Light at Christmastime
Letters for the Road: December 2022
Dear reader,
I, along with a few friends, recently lamented the incongruity of much of Advent imagery with the season and weather of Australia. We have steadily, if more slowly that usual, emerged into summer, with its promise of holidays, warmth, picnics, and lazy beach days. And light: long, bright days of intense sunlight adorn our summer days.
For those of us in the southern hemisphere, the Advent theme of darkness and yearning for the light sounds off-key. We already have light in abundance, and we are basking in it.
Preachers and teachers often remind us of the socio-political situation of Mary and Joseph’s world as a means of emphasising the anticipation and yearning that the Jewish people felt as Jesus breaks onto the scene of the New Testament. The promises of a coming King given by God hundreds and thousands of years earlier were yet to be fulfilled. The Roman occupation of Israel burdened the Jews with their Gentile ways and their taxes. The desire for a Messiah, for a saviour to come and relieve them, would have been intense.
But we don’t always feel this same intense longing for a saviour. Perhaps there is a lesson in the light-filled Australian summer Advent season, even as a dark winter Advent reminds us of the longing that ought to be our posture towards Christ’s coming. Perhaps the light-filled summer reminds us that Christ’s coming, both his coming as an infant two thousand years ago and his future return, is not everywhere met by a longing receptivity. Instead, as the apostle John reminds us, he was not received or recognised by his own. We do not realise that we need him. Bathed in the light of the sun, we do not sense a need for any other light.
This points, not to the superfluity of Christ’s coming, but to the need for our own transformation: for a vision of our lives as in fact needy and desperate, despite appearances to the contrary.
And really, whether you are reading this by the natural light of the sun, the electric light of indoor lamps, or the digital light of your device, all can be occasions of deluding ourselves that it’s fine, we’re all fine, really. Our neediness is easily buffered by the abundance of our world, and we imagine that we are self-sufficient and dependent on no-one.
But the sun sets, the power goes off, and batteries die. And when they do, we find that we are not the ones sustaining the world, but can only receive what has graciously been given.
In his mercy, Christ came not only to those who yearned for a Messiah, for those who felt their neediness and cried out for salvation. He came also to those of us who are satisfied with our own light.
Jesus told the Pharisees, “It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners” (Mark 2:17). The implied question is not “Are you sick? Are you a sinner?” but, “Do you realise that you are needy?”
And so, dear reader, whether you are bathing in sunlight or huddled in the darkness, may you know your neediness for the Light of the World, who brings light and life to all.
Merry Christmas.
An Advent poem, part inspiration for what I wrote, above.
ADVENT
And there was already light:
A stainless steel glare breaking
through the eucalypts;
The sky enamel, cobalt-washed,
lapis lazuli blue.
The north wind blew in from the
desert:
Drowning in the hot scent of
mock orange and ripe mango
We longed for the cool change and
the sea breeze.
It was already the longest day:
Why should I await the Light of
the World
When I already have a surfeit?
Into the crowded starry midnight,
The neon and electric city festival,
Into the early dawn jangling
with birdsong,
Into my summer:
Then came the Christ Child into
the brightness
And he was more than the sun.
– Katherine Firth
Adoration of the Shepherds, Giorgione.
Light!
O God, who makest us glad with the yearly remembrance of the birth of thine only Son Jesus Christ; Grant that as we joyfully receive him for our Redeemer, so we may wit sure confidence behold him when he shall come to be our Judge, who liveth and reigneth with thee and the Holy Ghost, one God, world with out end. Amen.
-Book of Common Prayer
On the road with you,
Laura
I often think about the difference in seasons and weather, but I haven't thought about the abundance of light during in Advent in the Southern Hemisphere. Very interesting connection to our unrecognized need for the true Light. Thank you.