This edition of Christianity Today is likely in your hands as you finalize plans for the holidays and anticipate all they hold—both their blessings and their burdens. Results of political elections may stoke polarization and unrest, and you may gather around a Thanksgiving table with empty chairs this year; it may be hard to shift gears toward Christmas, with its cheery lights and traditions. But in the Christian year, Advent doesn’t rush in. In her book Advent: The Once and Future Coming of Jesus Christ, theologian Fleming Rutledge writes of this season we’re entering:
In the church, this is the season of Advent. It’s superficially understood as a time to get ready for Christmas, but in truth it’s the season for contemplating the judgment of God. Advent is the season that, when properly understood, does not flinch from the darkness that stalks us all in this world. Advent begins in the dark and moves toward the light—but the season should not move too quickly or too glibly, lest we fail to acknowledge the depth of the darkness.
We are an Advent people, bearing the tension of joy and sorrow, of light and darkness. As you journey through this last issue of 2024, you’ll encounter stories and ideas that carry the gravity of our fallen world Rutledge describes.
We share an up-close reflection from Carrie McKean on family estrangement and how the church can care for people who find themselves estranged (p. 52). We report on how the gospel shines a light into the darkness of addiction, galvanizing the church to work among people who are in the grip of drug addiction, both domestically and abroad (pp. 30, 42). And we present the testimony of a man lured into the pornography industry but rescued from its captivity by the light of Christ (p. 16).
Darkness envelops relationships and systems and even all of creation, as Paul reminds us in Romans 8:22. You’ll also read of the pollution of a watershed running through one creek in West Michigan and the hope for its renewal in a first-person essay by Sara Kyoungah White (p. 74). You’ll read of artists wrestling with the challenge and burden of limitations (p. 62).
As we wrestle with the darkness, we have a sure and certain hope in the person of Christ. In an essay on the doctrine of providence, Brad East reminds us that “the axis of history turns on the resurrection of Jesus” (p. 82). While Advent begins in the dark, the darkness has not overcome the light (John 1:5).
When we were planning this issue, our editor in chief, Russell Moore, reminded me of some lines from “O Little Town of Bethlehem”:
Yet in that dark street shineth
The everlasting light
The hopes and fears of all the years
Are met in thee tonight.
As sons and daughters—image bearers—of the King, our aim through these pages is to shine that everlasting light in the dark streets where evil, hardship, and suffering travel among us. We do this because we were once walking in darkness and “have seen a great light” (Isa. 9:2).
Take heart, there is a second advent of our King. He’s coming soon. And when he does, he’ll eradicate addictions, mend brokenness in our families, restore the dignity of the oppressed, shatter the yokes that burden us, and make all things new.
Joy Allmond is executive editor at Christianity Today.
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