For me, Advent feels a bit like coming upon an old, door. Here we are traveling the familiar landscape of our lives with all its varied tasks, responsibilities, and cares, and then all of a sudden, some dates change on the calendar and we’re in a new country whose border is marked by a very old door. And while it’s a country we’re pretty sure we’ve visited before, it still comes as something of a surprise, startling us out of our preoccupations and life as we have known it to be. And yet, we choose to stop all the same. We hit pause on all that has been….. and cautiously reach for the well-worn handle on the door. And even before the door is opened, we hesitate, wary of "who" and 'what" we may find on the other side. We’re perhaps uneasy, anxious, disturbed even, maybe a little frightened... somehow knowing that the rooms behind this door and those we will find in them… will not be safe.
I'm mindful of Aslan, the lion, in CS Lewis, The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe and a conversation that took place between Mr. Beaver and Susan.
Mr. Beaver: “Aslan is a lion- THE Lion, THE great Lion."
Susan: "Ooh. "I'd thought he was a man. Is he-quite safe? I shall feel rather nervous
aboout meeting a lion."
Mr. Beaver: "Safe?" said Mr. Beaver ..."Who said anything about safe? 'Course he isn't safe.
But he's good. He's the King, I tell you.”
Maybe we too sense that the rooms we find in Advent will not be "safe" but "good." Oh, so good. This first room, in particular, is one we wish we could avoid altogether. We have a vague recollection it is not one we will enjoy or like. From the threshold of the door, we can see other rooms, beyond this first one, that hold hope, warmth, joy and light but we won’t be able to get to them without first moving through the dark room before us. And IT IS dark. It’s a space where, “the sun will be darkened, and the moon will not give its light; the stars will fall from the sky, and the heavenly bodies will be shaken…. Heaven and earth will pass away.” (Mark 13:24-25) And yet, if we are to get to all those other rooms where the light is brightest- we must first step into the dark. As we do, that’s when we know we’ve stepped into Advent.
It helps, I think to remember that at the time Mark wrote his Gospel, the world was a terrifying mess. The Temple lay in ruins, civil strife was everywhere, families were being torn apart by differing loyalties, and the persecution of Christians- as promised by Emperor Caligula- was being carried out. With this… false messiahs and false prophets were doing their best to confuse and tempt followers of Jesus. “This IS the Second Advent: I am Christ returned”, the false messiahs would say. As for the false prophets, they had all the answers.... and certainty was on their side.... or at least they thought so: “The signs are right… this IS the end”, they would say. What were the followers of Jesus to do? They were living in a time torn between despair and reaching for anything that offered some hope.
Does their plight sound familiar? It should. The world, at least as I think about it, has not changed all that much. Christ’s Church is not in ruins- far from it- but her witness struggles to reach the hearts and lives of those who feel judged, discarded, and ridiculed by her. Unrest, discord, and horrific realities of war fill our news feeds daily. Some families wrestle for time together amid heaping responsibilities while others wish they simply had responsibilities and a family or somebody, somewhere to wrestle with and love. And given this past year… have we not wondered- even if privately to ourselves- “Jesus must surely be on His way. How much worse can it get?” Have we not been a bit enticed, like those before us, to follow or at the very least listen to some false prophets, as they tell us, with all certainty, what will happen when the end of the world takes place? Do we not listen in, maybe with one ear and think maybe they’re right? “YEP!”, we think. "If 2023 is any indication, it can’t be long now. Just look at the signs.”
More than this, have we not from time to time been happy, elated even, to have somebody else tell us what to do in such times? Have we not sought out such self-help gurus through countless books, webinars, newsletters and TED talks because we really want to believe THEY have the answers we can’t seem to find…Maybe THEY can be Jesus for us in His absence? We may not actually say this or believe it…but I do wonder if in some small way, we hope for it. I wonder if we want a messiah to come save us…even if it is not the right one.
Friends, please hear me here. I welcome the knowledge and wisdom of others. I intentionally seek it out because I know I don’t have all the answers and I need the council, accountability, and experience of others to guide and encourage me. Like you, I try to read books, seek out conversations, subscribe to newsletters, and do anything else I believe will help me to follow Jesus more faithfully. But here’s the thing. I have to work hard to not let those I’m learning from become my messiah. I have to wrestle with whose voice I’m really hearing… Is it the presenter’s, my own or the voice of Jesus? Because this is what I know about me. I know when I’m hurting, discouraged, and depleted I am more than happy to have somebody else come along and tell me what to do. I am more than willing to let someone else take on the work and pick up the fight. And I don’t think I’m alone in this. I think some of Jesus’ earliest followers struggled with this as well. Remember, Mark is writing to folks who no longer had Jesus in front of them, they were being persecuted, and…. the world around them seemed to be falling apart. Of course, they were confused, despairing, and afraid. Who wouldn’t lean toward something better even if were not the real thing?
