A Christmas Love Song of Hope

Praising the Light Even When It's Still Dark

Advent like Chanukah, is a celebration of light while still shrouded in darkness. Both traditions use the symbolism of lighting candles in a defiant action of renouncing the malevolent darkness which threatens to consume us.

Whether you keep an Advent tradition of lighting a candle each of the four weeks preceding Christmas Day, culminating in the lighting of the Christ candle as a celebration of Christ’s first coming or not, we all celebrate Christ’s coming as Immanuel at Christmas.

We celebrate the birth of Jesus Christ our Savior come in human flesh to redeem us from sin’s bondage.

Born to die, Jesus came to be the final sacrifice for sin, securing eternal life for all those who believe with His death on the cross.

Yet despite the finality of Christ’s work on the cross redeeming us from sin’s bondage, securing our adoption into God’s family, and our ultimate home with Him forever, we still live in the darkness of this present world and the realm of the “not yet”.

Advent reminds us while we celebrate Christ’s first coming, we also yearn for the fulfillment of all things at His second coming.

Mary, the mother of Jesus understood this liminal space of the already and the not yet. Her remarkable song of joy in the Magnificat reflects her steadfast faith in God as she extols His works accomplished and those yet to be fulfilled. (Luke 1:46-49)

Theologian Ronald Rohlheiser expresses Mary’s faith in what would remain unfulfilled in her lifetime and as yet remains unfulfilled in own, but as people of Hope, we wait with joy.

“What Mary affirms in the Magnificat is a deep truth we can only grasp in the faith and hope, namely, that even though at present injustice, corruption, and exploitation of the poor seem to reign, there will be a last day when that oppressive stone will roll back from the tomb and the powerful will topple. The Magnificat is the ultimate prayer of hope.”

This Christmas, in the midst of unanswered prayers, grief, chronic illness, secret suffering and weary longing for Light, may we choose like Mary, to rejoice in Jesus.

To praise the Light even while it’s still dark.

May we choose to sing a Christmas Love Song of Hope which welcomes the Light into our dark places of grief, uncertainty, suffering and shame. May we experience the miracle of God’s Light in Jesus Christ, may our wounds and brokenness be the clay jars with which we hold the treasure of God’s light and through which his Light shines out into the darkness of the world around us proclaiming the life-giving presence of Immanuel.

Special Advent Essay and Series

As I mentioned in the opening paragraph, Advent and Chanukah share a similar defiant spirit of praising the Light while it’s still dark. I composed an Advent essay on this topic which I pray is an encouragement to you.

I am grateful to be one of six writers:

Rosa Gilbert

,

Kristine Amundrud

,

Deborah Rutherford

,

Deidre Braley

, and

Heather Lobe Johnson

, in the The Way Back to Ourselves’ 6-part Advent Series: A Light in the Darkness, where my essay is published.

From the bottom of my heart, I thank Kimberly Phinney and The Way Back to Ourselves for creating this beautiful Advent series and for graciously including my work.

Enjoy this excerpt from my full essay, and please leave a comment to let me know how this blessed you.

Not too long ago, amid the gentle light of the Advent candles, I found myself aching with remembrance. Sorrow from years of grief called forth by the light limned the halls of my memory with a cold shame I could not shake. Instead of basking in the joy we often expect to feel during the Christmas season, I grieved the ruins of my life—my heart gripped by lament—wondering if God’s promised Light could ever restore the desolation.

In this space, God reminded me of the miracle of light sent to his people before the coming of the True Light we celebrate at Advent, a miracle that met God’s people in the ruins, just as it would meet me many years later.

This biblical desecration forced a lament that broke forth from the depths of sorrow buried deep for long years of oppression and bondage. Robbed of their culture and religious practices under Antiochus IV and the Seleucid Empire in the second century BCE, Jews in Jerusalem and throughout all Judea grieved the ruin of their Temple.

Can you imagine the sort of grief they must have felt, as they watched everything they knew and loved crumble at an enemy's hand?

After the ultimate blasphemy of sacrificing swine upon Yahweh’s sacred altar, the Maccabean priests rose up in rebellion, winning a supernatural victory over Antiochus Epiphanes and recaptured the Temple. Despite the knowledge of the Temple sacrilege over the course of its Gentile occupation, nothing prepared the priests for the reality of the malevolence awaiting them upon re-entry to the Temple.

The brutality that ravished, defiled, and polluted the Temple defied words.

Entering what once housed the glory of God, the forbidding darkness mocked their victory with its unrelenting shroud of despair and utter emptiness. The lampstand, which stood perpetually burning, now sat extinguished as a testimony of evil’s victory.

The purpose of the lampstand, as given to Aaron in Numbers 8:1-4 and Leviticus 24:5-9, was to shine upon the table of shewbread, where twelve loaves rested representing the twelve tribes of Israel. Just as light and fire symbolized the life-giving presence of God (Exodus 12:21-22), so the lampstand represented the presence of God and his glory shining upon the twelve tribes of Israel.

This wasn’t just some ordinary light; rather, it was the Light.

To the Maccabean priests, the darkened lampstand spoke louder than the absence of light; it testified of the dearth of God’s presence and the departure of his glory from Israel. As the primary focus of their restoration and purification of the Temple, lighting the lampstand became paramount.

However, they found only enough consecrated oil to burn the lampstand for one night.

More Advent Inspiration

Another Advent encouragement I have for you is the gorgeous Advent Poetry Collection by Vessels of Light Literary Journal. I also am privileged to have my Advent poem, “The Light of Men” and my villanelle “Born This Holy Night” published in this magnificent poetry collection.

I am truly grateful to Vessels of Light editor, Alexis Ragan for graciously including my work along with so many other talented poets. Please click the links below to read my work, but please also take the time to read the collection to truly elevate your worship this Advent season.

The Light of Men, an Advent Poem

Read the Full Poem HERE

Born This Holy Night, an Advent Villanelle

Read the Full Villanelle HERE

Bonus Advent Reading

Finally, I have two more Advent essays which were graciously published at Aletheia Today, in their Yuletide Issue.

Beholding the Gift of the Messiah

"Fully beholding the gift of the Messiah enables me to see Him in the daily moments not only of Advent, but each and every day of the year." Read the Full Essay HERE

When All is Not So Merry and Bright

"Hidden grief whispers loud among us, especially at Christmas, as we navigate losses too often dismissed or unacknowledged—but even in the pain, there’s a gift waiting to be unwrapped." Read the Full Essay HERE

May the Joy of the lord truly be your strength this Christmas season, and may you know the comfort and love of Immanuel in your darkest places today.

Sing a Christmas Love Song of Hope with me from Isaiah 12:

And in that day thou shalt say, O Lord, I will praise thee: though thou wast angry with me, thine anger is turned away, and thou comfortedst me.

² Behold, God is my salvation; I will trust, and not be afraid: for the Lord Jehovah is my strength and my song; he also is become my salvation.

³ Therefore with joy shall ye draw water out of the wells of salvation.

⁴ And in that day shall ye say, Praise the Lord, call upon his name, declare his doings among the people, make mention that his name is exalted.

⁵ Sing unto the Lord; for he hath done excellent things: this is known in all the earth.

⁶ Cry out and shout, thou inhabitant of Zion: for great is the Holy One of Israel in the midst of thee.