There's a Light

 

Matthew 1:18-25

Advent 4 / Year A

I attended an Advent Retreat at Chanco last weekend where Angier Brock, our presenter, began our time by inviting us to think about how we mark time.  We live in what she calls “Empire Time” – twelve months, fifty-two weeks, 356 days.  We also live in what we might call “Nature Time” – four seasons, today being the beginning of a new one.  The Church, she noted, invites us to live in “Liturgical Time” – six seasons: Advent, Christmas, Epiphany, Lent, Easter, and the long season of Pentecost (or Ordinary Time). 

In Empire Time the New Year begins eleven days from now.  It encourages us to make resolutions and offers the opportunity for new beginnings.  In Liturgical Time, the New Year began three Sundays ago.  Advent does not begin with turning over a new leaf or setting a goal, like losing weight.  It begins with darkness.  In this sense, it meshes well with Nature Time in that the days have gotten shorter and literal darkness (the absence of sunlight) practically overwhelms our lives. 

Advent’s darkness offers us Scripture readings about God’s righteous judgment and the warnings of the prophets.  This, Angier said, is reflective of what she called the Via Negativa (or the Negative Way or Path).  The Church, in its wisdom, reminds us we cannot ignore the darkness in our world, in our lives, and in our hearts.  You cannot go through life without experiencing pain, suffering, loss, brokenness, regret, or sorrow.  Sometimes it can be crushing.  And the irony is the harder a person tries to avoid the darkness, the more it dominates that person’s spirit.

But, just as Advent calls us to face the Via Negativa, it points us toward what Angier calls the Via Positiva (the Positive Way).  It does this through the promise of a coming light; a shift we begin to sense in today’s Gospel reading of Matthew’s very lean story of Jesus’ birth. 

Bishop Susan was unable to be at our retreat, but she touched on many of the same themes in her Advent message to our diocese in which she cites this quote:

The Incarnation always brings good news, but it never minimizes the realness of our pain.  Advent declares the hope that a light is coming, but first it declares the truth that the world right now is very dark.

This time of year we live into another kind of time, let’s call it Cultural Time.  Our culture tells us what the ‘holiday season’ should look like and feel and how many shopping days are left before Christmas.  Cultural Time applauds the first part of that quote, “The Incarnation always brings good news.”  Everything is supposed to be merry and bright.  As such, Cultural Time disregards the darkness Advent beckons us to acknowledge. 

And yet, the holidays often find many of us walking the Via Negativa more intensely than at any other time of the year.  We think of the loved ones we have lost.  We long for cherished traditions and simpler times, even though it feels like they are becoming more elusive.  We hear holiday words like peace and joy and goodwill, then hold them up to our present reality.  No wonder so many of us experience despair as we measure how our life falls far short of the Hallmark Christmas we long for. 

It feels counterintuitive to assert by embracing the Via Negativa the Via Positiva begins to bud.  Still, this is why Advent begins with darkness and ends with the promised hope of a new light and new life.  And this process, Angier said, activates the Via Transformativa, (the path of transformation).  No one is ever changed by hiding from their pain and loss.  Healing comes only once you allow God to tend to what hurts. 

Last Wednesday we held our Longest Night Eucharist, sometimes referred to as a Blue Christmas service.  By design, it creates space for the Via Negativa, trusting by giving it its due we can more fully embrace the Via Positiva of the Nativity and all that surrounds it.  It takes a fair amount of courage to participate in this service, especially when your loses are fresh and your emotions are raw. 

When I reflect back over the years we have offered it, I remember when people attended because that Christmas was the first without a loved one.  It is not uncommon for them to weep through most of the service and a box of tissues became more necessary than a prayer book.  Over their years their loss has not go away, but it has become easier to bear.  Now, in addition to seeking comfort, these folks attend to support those whose loss is fresh.

They have walked by the Via Transformativa.  Their hearts have been strengthened enough to bear their pain and stretched enough to reach out to others with empathy and compassion.  It is such a beautiful image of Advent Time, of the movement from darkness to the hope of new light. 

Perhaps, Angier noted, nowhere is this movement better articulated than the Advent carol O come, O come Emmanuel:   

O come, O come Emmanuel and ransom captive Israel

  which morns in lonely exile here (the Via Negativa).

Rejoice!  Rejoice!  Emmanuel shall come to thee,

  O Israel (the Via Positiva).

My prayer for each of this Advent is we will find ourselves moving from darkness to light, from mourning to rejoicing.

There’s a light, there’s a light in the darkness

and the black of the night cannot harm us

We can trust not to fear for our comfort is near

There’s a light, there’s a light in the darkness

It will rain, it will rain in the desert

in the cracks of the plain, there’s a treasure

Like the thirst of the seed we will await, we believe

It will rain, it will rain in the desert

(from There’s a Light by Beth Nielson Chapman)