I’m writing beneath a blanket by the flickering light of the Christmas tree while the scent of slowly fermenting sweet dough wafts through my nostrils–our snow day tradition. Snow is in the air. Clouds hang gray and low with the promise of it. Temperatures plunge hour by hour. For the first time this season, we hold hope for snow in these dark, cold days.
My husband and I love snow so much we planned a trip to Iceland in the dead of winter to witness Aurora Borealis and snow. The neon lights of a deep Scandinavian winter are elusive, but we saw plenty of snow falling and piling up, covering craggy mountaintops and icebergs. We walked around a white Reykjavik in the soft glow of an unending winter dawn where the daylight lasts for just six hours before plunging the world back into darkness except on the nights when the sky is clear and the atmospheric particles charge and collide creating an ethereal, other-worldly light show.
Light appears in chaos.
…
Last year, I read Fleming Rutledge’s collection of Advent sermons she’s written and preached through the years. It was the first time I’d been introduced to a liturgical Advent tradition, one that sits (sometimes uncomfortably) with dark and heavy themes. Traditionally, Advent isn’t a countdown to Christmas. Rutledge writes, “Advent is the season that, when properly understood, does not flinch from the darkness that stalks us all in this world. Advent begins in the dark and moves toward the light—but the season should not move too quickly or too glibly, lest we fail to acknowledge the depth of the darkness.”
At the end of a grievous year, I wanted distraction. I wanted the twinkliest lights and the cheesiest Hallmark Christmas movies. Rutledge’s words reinforced the realities of darkness and death, despair and sorrow within the world, and the importance of reckoning with it rather than covering it up with holly jolly Christmas bows. Life, whether Christian or otherwise, is multifaceted. To quote The Princess Bride, “Life is pain.” The life of a Christian is not one of manufactured joy and plastered smiles. This ancient period in the liturgical calendar calls for the examining of darkness within ourselves and the world around us, facing the injustices and inequalities, mourning the losses, grieving a weary world where evil prospers, death lurks, the poor are victimized.
Mary knew the implications of a holy seed growing in her womb. Her song, the magnificat, is a declaration of justice: a God who sees. The same God met Hagar in the wilderness and answered Hannah’s prayers, opened Elizabeth’s womb and blessed Mary.
She sings:
“He knocked tyrants off their high horses,
pulled victims out of the mud.
the starving poor sat down to a banquet;
the callous rich were left out in the cold.”
Mary knew. She knew the world in which she lived where the powerful ruled oppressively over her people, where the religious elite trampled upon the poor, and women possessed no rights and little value. This promised child offered a glimmer of hope. God saw her, a woman, and bestowed their favor upon her.
Light appeared in chaos: a chaotic world, a chaotic reaction to an unwed, impregnated mother, a chaotic journey, a chaotic cosmic collision of gasses and particles, a chaotic birth.
…
Advent is a meeting of our own souls in turmoil,
and the hope–sometimes the tiniest seed–that light is coming, has come.
Loving & Savoring
Advent, a 2021 album by The Porter’s Gate
Advent by Fleming Rutledge. I read this book in its entirety last Christmas. This year, I’m just revisiting a few sermons here and there.
Honest Advent by Scott Erickson, a beautiful book of reflections and artwork leading up to December 25.
Sourdough Cinnamon Rolls – my favorite, tried and true recipe from The Clever Carrot (on Easter I make her sourdough hot cross buns, which are incredible)
I, too, am learning to embrace the darkness of the season and what it may have to teach us! Also reading (and loving) Honest Advent :)
Really lovely Sarah. I’ve experienced the way Christmas pulls me into realities I may have easily denied. It’s a good, hard work. And I wish I had sourdough starter to make those rolls!