“Almighty God, give us grace to cast away the works of darkness and put on the armor of light.” This is the prayer that begins the season of Advent, the beginning of a new church year, and time of preparation for the coming birth of the Messiah.
Advent could well be called the season of darkness.
This time of year I find myself thinking of the dark, both literally and figuratively. Literally, we know that the days are growing shorter. It may well be dark when we leave the house in the morning and dark when we arrive home in the evening.
I don’t like the long hours of darkness much, but I know they are short lived. It is the figurative darkness that concerns me.
This year may seem darker than usual to many. The threats of round ups of immigrants, of retribution to those who have opposed the president-elect, the weaponizing of our justice system, of cuts to programs that help the most vulnerable among us, are all among the many reasons for concerns.
But the truth is we are always called to cast away the works of darkness. Even in the best of times darkness lurks. Advent and Christmas remind us that even in the darkest of times we are not alone.
We symbolize that with the Advent wreath, growing in light each week. There is no official meaning assigned to each candle, but they are often thought of as symbols in this order of faith, hope, joy, and love. Those meanings give us a hint of how we can put on the armor of light that casts away the darkness.
The first candle symbolizes faith. The kind of faith that casts out darkness is not subscribing to certain dogmas or a list of things one must believe. It is an active faith, a way of life, grounded in the knowledge of God’s interactions with the world throughout history.
Even a cursory reading of scripture belies the notion that faith has nothing to do with politics.
Biblical faith is a political faith, the story of a God who is concerned about the way power is used and abused, and how society’s most vulnerable are treated.
A God who liberates people from slavery is a political God.
This kind of faith was at the heart of the Civil Rights movement. The foot soldiers who faced the evil of white supremacy in Selma knew scripture inside and out.
They knew that God had liberated God’s people in the past, and they knew without a doubt that God was with them in the present.
Their faith gave them courage to confront the darkness.
The second candle, the one we lit today, symbolizes hope. We have a tendency to conflate hope with optimism, as if those words were interchangeable. But really they are quite different.
Theologian Ray Deck puts it this way: “Optimism, a vaguely positive sentiment, gets spread indiscriminately over hardship. Optimism ignores the facts and tries to feel good anyway.”
Hope is something else entirely. “Hope surveys all the facts, acknowledges them, but also looks beyond them to something larger,” Deck says. “Hope asks the hard questions, and believes there must be an answer even if it is elusive at the moment.
“Hope doesn’t try to feel good. It is hard earned; you don’t get it if your head is in the sand. Hope is available only to those willing to wrestle with pain, injustice, and other difficult realities.”
As Christians, our hope is based on the belief that God is with us, that because of Christ’s death on the cross, God knows firsthand what it is to suffer, and ultimately to triumph over suffering, and even death.
Christian hope is a radical act that doesn’t deny the reality of our situation. It is also the understanding that because God is with us, we can be hope for those around us.
Writer Anne Lamott acknowledges this when she writes, “By showing up with hope to help others, I’m guaranteed that hope is present. Then my own hope increases. By creating hope for others, I end up awash in the stuff.”
Hope is contagious. It gives us courage to face the darkness, knowing we are not alone.
The wreath’s third candle symbolizes joy. That may seem a stretch. Joy in the face of fear and darkness?
Bishop Gene Robinson, the first openly gay bishop in the Episcopal Church, said in an interview this week that he thinks many people are looking for joy in what he calls “this particularly dark time.”
Like hope and optimism are often conflated, so are joy and happiness.
“The difference between being happy and being joyful, it seems to me, is that happiness comes because something really good has happened to you, and it’s in that particular moment,” Robinson says.
“But joy is something deeper than that, and joy is something you can feel even when your current circumstances are actually quite difficult.”
One of the central biblical characters of Advent is Mary, who shows us joy in uncertain times.
We often forget how fearful Mary must have been at the news that she would bear the Messiah. Everything in her life changes in an instant.
Young, unmarried, unexpectedly pregnant. Surely she must have been anxious and worried. Would she become the subject of gossip, or even worse, an outcast?
But Mary does not give into fear. Instead she bursts into a song of joy, praising a God who brings down the powerful from their thrones and lifts up the lowly.
Mary’s joy gives her courage to face the uncertainty ahead of her.
The fourth candle of Advent symbolizes love. Biblical love is not an emotion. It is active, an embodiment of faith.
It is a love that stands up to bullies and evil.
A love that stands in solitary with those on the margins; a love that protects the vulnerable.
Love that will not be silent in the face of injustice. A love that stands up to and breaks down walls of hate.
Love gives us courage to face the darkness, knowing that the God of love is with us.
This Advent we pray that God will give us faith. Give us hope. Give us joy and love.
Give us the grace and courage to cast away the works of darkness, whenever and where ever they occur. Amen.