And yet, here we are and as hard and uncomfortable as this apocalyptic room of Advent may be for us, I think it’s among Advent’s best FIRST gifts to us. I think it matters that we begin in the dark. For here, in this dark despairing space…. where we’re told the cosmos is coming apart….. we are made to see in graphic detail our vulnerability and need. When life is humming on all cylinders, we can’t see it. But here- where there is no light, we can see what we don’t want to see. Here, no matter how clever and creative we may think ourselves to be, we see, we are not in control. We may think our smarts can fully predict the timing of things but they can’t. Even Jesus and the angels didn’t know when God would end things. And if Jesus doesn’t know, well… I don’t think somebody else is going to jump to the front of the line ahead of Him.
There’s nothing quite like a good apocalyptic confrontation to get us in touch with our own brokenness and sin. And this is why, I think it’s good to begin Advent here… in this room first…. In the dark.…because the thing is, darkness is something we all know. Words like…War, Pandemic, Racism, Division, Death, Unemployment, Economic Downturn, Abuse, Prejudice, Hunger, Depression, Suicide, and Cancer, can remind us of the dark place our world can sometimes feel and be. So dark in fact, it’s tempting to dismiss it all for the better rooms that lie ahead. Can we just skip this room, lock the door, and never look back?
I’m mindful of how some have had their Christmas trees up since the first of November declaring the sentiment most of us have been thinking and maybe singing… “We need a little Christmas right this very minute! Yes, we need a little Christmas NOW!!” We get it, don’t we? Who wants to stay in a dark room like this, when we can have rooms full of Christmas? Who would ever conceive to willingly choose to come to such a ROOM… to such a world?
Well, MERCIFULLY… God. God has and will continue to come to such a room and world as this. This is why we need to begin in the dark. If we can’t see our need for God there’s a good chance we'll miss God's coming. We can’t begin to fathom God’s great LOVE for us until we see how lost and dark we and this world can be. Who else but God could bring light and life to the dark ROOMS we know and see?
Ron Harris, a Christian songwriter tells the story of being in New Orleans where he had been working as a conductor. After the show one night, alone in his hotel room, after talking with his family and missing them deeply, he became extremely lonely and couldn’t sleep. Instead, Ron Harris wrote the words to the song, "In This Very Room."
In this very room there's quite enough love for one like me,
And in this very room there's quite enough joy for one like me,
And there's quite enough hope and quite enough power
to chase away any gloom,
For Jesus, Lord Jesus ... is in this very room.
And in this very room there's quite enough love for all of us,
And in this very room there's quite enough joy for all of us,
And there's quite enough hope and quite enough power
to chase away any gloom,
For Jesus, Lord Jesus ... is in this very room.
In this very room there's quite enough love for all the world,
And in this very room there's quite enough joy for all the world,
And there's quite enough hope and quite enough power
to chase away any gloom,
For Jesus, Lord Jesus ... is in this very room.
Countless choirs have now sung this song and yet, 350 recordings later and with over a million copies of the song in print, many still wonder WHICH ROOM the song is about. Is it just about that lonely hotel room? When asked, Ron Harris said, “The song will always be about whatever room it is sung in at any given moment.” Which leads me to believe this…. anywhere faithful folk are gathering in praise and thanksgiving, are out serving and giving or are seeking to dispel the darkness of this world by sharing God’s saving light and love…these places are THE VERY ROOMS where God’s love in Christ is present… ROOMS like the sanctuaries we worship in, the parking lots where we gossip, wherever choirs are singing to shut-ins at the nursing home, every Sunday school room, our own family rooms, the soup kitchen down the street, the hospital across the way, the local school, the nearby prison, Congress, The United Nations, a dirt floor hut in Guatemala, a park bench where somebody sleeps, a kitchen where there is no food, a house where there is no heat, a marriage without love, a child without a family, a drug house with no hope…. In these very rooms and countless more Ron Harris reminds us that "...there's quite enough LOVE for one like me, there’s quite enough LOVE for all of us… there’s quite enough LOVE for all the world. There’s quite enough HOPE…quite enough POWER to chase away any gloom.
For Jesus, Lord Jesus ... is in this very room."
And unless we can find a way to believe that such a thing is true, we’re left only with the darkness. So, let’s wait and see. Let’s stay put, for the time being in this very room. It may not be where we want to be but let’s wait and see. Let’s see what enough LOVE can do and bring even in some of the darkest rooms we may know or conceive. …Let’s keep watch…NOT for the end of things…but for HOW we might be a part of such LOVE….for how we might work alongside Jesus in ALL the ROOMS before us. Let’s embrace our “assigned tasks” faithfully, steadily and expectant of the next outpouring of God’s love in Christ.
Dear friends, we’ve been granted this unexpected Advent room to help us embrace the darkness we and this world knows. Not to bring us to our knees in fear but rather in thanksgiving for the ONE who is already present with us in the dark….who even now is helping us find our way. Beloved, The Good New is Jesus, Lord Jesus ... is in every room we may know and see and every room we may not know and see. He’s in all of them. And because He is, we can face whatever comes along with the many challenges this world has to give. More than this we can enter the darkest of rooms, knowing the ETERNAL LIGHT is ever present and is leading the way. Thanks be to God. Welcome to Advent, friends. Welcome.
Blessings, Leslee
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