Nov. 27 was the first Sunday of Advent. Christmas is 21 days from today, Dec. 4. For some, the planning for Christmas parties and shopping has started. The countdown of days left to make purchases is underway. Stores have started playing Christmas music to entice people to buy. One sees Christmas decorations with lights, greenery, and all the symbols of the season in the stores as well as in homes. We rejoice in the most wonderful time of the year.
On the other hand, it is also a time of shadows, deep, dark shadows. If you notice, even if we live near the equator, the sun is becoming increasingly short-lived in our sky. In fact in many places, it is the season of the year when light is scarce–shadows and darkness reign. It is a time when depression intensifies.
And here in the Philippines, if you have been watching the news on TV, we see the presence of the shadows hovering over our country. Our former President and her husband are accused of many things and therefore, could not leave the country. And if these accusations are true, it makes one really angry.
It also makes me sad that we have to ask permission to do mission work in small villages here in Negros. It so disheartening to see that in Dumaguete, a place where universities and schools abound, or a place with a lot of churches, there are still killings going on. We have come face to face with shadows even in a City of, what we call, “gentle people”.
A war-torn land in some parts of the world–a number of people die in the fighting. But they are not just numbers to be reported on the evening news. They are people, sons and daughters, husbands and wives, fathers and mothers.
The bullets fly. The bomb explodes. In one awful instant, their lives are snuffed out. There’s more: Riots disturb the tranquility of a major city, and an innocent bystander is killed in the violence. A wife is battered and abused. Shadows, gathering shadows.
Then there are the multitudes caught up in a lifestyle of living in dependency upon the latest pill they can swallow, or the alcohol they can consume, or pictures they can lust over, or the pain they can cut into their dulled senses. Anything to create a buzz, to give relief, so they can make it through the next day. Shadows, oppressive shadows.
A husband and wife whisper, “I love you, and good-bye,” to one another as the husband lies dying, and the wife dreading his departure.
Or suddenly, a life is taken from a loved one in a vehicular accident. Shadows, laden with sorrow.
Financial pressures mount; bills to pay, food to put on the table, students in college having to quit.
Then Christmas is around the corner, and we have to find the money to do something for the kids. Shadows, heavy, hard shadows.
Our text from the letter of St. Paul to the church in Rome, though, is not about problems. It is about hope in the midst of shadows. It is about positive expectation. It is about a Creator God who is at work bringing order out of chaos, joy out of pain, character out of conflict.
“For the creation waits with eager longing,” writes St. Paul, “for the revealing of the sons of God; for the creation was subjected to futility, not of its own will but by the will of him who subjected it in hope; because the creation itself will be set free from its bondage to decay and obtain the glorious liberty of the children of God.” (vs. 19-21RSV)
St. Paul paints a magnificent picture of a world in which hope is triumphant.
The good news is, in spite of the shadows, deep shadows, we can live in the light of that hope today. We can live today believing in the promise of the scripture that that baby born in a manger is the light in our shadows.
L.B. Bridgers served as a Kentucky pastor with his wife and daughters. Tragedy struck, and he was called home from a meeting. His family had perished in a fire that swept through their home. Now he was alone.
How do you cope with such unmitigated sorrow and still maintain your character? Bridgers stood in the ashes of his home and wrote: “All my life was wrecked by sin and strife,
Discord filled my life with pain,
Jesus swept across the broken strings,
Stirred the slumbering chords again.”
There is a greater reality than the shadows. No matter how deep the shadows get, it can be blotted out; the moon may no longer shine, all the stars may fall, there may be no light–but no matter how bad it gets, there is a greater reality than the shadows.
It is the reality of a Savior who came to us as a babe in a manger in Bethlehem, who comes to us in the midst of our struggles day after day in the presence of the Holy Spirit, and who is coming again with the promise that if we open ourselves to his coming, burdens will be lifted from our shoulders.
When we walk through shadows–intense, dark shadows–we have another reality in which we find hope. It is the reality of Christ coming to us and making all things new.
When we are struggling and feel captive to things we cannot escape, we have hope because there is one who sets the prisoners free. When we feel like we are dominated by disease and sickness, we have hope because we know there is one who is the divine healer who makes us whole; one who calls himself the resurrection and the life.When we are torn and broken by sin, cannot escape our guilt, and feel the sting of shame, when the past dominates us, we have hope because there is one who forgives us, redeems us, and offers us salvation.
St. Paul wants us to know that in the midst of everything going wrong, the Son of Man has come, is coming, and will come again. Thus, we watch in hope and confidence for all the ways Christ invades our lives by giving ourselves in total obedience and commitment even in the midst of shadows.
One of the all time favorite Christmas hymns is O Little Town of Bethlehem. It is a hymn packed with emotion, a song filled with the creative power of God intervening in history with the gift of a Savior. It depicts the Christmas story as a story of hope, a story where the divine and the human come together in an amazing but humble way.
It was written by Phillips Brooks, an Episcopal priest who just returned from a trip to the Holy Land. Brooks gave the words to his organist, Lewis Redner, and asked him to create a tune for the upcoming Christmas celebration. It wasn’t until the night before the celebration that Redner got inspired in the middle of the night, and created the song as we know it. The following day a group of 36 children and six Sunday school teachers introduced the song. That was December 1868. It wasn’t published as an official hymn of the Episcopal Church until 1892.
Phillips Brooks died, never knowing the magnitude of the hymn that he created.
Do you know that there is a 5th stanza? It was dropped from the original score. It says, “Where children pure and happy Pray to the blessed Child, Where misery cries out to thee, Son of the mother mild; Where charity stands watching And faith holds wide the door, The dark night wakes, the glory breaks, And Christmas comes once more.” This is our hope even in the shadows.
