The Dark Before Christmas - Hope - Advent, Week 1
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We live in a world that is addicted to the skip intro button. Think about it. When you sit down to watch Netflix and the opening credits start rolling, what do you do? You hit that button. We want the content now. We want the resolution now. We want the season finale before we've even processed the first episode.
This addiction to speed blends into everything we do. We get annoyed if our Amazon Prime package takes 3 days instead of two. We tap our feet impatiently if the microwave takes too long to heat up our burrito. We scroll through 15-second videos because a threeinute video just feels like a documentary. And then December hits. The moment the Thanksgiving leftovers are put away, the world tells us it's Christmas. The music changes in the grocery store.
The red and green decorations go up. The pressure mounts to be instantly happy, instantly festive, and instantly bright. We're told to flip a switch and radiate joy. But for a lot of us, that internal switch doesn't flip that easily. Can you relate to that? Maybe you've had a brutal year. Maybe you lost someone that you love.
Maybe you're looking at the state of the world, the war, the division, the anxiety, and the idea of singing joy to the world feels forced, maybe even fake. But what if I told you that there's an ancient cure for this? What if I told you that for thousands of years, the church didn't rush straight to the Christmas party? What if I told you there's a season designed specifically for the darkness? A season that gives you permission to not be okay yet. A season that teaches us the lost art of waiting. Welcome to Advent.
If you didn't grow up in a lurggical tradition, and I didn't, traditions like Catholicism or Lutheranism or the Anglican church, you might just think that Advent is those cardboard calendars with chocolates inside. You open up the door, you eat a piece of questionable chocolate, and you count down to presents. But historically, Advent is something a lot deeper and much wilder than that. The word advent actually comes from the Latin word adventus, which just means the arrival or the coming. In the church calendar, we don't start our year on January 1st. We start it now. Four Sundays before Christmas.
While the rest of the world is racing toward the finish line of the year, the church hits the brakes. We stop, we breathe, we enter the dark. Advent is a season of four weeks where we deliberately hold back the celebration. We don't sing the Christmas carols yet. We sing songs of longing. We don't light all the lights yet. We light them one by one, week by week, watching the light slowly grow in the darkness.
It's a season of active waiting. And theologically, we're waiting for three things. We call these the three comeings of Christ. We have the past first. We look back and we prepare to celebrate the incarnation, the moment that God became flesh in Bethlehem according to the Advent tradition. Two, we have the present. We ask Jesus to come into our lives now into our daily messes, our workplaces, and our hearts.
And third, we look to the future. And this is the one that often gets ignored. We look forward to what's thought of as the second coming in this tradition. We look forward to the day when Jesus returns to finish what he started to wipe away every tear and to make all things new. So for the next four week, we're going to walk through this season together. Hopefully I will be able in between my appointments at my job like I'm doing now to create a video each week leading up to this because each week is marked by different theme. Hope, peace, joy, and love.
Well, today we begin in the dark. Today we begin with week one, hope. To understand biblical hope, you've got to understand the context in which the first Christmas happened. And we have a tendency to sanitize a nativity story, if I can put it that way. We think of a silent night, clean hay, a glowing baby. But the reality of the first advent was actually pretty terrifying. The people of Israel had been waiting for a Messiah for centuries.
But for 400 years, the time between the Old Testament and the New Testament, the heavens were silent. God hadn't spoken through a prophet for 400 years. Politically, they were crushed. The Roman Empire had its boot on their neck. Herod was a paranoid, murderous king. Poverty was rampant. Religion had become corrupt.
It felt like God had completely forgotten them. It was a time of deep, oppressive darkness. Think about that feeling. 400 years of silence. Generations lived and died without seeing the promise fulfilled. Parents told their children one day God would come. And the children grew up and died.
And he still hadn't come. It's into that darkness that the concept of hope is born. We use the word hope very loosely in English. We say, "I hope it doesn't rain or I hope the Cowboys win or I hope I get that promotion." In our culture, hope is a synonym for wishful thinking. It's crossing your fingers and looking at the sky. It's fragile.
It's uncertain. But the word for hope in the New Testament is the Greek word elpus. I'm probably saying that wrong. E L P I S. That word does not mean I wish. It means expectation. It means confidence in trust.
Biblical hope is not a butterfly that flutters around. Biblical hope is an anchor. It's a heavy solid thing that you drop into the future to pull yourself toward it. It's a conviction that God is who he says he is and he will do what he said he will do. Even if, and this is the key, even if you can't see it right now, during the first week of Advent, we light the first purple candle on the wreath. This is traditionally called the prophet's candle. It represents the men and women who stood in the darkness and dared to speak of the light that was coming.
