As we begin the journey of Advent, and also our march toward the end of the year, I have an unsettled feeling down deep inside me. I don’t know if the feeling is because of all that has taken place this year, or if it is trepidation about what might be happening in the new year.
In Advent, we are reminded of the promise God made to provide a savior, a messiah. As Isaiah 9:2 tells us, “The people who have walked in darkness have seen a great light.” We recall all the dark periods of life the people had to struggle through. Yet, God tells them (us), that a new day is coming. A new day and a new way of understanding who God is. In this new day and way, God will be WITH us. This is a different understanding than before. Before, God was seen as otherworldly, in the heavens, removed from human existence. Now, God is going to come down and walk among us.
The problem with the promise, as I see it, is we don’t fully understand what God being with us will mean. Its like Mary, who receives a visit from an angel who tells her she is to conceive a son. Mary doesn’t understand. There had to be a real unsettled-ness within Mary’s soul. Becoming pregnant out of wedlock, what was that going to mean? Would Joseph disown her? Would he turn his back on her? Would he believe her when she tells him what is to occur? I can only imagine all the trepidation Mary must have been going through. To top it off, the angel tells her the child will be the son of the Most High. What? What does that even mean? Who will he be? Is it really possible Mary’s child could be the long awaited messiah? What will his life be like? How is she supposed to know how to raise him?
You see, there’s a little disconnect from the promise, and how that promise will actually be realized.
Herein lies my problem in this unsettled season. I know God is with us. I know God promises to always be right beside me. Yet, I still feel unsettled about this past year. Lots of things have happened that I just can’t wrap my mind around. Lots of things have happened that make me fearful about the new year. Speaking of the new year, what will it hold for me and others? More unsettled-ness for all of us.
What Advent says to us is, there is the promise of God to save us and be with us. We wait and watch. We wait with expectant hearts, not knowing how God will be revealed to us in the coming days, weeks and months ahead.
Like Mary, we are going to discover God is a promise keeper, and as such, God is going be walking with us through every moment of the end of this year, and on in to the next. What we are going to discover is, nothing about this year or the next, will be able to overcome the light which is coming to us and for us. The great light of “God with us,” will outshine all the shadows of this past year, and will brightly light the path ahead of us into the new year.
Its okay for us to have doubts and fears, that’s a part of our makeup. Its also okay for us to feel unsettled on occasion, but we don’t have to let that feeling overwhelm us. We are on a journey, and along that journey we are going to be witness to God coming to be with us.
I hope and pray during this Advent season and beyond, you and I can cast off our unsettled feelings. I pray God will visit each of us with real assurance about the days ahead. I pray God’s love will be born in us this season, and from that love a great light will shine and dispel the darkness we so easily seem to slip into. May all of our journeys be filled with light and the realization, God IS with us.
Your companion on the Way,
Pastor Tom