Into the Beautiful Dark
Field Notes: Rev. C. Richards
12-2020
The time between Thanksgiving and December – the lead up to Advent, and then Advent itself have always been a time of year where I am inspired by God.
We end the Church year singing that Christ is the King! But we look at our world, and as usual, it is a mess. Then we transition into Advent – and we sing “What Child Is This?” And we begin the mysterious journey into darkness and a Bethlehem star-filled night, even as we are surrounded by star-filled winter nights.
We give thanks after the Harvest, we thank God that we’ve made it once again – then suddenly we are in a hurry to prep for Winter, and it often arrives just as we button down the hatches and the darkness falls until March. Christ is the KING! Christ is the helpless child. Our world is a mess – our world is mysterious and there is light in the lovely winter darkness. This is an inspiring time.
When I lived in Bemidji, I often spent December and January evenings cross country skiing down the Mississippi River, west from our home towards the east side of Lake Bemidji, 4-5 miles away. I don’t remember ever making it all the way. But I will never forget bright nights of crystal filled air, shimmering under starlight or moonlight. Deer standing far off on the river edges – moon shadows deep under red pines, and the crisp silence on lucky nights. On unlucky nights the wind hissed snow over reeds and through pine needles. And while the exercise warmed me from within, the beauty of those mysterious winter forest nights warmed me much more completely and has stuck with me.
We humans make for a messy world. But while the mess can bleed over into hurting the natural world, I see it most firmly centered in the hearts of people. The pain is in the brokenness of relationships, the selfishness of decisions, the lies told for personal profit, the choices that benefit only the chooser, the sin between people and God. Into this mess God sent God’s Son, For love’s sake.
At the same time – The kingdom that God has wrought – is both now, and not yet. Christ is also the King – even as we give thanks for the communion we receive, the harvest of forgiveness and grace, we are also being saved for that kingdom mysteriously. Jesus is present in the sacrament as much as Jesus is present in our hearts, as much as Jesus is present in the sick and the lost, and the hurting, and the foreigner, and the outsider, all of whom we are called to serve in their least and lost-ness.
This Advent season – who is the stranger you have avoided? Who are those people that you treat as foreign or OTHER? Jesus was a stranger in Bethlehem, and a stranger to this world of sin. We will be strangers in the kingdom to come, welcomed in by God’s undeserved Love. I challenge you to be the light in the mysterious darkness to others this season. I challenge you to see the beauty in the darkness that God has loved and sent his Son into, and rather than stay only in the comfortable warmth and light – to head into the mysterious places. When you find others there, hear them, serve them, and love them.– Christ’s Peace - PrCR