Beloved Community,
Advent blessings to you all this December. As joyful and wonderful as December can be, it can also be a hard month. It’s the last month of the year (even if you, like me, can’t believe we are at the end of yet another year) and it’s cold. The month of December always challenges us, inviting us into a world of contrasts. The days grow shorter, shadows stretch longer, and yet our hearts turn toward the promise of light.
We gather in sanctuaries lit with candles, string bright lights across our homes and streets, and proclaim again that
The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it” (John 1:5).
Advent acknowledges that life is never only dark or only light – rather life carries varying rays of both brightness and shadows. Insisting we look for God within the full spectrum of light – searching for the brightness that bursts from the shadowed corners of our hearts.
This year, Keenan and I stood outside on a few cold evenings, gazing upward as the aurora borealis danced across the sky. Those sweeping waves of color—greens, purples, pinks, even flashes of red—startled us with their beauty. They reminded me that some of the most stunning light we ever witness appears only when the night is at its deepest. The aurora doesn’t wait for daylight. It needs the darkness to be seen.
Advent is much the same. The miracle of Advent is not simply that Christ comes, but that Christ comes in the dark. Born on one of the longest nights of the year, entering a weary world aching for hope and filled with fears. God does not wait for perfect circumstances or bright skies. God comes when our shadows grow long and the world grows dim—when we need light the most.
As the kids shared during our First Sunday in Advent Children’s Sermon: you can see in the dark, you just need a flashlight!
May you find that flashlight this Advent season—maybe as a sudden brightness, maybe as a gentle glow. And if you are weary searching for it, may God’s surprising, shimmering light find you.