Discovering Life Through the Lens of Advent
At this point, all the people assume they couldn’t have heard correctly...
Most of us have heard the Christmas story. We sing about the star, about the Virgin Mary, how she and Joseph traveled over 100 miles to Bethlehem. We know about “no room at the inn.” About the manger, the angels singing to the shepherds, the wise men who followed the star to present gifts to the Baby King of the Jews. This stuff is familiar; if you grew up in any kind of nominally Christian home, this was the story you were raised on. You might have even listened to it being read while eyeing the presents you couldn’t wait to tear into on Christmas morning (hi, it’s me). And even if you didn’t, you still saw it on lawns lit up with lights and heard it in a lot of Christmas carols.
When my first husband left, it was right before Thanksgiving. I couldn’t believe that I had to reconcile the holiday season with my own grief and brokenness. I will never forget walking through the Philadelphia airport at the end of November, seeing the tinsel and festive greenery, the Christmas lights strung everywhere and wondering what the heck any of that had to do with me. I stared at it like an anthropologist finding relics of a foreign culture for the first time.
The prophet Isaiah, speaking about the birth of the long awaited Messiah many years before it occurred said this:
The people walking in darkness have seen a great light; on those living in the land of the shadow of death, a light has dawned.
Now, if I had walked into the Philly airport, my heart in pieces under my jacket, my face tight with pain, and read a huge sign saying something like, Merry Christmas to all those who are walking in darkness and the shadow of death—I’d have been like, Wow. Christmas makes total sense this year.
What was the specific darkness Isaiah was referring to at the time of Christ’s birth? Let’s look at it.
The Jews were living in a police state. They were not governed by their own. Their ruler, Herod, was essentially a puppet appointed by Rome’s Caesar Augustus, who was really in charge. They were heavily taxed, which is why Caesar called for the census at all. He wasn’t bored and just curious as to how many people were under him. He wanted to know how many people owed him money. This is why Joseph and pregnant Mary had to make that over 100 mile trek to Bethlehem.
Think of the things we do to pay our taxes every year. I don’t know anybody who feels especially jolly at the thought of tallying up everything they owe. At the least, it’s a big headache. Imagine if we had to do that and travel by foot and donkey 100 miles away. When I was very pregnant with Noa, I was called in for jury duty. I got out of it, though, because it was too close to my due date. For Joseph and Mary, nobody cared that the census was taken close to her due date. Nobody cared that she had to travel and it was hard.
It is interesting to note that this decree which Caesar Augustus made in order to milk the Jewish people for all the taxes he could squeeze out of them helped to fulfill a prophecy from Micah 700 years prior to the birth of Christ:
"But you, Bethlehem…,
though you are small among the clans of Judah,
out of you will come for me
one who will be ruler over Israel,
whose origins are from of old,
from ancient times."
According to this Old Testament text, the Messiah had to be born in Bethlehem. We are quick to skim the surface of any given situation and judge it as bad, but it’s helpful to remember that we never see the full picture. We don’t understand why we’re being forced to make this arduous trek—or we think we do and it makes us angry (all so we can pay our oppressors even more taxes!)—but actually, it’s to get us to the right place for for right time. Just like how Mary needed to give birth in Bethlehem.
Israel hadn’t heard from God in four hundred years. God had been silent since the book of Malachi, written in 500 BC. No prophet had arisen since then to speak to God’s people on God’s behalf and everyone knew it.
King Herod decreed a massacre of the Jews. Having heard of the prophesies of the King of the Jews to be born in Bethlehem from the wise men, Herod felt jealous and threatened and resorted to despicable violence. He called for all the baby Jewish boys in and around Bethlehem from birth to two years old to be murdered. Joseph had been warned through a dream to leave Bethlehem and so Jesus was not killed—but, devastatingly, many little boys were.
The scene is oppression, hardship, massacre, and God’s continued silence—which is exactly when God decides to send the Messiah. And all of this extreme hardship would understandably have the Jewish people dreaming of a Messiah who comes with riches and the strength of the state or political power or at least some kind of army to reinstate Israel as its own governing nation.
But instead God sends a newborn baby.
I love babies—truly, I do—but when I am in real trouble, I am not looking for a baby to come help me. Can you believe the patience of God exhibited here? He really is in it for the long run—like He is literally in it for eternity. Everyone is looking around for the Messiah who’s gonna finally set things right and God is like, Sure, here you go—and sends a newborn baby, born to a couple of no name teenagers who can’t even afford to birth Him somewhere normal, and so Jesus, the Son of God, is born in a stable. Angels make the big announcement to shepherds, real working guys—again, no name, no following, no clout. It’s so upside down. I mean, Hollywood markets their films better.
My point is, because it’s in the well-documented past, we have the luxury of knowing the story. But as it was unfolding, a lot of people missed it. And I’m under no pretense that I wouldn’t have been one of them, too. I can’t assume that I wouldn’t have seen a tiny Baby and also thought, But we actually need, like, help now, God.
And all the while, God is absolutely psyched. He’s sending angels all over the place, making announcements. He just cannot keep this secret any longer. He’s like, They will finally get it! This whole time, I’ve wanted peace and goodwill toward all of them! Surely they can’t deny that now that I’ve sent my Son!
When most people are expecting the cavalry, God eyes Baby Jesus and is like, Don’t worry! Just wait about thirty or so years!
And if anyone had heard God say this, they might have understandably tried to define the mystery with a question: Oh! Does this tiny Baby take Herod’s place—or even better, Ceasar’s—in thirty years?
To which God would say, Oh no—not even close—it’s way better than that.
How, God? What is better than that?
To which God replies: He dies!
And at this point, all the people assume they couldn’t have heard correctly or perhaps Satan had snuck in and answered because how could death be the plan? How could death ever be a good thing? How could the end be the beginning?
And now I will do something absolutely wild and, in this made up hypothetical conversation that never happened, I have God quote the musical Hamilton and say, But just you wait, just you wait…
The advent season after my first husband left was dark. I didn’t know that God was setting the scene to birth something really beautiful. I didn’t know that darkness is the perfect backdrop God uses to light up the world. So much so that he did it with the Messiah.
The Greeks differentiated time by using two different words. Chronos refers to seconds and minutes, quantitative time as a measurable resource. However, they use another word for time, too—kairos. The Merriam-Webster dictionary defines it this way:
A time when conditions are right for the accomplishment of a crucial action : the opportune and decisive moment.
All experts agree that, chronologically, the birth of Christ took place a little over 2000 years ago. But I like to also think about the kairos arrival of Christ happening over and over again. Into new situations. Into new messy, hard, dark spaces. I think about the times in my life when I’ve been walking in darkness, shrouded in grief, and how Christ has emerged, fulfilling Isaiah’s prophecy—The people walking in darkness have seen a great light; on those living in the land of the shadow of death, a light has dawned—all over again. It’s an old story, yes, but this idea of kairos time allows the story to be new and present here and now.
I love contemplating Christmas because the idea and power of the light of Christ illuminating my own life gives me hope. It transforms my thoughts to joyfully consider what God might be doing in the hard and piled-up moments of my own life. When life is chaotic, I remember the advent and wonder what God is doing. I wonder if He sees this darkness and decides that it is another kairos moment, a divine opportunity, for Christ to emerge in my heart and my life.
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Beautiful