Magazine Letter for December 2023
December 3rd is Advent Sunday. The season of Advent is all about waiting. But there is more than one sort of waiting – there is the kind of waiting when you know something’s going to happen and you know when it’s going to happen. Like Christmas, we all know when it is so we know how long we have to wait; and there are things that you wait for that you don’t know quite when they going to happen just that they will. Like catching the ball, you know that someone’s going to throw it to you, but you don’t know quite when so you have to stay ready, just in case – fielding in cricket is exactly like that. And we all know that life is like a game of cricket.
The problem with this kind of waiting is that you can’t just sit there with your hands at the ready for hour after hour, day after day, waiting in case somebody hits the ball to you. You have to acquire an attitude of readiness, a state of mind, even perhaps a philosophy of a life of readiness.
For the Christian this philosophy has something to do with the future being within the hands of God. It means that however dark, however bleak, however unpleasant the present is we know that we can trust God for the future, or rather, trust the future to God. It’s not that all is neatly planned out, neatly prepared with no possibility for change, it’s rather that God is still creating, still making things new, still redeeming, still being our salvation. This is what we can understand by the doctrine of Christ’s coming again – the great theme of this Advent season. God hasn’t finished his work – he hasn’t given up, and nor must we.
Within the context of a world that is designed for change, and is for ever changing, within a relationship with God calling people for ever to change, we can be confident, we can “stand-up and raise our heads, because our redemption is drawing near” – because it is always drawing near, because the future is a redemption that is God’s will for us.
This belief and understanding will only be of use to us, however, if we remember not to be “weighed down with the worries of this life.” Darkness is all about us and despair lies like a trap ready to spring shut upon us, that is why we must be ‘alert at all times.’
Advent is a time when we celebrate light coming into our darkness. The people who can use Advent best are those who both comprehend the darkness and do not despair – because they welcome the light, born anew each day in a daily advent of renewed life and hope.
Someone once said “if you want to see stars, you must be willing to sit in darkness.” But if you want to really live – watch for the dawn – and the sun’s rising – and be always watchful.
William