An Advent reflection on light and hope
By Diane Bricker
“Remember your word to your servant, in which you have made me hope.”
As I write this piece, we are in the midst of a global pandemic. It is three days before our national election, which many were predicting would be followed by social unrest. We are in what I consider to be a dark time. And yet, we are also nearing the start of Advent - a time of waiting, a time of expectation and hope. What am I to make of these confusing themes, these juxtapositions?
During October, I used a Celtic prayer book for my morning prayer time. It led me on a journey through Psalm 119, a long, long Psalm; 176 verses, in fact. I don’t know that I would ever have had the patience to read it on my own, but it was a very rich and fruitful experience to read it in small pieces over the course of a month. One morning, verse 49 jumped out at me:
“Remember your word to your servant, in which you have made me hope.”
I have not been able to leave these words behind.
It is the phase “in which you have made me hope” that keeps turning around in my mind. I feel a little bit of anger, irritation. And, so, my prayer to God the day I read those words began initially with a portion of anger toward God. You have “made me hope,” you have put me in this position. Really, I am to carry hope? Even during this time?
Slowly, as this particular verse kept circling back into my prayer, even though I was moving on through the Psalm, I began to see this “hope” as a gift, a grace from God.
I have been made to hope. Or, to put it another way, I have been given the gift of hope. I am to carry it as a servant and child of God. What am I to do with that? What are we to do with that?
I have been thinking of this in the context of Advent, and the examples of Biblical figures who carry hope. Of course, first, there is Mary, who provides a very human, physical example of carrying God’s hope in, and for, the world. After her encounter with the angel Gabriel, she concludes the discussion by saying:
“Here I am, the servant of the Lord; let it be with me according to your word.”
Mary, a servant, has been given the gift of hope, and the task of carrying, literally, God’s word into this world.
And then, at Advent, I also think of the Wise men. We know so little about them. They appear only in Chapter 2 of Matthew. They manager, in the time of King Herod, to see light in the darkness of the night sky, a star they identify as the rising star of the child who has been born King of the Jews. Wanting to pay homage to this child, they follow the star, searching for him until they find him.
The story of the Wise Men ends as they begin their journey homeward, so the author of Matthew doesn’t tell us what happened when they arrived back home. We are told that they were warned by a dream not to return by the same road, to avoid King Herod, so they took an alternate route home. I like to imagine that the Wise Men knew they were charged with carrying this nascent hope, this sacred news, this light, back into their homes, much in the way Mary carried the child, Jesus.
There are so many references to light in the Bible. I think of Genesis, when God, in creating the first day, said:
“Let there be light, and there was light. And God saw that the light was good … “ (Genesis 1:3) And, then John tells us that “the light shines in the darkness and that the darkness did not overcome it. (John 1:5).
So, like the Wise Men, if we search the darkness, might we not see the light that has not been overcome?
The Wise Men were looking at the same night sky that we see. I often think of this on Christmas Eve when we leave our house, usually in crisp, cold air to go to the Christmas Eve service at our church.
I have also, of late, been experimenting with praying the hours. As I think about this service, I realize that it ends with the Hour of Vigils, the longest hour, the hour that spans the dark spaces between midnight and dawn. In his moving book on praying the hours, Music of Silence: A Sacred Journey Through Hours of the Day, Brother David Steindl-Rast writes of the Hour of Vigils. He recognizes the darkness as a symbol for the divine mystery, and an invitation to trust in the night despite the fear it triggers. He notes that when John is referring to the light that shines in the darkness, John is proclaiming that a light shines in the midst of the darkness, not into the darkness. He believes that if we look deeply enough into the darkness, we will find what we need.
I seem to have come full circle now, back to this dark time. What might we see in this darkness? What are we to do? I am reminded that I need to return to Psalm 119, specifically to verse 50, the verse subsequent to verse 49 where my ruminations began.
“This is my comfort in my distress, that your promise gives me life.”
I imagine that this promise we have been given is the gift of light, of the hope that God continually breaks into our world. But he needs his servants, Mary, the Wise Men, and each of us. We are, all of us, different. After all, Paul reminds us in Corinthians that the bod consists of many members, all bearing different gifts. Yes, differing gifts we may have but I think that we are all charged with searching for the light and carrying the hope, using whatever gifts we have been given. And verse 50 reminds us that as we do so, we find comfort and, perhaps more importantly, life.
So, I invite you this Advent, to stare deeply into the darkness that presents itself. Search for the light, journey toward it when you can get glimpse. Use the gifts you have been given. Carry the hope.
This reflection was written by Trained Spiritual Director and Retreat House Spirituality Covenant Partner Diane Bricker and originally published in House of Light. This is part Retreat House’s Spreading the Light series. As an interfaith community, Retreat House Spirituality Center will hold space this holiday season to "Spread the Light" as, together, we honor the faith traditions of Christmas, Hanukkah and Kwanzaa. Each week, we'll explore the sacred stories of these traditions through reflections, meditations and prayers. If you're new here, sign up to receive these weekly offerings!
In December, we will host several events at Retreat House to explore the HOPE, JOY, PREPARATION and LOVE of the season. View a full listing of those events.