Their primary voice of Advent is the prophet Isaiah. If you want to understand Christmas, you don't start in Luke. You start all the way back in Isaiah. Listen to the raw honesty of Isaiah 64:1-9.
I just I'll read pieces of it. Oh, that you would ren the heavens and come down that the mountains would tremble before you. For when you did awesome things that we did not expect, you came down and the mountains trembled before you. No one has seen any God besides you who acts on behalf of those who wait for him. Can you hear the desperation in that prayer? Oh, that you would rip the sky open and come down here. Isaiah isn't saying, "Lord, things are going pretty well.
Just need a little tweak." No, he's saying the world is broken. We can't fix it. The government can't fix it. Money can't fix it. We've ruined the vineyard. If you don't come down and save us, we are lost.
That is the prere pre prerequisite, if I can say it right, for advent hope, honesty about the darkness. You can't truly hope for a savior if you don't think you need saving. If you think you got it all under control, all figured out, if you think you can white knuckle your way through life, well, you don't really need Advent, do you? But look at the world today. Look at the headlines. Look at the mental health crisis. Look at the loneliness epidemic.
We're technologically advanced, but we're spiritually starving. We're like a people in Isaiah's time, walking in a land of deep shadow. Then Isaiah gives us a promise at Isaiah 9:2. The people walking in darkness have seen a great light. On those living in the land of deep darkness, a light has dawned. Notice the tense there. Have seen.
Has dawned. Isaiah writes this hundreds of years before Jesus is born. But he writes it in the past tense. Why? Well, because his hope, his elus was so strong, he considered it a done deal. He knew that the darkness wasn't the end of the story.
So, how do we apply this today? Well, we live on the other side of the resurrection. We know Jesus came, but we still live in a broken world. We're living in the already, but not yet. The kingdom is here, but it's not fully consummated. We still get sick. We still die.
We still fight. The Apostle Paul talks about this kind of hope in Romans 8 24 and 25. For in this hope, we were saved. But hope that is seen is no hope at all. Who hopes for what they already have? But if we hope for what we do not yet have, we wait for it patiently.
That's the challenge of week one. We're called to hold on to hope when the evidence suggests otherwise. Christian hope is defiant. It looks at the grave and says, "This isn't the end." It looks at the diagnosis and says, "This doesn't define me." It looks at the war torn country and it says, "Peace is coming." It's not optimism.
Optimism. Optimism says, "Things will get better eventually." Hope says God is on the throne and even if things don't get better in this lifetime, the king is returning to wipe every tear from our eyes. Romans 15:13. There Paul gives a blessing that I think is crucial for us this week. May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace as you trust in him so that you may overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit.
Notice the mechanics of that verse there. the source. God is the God of hope. You can't manufacture hope. You can't meditate or mediate your way into it. You have to receive it.
Method as you trust in him. Hope is a byproduct of trust and results you overflow. So that's the goal of this first week. In a world that's drained, cynical, and tired, the Christian is called to a reservoir of hope. When people look at us, they shouldn't just see nice people. They should see people who are inexplicably grounded. People who aren't panicking when the world panics because we know how this story ends.
Finally, we have to look at the gospel. The lectionary readings for the first Sunday of Advent often surprise people. You might expect Mary and Joseph on a donkey, right? But instead, you often get Jesus talking about the end of the world. For instance, Luke 21:25-28.
Here Jesus says, "There will be signs in the sun, moon, and stars. On the earth, nations will be in anguish and perplexity at the roaring and tossing of the sea. At that time, they will see the Son of Man coming in a cloud with power and great glory. When these things begin to take place, stand up and lift up your heads because your redemption is drawing near.
Now, why would we start the Christmas season with the apocalypse? Well, because Advent hope isn't just about a baby in a manger. It's about a king coming in the clouds. If your hope is only in the baby Jesus, you get a sentimental holiday. But if your hope is in the King Jesus who returns to judge the living and the dead and to set the world right, you get a revolutionary faith. Jesus tells us, "When the world looks like it's falling apart, anguish and perplexity, as the scripture says, do not look down in fear. Do not doom scroll.
Don't hide." He says, "Stand up and lift up your heads." Why? Well, because the chaos isn't the death rattle of the world. It's the birth painans of the new creation. Week one of Advent reminds us that we're not moving toward nothingness. We're moving towards someone.
So, as we close, how do we live this out? How do we practice the art of waiting this week? First, embrace the silence. This week, resist the urge to fill every quiet moment with noise. Don't turn on the radio in the car. Don't look at your phone in the elevator. Let the silence sit and sit with it.
In that silence, you might feel your anxiety, but you'll also find the space to say, "Come, Lord Jesus." Because you need him in those moments. Second, name the darkness. You don't have to pretend everything's perfect. If you're hurting, bring that to God. Hope requires honesty. Tell God where you need him to show up.
