“Advent is an interruption.”
Each month, we send out a note from Erik reflecting on life in the church, current happenings, and more.
Dear City Church,
This Advent, we’ve been focusing on the God of all comfort. Doing so has helped us remember that, at its core, Advent is a season of comfort. It’s just not the sort of comfort you immediately think of; and, perhaps more importantly, not the sort of comfort we often want.
We are inundated year-round, but especially during the holidays, with a vision of comfort that is sensory, immediate, and temporary. Advertising, wishlists, and holiday events sell us a version of comfort that is far too small. Fleece-line stretchy pants, cozy fires, twinkle lights, and comfort foods full of butter and sugar offer temporary comfort, but the God of all comfort offers us something more—something lasting and true.
In recognizing Advent as a season of comfort, we also discover that Advent is a season for the broken-hearted. Specifically, Advent is the news that God strengthens our hearts in the midst of our broken-heartedness. Comfort isn’t an escape from all suffering. Nor is it an ignoring of all pain. It is the promise that God is with us even in our deepest darkness.
This theme of God’s comfort coming to us in our darkness has struck a nerve at City Church. You’ve sent me emails and texts about how this sermon series has helped you feel seen and heard. You’ve been having vulnerable conversations in small groups about the particular places you’re longing for God’s comfort.
Approaching Advent in this way offers another correction to our typical way of understanding the holiday season. Advent is an interruption. It’s God coming to us, not us coming to God. It’s not about our getting ready. It’s not about our being good enough, nice enough, not-naughty enough. It’s about an unexpected and inexplicable in-breaking of God and His grace into our weary and worn lives. God did this when the baby Jesus was born in a manger in Bethlehem, and He continues to do it through His grace, coming to us in surprising places.
If Advent is an interruption of comfort for the broken-hearted, what does that mean practically for us during the next two weeks leading up to Christmas?
First, sit in the dark. December can get filled to the brim with holiday traditions: The Nutcracker, Garden Fest of Lights at Lewis Ginter, Tea at the Jefferson, Legendary Santa at the Children’s Museum, the City Church Christmas Pageant. Not to mention all of our individual family traditions and celebrations. Calendars are stretched taut. By all means, lean into those traditions. Bake Christmas cookies, tour tacky lights, trim the tree, swap gifts in white elephant gift exchanges. But also, carve out some time to sit in the dark. Allow the lengthening shadows and bone-chilling air of winter draw you into the brokenness of life after the fall. Sit in your longing, your grief, your pain over loss. That’s where hope begins. That’s where Advent starts. One of the places I can sit in that darkness each year is our 11PM Christmas service. Through Scripture and through carols, in the shadows of Grace Covenant’s sanctuary, I sit in the darkness long enough for hope of Christ’s comfort to be born in me again.
Second, wait for the light. We’re mostly awful at waiting. Our accelerated modern age puts a premium on immediacy, having everything—from information to material goods—in an instant. But Advent is a time that trains us to wait for God’s true and lasting comfort. Whether it’s Mary and Joseph waiting for their son to be born, or Simeon and Anna waiting in the temple for the appearance of Christ, the Christmas story is filled with waiting. Looking to these examples, let’s cultivate the discipline of waiting this year.
And as we do wait, let’s not wait for anything less than the true Light. As the apostle John writes at the start of his gospel, “The true light which gives light to everyone has come into the world” (John 1:9). Let us strive this Advent to identify places where we’ve been waiting for a comfort far too small, a light too feeble.
When we wait for the True Light, something supernatural happens. Found by the Light, filled by the Light, we become lesser lights to those who sit in darkness. You see, the ultimate purpose of Advent isn’t to make us comfortable, but to make us comforters. That’s what Paul emphasizes in 2 Corinthians 1:3-5, our anchor passage this year. Because we have been comforted by the in-breaking news of God’s presence and love, we comfort others. The comfort we’ve received becomes a comfort we extend to the weary and broken-hearted. And that’s a true Christmas miracle.
While we wait...
Stay Well & Do Good,
Erik