It starts in the dark
This week I’m thinking about Advent. I’m thinking about how before this is a story about the breakthrough and new life we so understandably associate with the big day (December 25th), it’s a story about everyday, common people who are visited by the grace of God in their everyday settings. The backstories to the birth of Christ are full of humble, unexpecting people. The stories are weird and surprising. Before we get to a story about the world changing, we’re given stories about simple people who are invited into moments of frightening vulnerability and change.
This last Sunday, at the Canvas gathering, we talked about Zechariah and Elizabeth, the parents of John the Baptist, the cousin of Jesus, whose birth was an essential preparative domino in the chain of events leading up to the birth of Christ. These two, Zechariah and Elizabeth, were old folks who lived in the country. They were good people—the kind of folks who took care of business and served the common good. They were also people others felt sorry for. The text tells us they were not able to have children, which was a point of deep sadness, longing, and regret for them. Zechariah and Elizabeth were not up and comers. They were on the decline. They were walking into the sunset while trying to make sense of lingering shame and disappointment. And it was in this context, the intersection of their deepest longings and disappointments, in a moment when the timing felt way off, that the grace of God came to them. Within the interior of their broken hearts, where things were fragile, incongruent, and complicated, they were invited into a new beginning.
Perhaps the build-up of advent hope starts with an invitation to engage with deeply personal territory? Perhaps the story of Zechariah and Elizabeth is an invitation to wonder about our own stories and the ways we feel out of time, insufficient, or disappointed with how things have turned out? Perhaps this season invites us to engage some longings that exist in a dormant, unspoken realm? I don’t raise these questions to imply we’re going to get what we want. That’s not what Advent is about. Rather, I raise these questions because they help us to see the ways we’re at risk of becoming cynical or stoic about the things that really matter to us. In the words of MLK, “Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter.” In other words, being awake to what matters is life-giving. It’s life giving for us and our community. And, it turns out, our desire and disappointment are fantastic indicators of what really matters to us, and through careful discernment, what really matters to God. Throughout history, the kindling of desire and disappointment have given rise to the fires that blaze and light the way towards peace and social justice.
This Advent, I want to see myself and my friends through the story of Zechariah and Elizabeth. I want to imagine how the hidden intersections of desire and disappointment have the potential to become new beginnings. I want to believe that everyday, normal people are still somehow being asked by God to not give up on themselves, no matter how done or damaged they may feel. This Advent, I want to somehow encounter the God who smiled upon Zechariah and Elizabeth and in their small, dark, rural town, gave a gift that woke people up to a longing deeper than the heart can hold.
—Josh VonGunten
