness, about living in darkness, about
waiting for the light in the darkness.

It is tempting to make the move from the Thanksgiving Day feast to the
Christmas Day feast and bypass Advent entirely, to reach for festive
garments of red and green, to deck the halls with bright lights and
evergreen boughs and sing cheerful songs so that no one will know we
are afraid of the dark.

Yet as Christians, we are called to be honest about the darkness. In
summer, the darkness brought relief from scorching sun, but now, it
exposes our own mortality, our most private fears and our deepest
longings. As the darkness becomes more enveloping, we light one
candle, then two, then three and finally the entire advent wreath is
ablaze with the proclamation of Jesus' promise to return. for it is
Jesus for whom we wait, not the baby Jesus, but the crucified and
risen one who is coming soon to make all things new.

We were all conceived in the darkness. We waited and grew and at the
proper time, our mothers brought us into the light. During that time
of waiting, our parents prepared for our arrival, sometimes ill,
sometimes excited, sometimes anxious and even sometimes in great
despair at our promised advent. For many expectant parents, the wait
is long and the labor seems endless. So it is with Jesus' return.
The church waits with the signs of labor all around it: wars and
rumors of wars, earthquakes in various places, famines, signs in the
sun, the moon, and the stars, and on the earth distress among nations
confused by the roaring of the sea and the waves (the signs which have
been always around the church from the first). Yet the new creation
has not yet been revealed. Jesus has not yet come, though the Lord is
near.

Instead of trying to convert the ever-present signs of the
creation's labor into a timetable for Jesus' return, or
carelessly skipping from celebration to celebration with forced
cheeriness, Christians tell the truth about the human condition in the
darkness of Advent. We tell also of the promise of God's salvation
through our savior Jesus Christ, Shining forth in the flickering light
of the Advent candles.

And, to encourage one another in this season of waiting, consider
wearing Advent blue. It is the color of the darkness just before dawn.