Fourth Sunday of Advent

We've just passed the shortest day of the year. It may not seem like it yet, but from now on, there is a little more daylight each day.

One of the traditional themes of Advent is daylight coming after a long, long night. “The people that walked in darkness have seen a great light;” said the Prophet Isaiah; “those who dwelt in a land of deep darkness, on them has a light shined." It’s an idea that C S Lewis picked up in the first of his Narnia Chronicles – where it was always winter, but never spring, until Aslan came to break the power of the white witch.

They say the Darkest hour is just before the dawn, and there is plenty in our world that seems like unremitting winter. We’re tentatively recovering from a recession that bit very deep, while meantime there are ongoing and serious conflicts around the world, and nations where violence is a daily reality.

And even on our own doorsteps, there are stories of abuses and violence that make our hearts stand still. Sometimes the future doesn’t look bright at all; and it’s tempting to believe that the world is just spiralling into darkness and despair. But the message of the Fourth Sunday of Advent is that even in the darkest moments, there is a promise that daylight will come, and hope is never lost. 

The story of Christmas turns expectations on their heads: God did not enter the world in a crash of triumph and a blaze of glory. Instead, the Christ-child, the symbol of hope for a better future - was born into the most humble of circumstances - born, so the story goes, in an animal pen which, however nicely it was swept out, was not clean or hygienic by the standards of a maternity hospital.

So the promise of daylight dawning is not based on a God who is above everything. It’s the opposite: we have a God who will get down into the mud with us, and wherever we are, will live among us.

This is the hope as Advent draws to a close:  that just as a tiny baby once was born in Bethlehem, so God can be born into the chaos and mess of our lives today. Whatever darkness we face, whatever chaos we find ourselves in, God will be with us, with the promise that daylight will come.