Lord, ren the heavens and come down into my marriage. Come down into my depression. Come down into my confusion. Come down into my disbelief. Whatever your issue is, ask that he come in there and help you with it. Third, light the candle. If you have an Advent wreath, light that first purple candle.
Let it be a physical reminder. Watch the flame. It's small. It's fragile, but it pushes back the dark and remind yourself the light shines in the darkness and the darkness has not overcome it, which we read in John chapter 1.
And finally, the not yet prayer. When you encounter something broken this week, a homeless person, a rude interaction, a tragic news story, whisper the ancient prayer of the church, Marinatha. It means come Lord. It is a tiny act of rebellion against the status quo. It's an act of hope.
My friends, the world wants you to rush. They want you to numb yourself with sugar and shopping and noise. But the invitation of Advent is to stop, to stand in the dark, to look at the horizon, to dare to believe that help is on the way. We are the people of the prophet's candle. We are the people who have seen a great light. And we're the people who wait, not with anxiety, but with assurance. For unto us a child is born, but also unto us a king is coming.
Let this be our prayer. Aba, Father, we confess that we're a people who don't like to wait. We want the resolution without the story. We want the resurrection without the cross. We want the peace of Christmas without the preparation of Advent. Forgive us for our hurry. Forgive us for trying to light our own fires instead of waiting for your light.
Lord, as we enter this first week of Advent, we acknowledge the darkness around us and the darkness within us. And we acknowledge that the world is broken and that we can't fix that on our own. Like the prophets of old, we cry out, "Oh, that you would ren the heavens and come down. Please grant us the gift of hope. Not the flimsy hope of the world, but the hope, the anchor of your hope, the sure and steady trust that you are faithful and will always be. Help us to see the light of Christ dawning in the distance. Quiet our hearts, slow our pace, lift our heads.
We wait for you, Lord. We wait for your coming in history, your coming in our hearts, and your coming in glory. In the name of the one who was and is and is to come, Jesus the Messiah. Amen.
And now for a song. [music] >> [singing] [music] >> The world is spinning at the speed of light. We skip the [music] intro, we run from the night. We want the ending before we start. But there's a silence here inside my heart. The neon lights, they just flicker and fade. I'm tired of the noise that [music and singing] we have made.
So I'm hitting the brakes, I'm slowing it down while the rest of the world is rushing through town. >> 400 years of silence in the cold. Stories of a promise that we [singing and music] were told.
It feels like the darkness who won the war, >> but I'm not looking [music] at the ground anymore. This is [music and singing] the art of waiting in the dark. This is the ember before the [music and singing] spark. Hope isn't wishing on a fallen star. It's an anchor holding [music and singing] us where we are.
help us hold me fast. The light is coming. [music and singing] The night won't last. Oh, we are waiting for the king.
Isaiah cried out, "Rip open the sky. [singing and music] Come down and save us." Was the prophet's cry. We've got wars and rumors [music and singing] and a broken land. We can't fix it with a human hand. So I light one candle, watch [music] the purple [singing] flame whisper the power of the coming name. It's not optimism, it's a [music] heavy trust that you're going to redeem this pile of dust.
This is the art [music and singing] of waiting in the dark. This is the ember before the [singing] spark. Hope isn't wishing on a fallen [music] star. It's an anchor holding us where we are. Help [music] us, help us, hold me fast. The light is coming. The night [singing] won't last.
[music] We are [singing] waiting for the king. Come. [singing] Lift [music] up your heads. Don't close your eyes.
Come. Redemption is drawing [music] near to the sky. [singing and music] >> [music] >> This is [music] the art of waiting in [singing] the dark. This is the ember before the [music] spark. Hope isn't wishing on a fallen star. It's [singing] an anchor holding us where we are. Help is [music] selfish.
Hold me fast. The light is coming. The night won't last.
We [music] are waiting for the king. A baby in the hay. A king upon the clouds. [music] We are the people of the candle. Now wait for it. [music] Wait for it.
Wait for [music] it. [music] [singing] [music] I wanted to take a moment to tell you about my book, The Broken Mirror: Rediscovering Our True Nature in Christ. Readers call it a fantastic book where you will feel yourself discovering your identity in Christ. One reviewer praised it as five-star material for the spiritual mystic or group Bible study. It's time to escape legalism and shame. Discover you're already God's beloved child with divine nature flowing through you with what reviewers describe as excellent writing style and elegant pros like a campfire discussion with a knowledgeable and gifted recon tour. Journey from Genesis to Revelation, uncovering your true identity.
This book shows how to access God's peace, wisdom, and strength from within. Your struggles become opportunities for divine light to shine through. Available in hard coverver, paperback, Kindle, and audio book. The link to the book is in the video description. May God bless your journey along his path for you.
