"It’s like we’re sitting in the dark and we don’t know it.

Like we’re hidden behind a veil, and we don’t know it.

Just like a baby in the womb, they don’t know there’s more,

There’s more than just the darkness.”
 

“Womb of the Morning,” Misty Edwards

For our neighbors who live on the streets, night-time poses a particular danger. At night, even one’s usual “safe place” can become the site of theft, harm and abuse. Without four walls to keep watch in the darkness, night time reveals our deepest vulnerabilities. Even for those who enjoy the protection a home with locked doors affords, darkness can still be a time of dangerous. In the night, our deepest anxieties and regrets come swarming into our thoughts and minds leaving us with little rational ability to fight off our fears. Advent –  this time of year set aside in anticipation, waiting for the Light to come – reminds us that we all live the vulnerability of darkness year round. This darkness, both real and metaphorical, keeps us from seeing as clearly as we should.

As Hebrews 11:1 reminds us, “faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.”

Faith is the anticipation of something that is not yet fully present. 

Isn’t this reality acutely true for the suffering? For the friend whose young husband has just died of cancer as she falls asleep on an empty bed? For the lonely youth who finds himself living on the street because he has no one to turn to for support?

In the darkness of the pain of human existence, we hope for more. In the darkness of the journey, we long for something more than just the “Christmas spirit.” As we age and experience the losses of time, a few thoughtful gifts cannot erase

the deep ache for the world we watch on the news
the empty seat where a deceased parent would have sat at the dinner table
the suicide victim sister who would have been at the wedding
the estranged friend who won’t be sending a Christmas card
the single mother who doesn't have enough money for a card
the child who will not make the effort to be present at this year’s festivities and
the child for whom despair has turned to gripping addiction.

As we enter this 2023 Advent together, may we listen for the echoes of a better reality and pay close attention to the shadows of light that can be found even in the darkest of places. There is always more than what meets the eye. Like in the beautifully haunting woodcut by Fritz Eichenberg above, there is a presence among us that changes everything. Even if we cannot see him yet fully, he’s coming, he has come, and he will come again.

This is our chosen hope, and the hope that chooses us.