How Insecurity Thwarts a Kingdom

Herod’s violence reveals the futility of earthly power.

Illustration by Sandra Rilova

Read Matthew 2:-1-12

IT WAS A GROUP of astrologers “from the east” who first informed Herod that an heir to the Jewish throne had been born in his territory (v. 1). They must have traveled a long way, and I wonder if they had any idea what kind of man this king was. I imagine Herod making his visitors wait outside in the sun while he finished his lunch. And when he finally listened to their account of an auspicious star pointing to a royal birth, the significance of the story was difficult for him to digest.

Matthew tells us that “all Jerusalem” felt the upheaval in Herod’s soul, where insecurity and contempt burned through stability and reason (v. 3). The deadly pistons of conspiracy churned, fueled by a reservoir of fear that he wouldn’t have been able to acknowledge; but it must have escaped like steam from his expression and tone, obvious to anyone in his orbit.

He received the news of God’s chosen deliverer as a threat. The existence of a tiny, legitimate, messianic king of Israel felt like an assault on the identity that Herod had constructed for himself, a brittle tower of power and self-importance. And the urgency of his arrogance and fragility was the only justification for wielding the coercive violence of the state to kill babies in broad daylight.

The Magi refused to participate in his plot. They were wiser men than Herod realized, which isn’t surprising. His kind of pride and hatred make it difficult to truly see others for who they are; all of his internal energy was expended on convincing the world that he was as great as he imagined he should be.

After their visit with Jesus, the Magi escaped back to their country. It is scandalous and wonderful that these foreigners were the first to worship Jesus in Matthew’s account. Although sometimes in subtle and subversive ways, Matthew highlights the radical inclusion of the nations in the new people of God throughout his gospel. In fact, many of my friends from places like Iran, Azerbaijan, and Kazakhstan all want to claim the Magi as having come from their homeland.

Matthew’s version of the events also reveals a parallel with the Old Testament Exodus story. Like Herod, Pharoah had ordered the slaughter of babies in a desperate attempt to eliminate a perceived threat to power. The shrewdness of Shiphrah and Puah, wise midwives whose names are worth remembering, thwarted his evil plan (Ex. 1:15–21). And Moses, God’s chosen deliverer, was rescued and raised in exile, which was, of course, God’s plan all along.

I live as an exile on the island of Cyprus. I was unjustly deported from my former home by a leader who considers me a threat to national security. He doesn’t want the good news of God’s deliverance to spread. He cannot see the wisdom of our work caring for refugees. And he cannot see the goodness of the people we serve. But, now seven years later, I can see the hand of God moving us to complete a greater plan. And I am learning to focus on its goodness, and on his goodness, even when I am called to dark government offices to respond to false accusations in our new home as well. His kingdom is coming.

I imagine that Joseph and Mary were too inspired by the greatness of their son to let their lives be defined by bitterness toward Herod and the dark politics of the world around them. There were days to redeem and long afternoons to join in the work of hoping for the renewal of all things, even as they made the long walk back from Egypt and watched Jesus suffer alienation, false accusations, and persecution. In the end, after our own long days of waiting, we all join the Magi in worship.

Ryan Keating is a writer, teacher, and pastor on the island of Cyprus. His poetry can be found in publications such as Ekstasis and Fare Forward.

This article is part of A Time for Wonder, a 4-week devotional to help individuals, small groups, and families journey through the 2024 Advent season. Learn more about this special issue that can be used Advent, or any time of year at http://orderct.com/advent.

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Church Life

On the Heels of the Miraculous

Courtney Moody

Joseph’s call to obedience in the midst of the mundane.

Illustration by Sandra Rilova

Read Matthew 2:3-15

SWEAT DRIPS off Joseph’s forehead onto the dust road. The afternoon sun glares off his back and onto the sandy landscape. A pebble has lodged itself in his sandal. He’d love to stop and take it out before a blister forms, but there are miles to go, and Mary has finally calmed a now two-year-old Jesus back to sleep after their donkey was spooked by a snake.

Not too long ago, life had seemed wonderful beyond their wildest dreams. They’d been blessed with rich gifts from several wise men who followed God’s star all the way from the East to see Jesus. The Messiah was here. Mary and Joseph had been specially chosen by God. It would be easy to assume Jesus would remember his earthly parents when the time came for him to overthrow the government and establish a new kingdom.

Then the warning came in the form of another dream. Despite doing his best to obey and explain to Mary their sudden need to flee the safety of their hometown, Joseph must have had questions rising within him with each step they took toward Egypt. What happened to the miracle? If Herod was threatening God’s Son, why didn’t God just strike him down? What were they to even make of all these dreams and angelic appearances?

I always find myself encouraged at this time of year— not just by the Nativity but by the many surrounding days that compose the season of Advent. Faith is easy when we’re in the middle of a breakthrough: that amazing job offer, a miraculous doctor’s report, the divine provision. But when life returns to the mundane, faith can become a challenge. Staying joyful as we go back to our jobs, washing dishes and clothes, and the many other tasks that clutter our lives, becomes the true test of faith. This is especially true when real, severe trial comes on the heels of the miraculous.

Attacks often come right after a spiritual high and place us on our own road to Egypt, calling us to test our confidence in the Lord. A miracle comes and reminds us of God’s wonderful presence—and then comes the plunge into difficulty and uncertainty. We find ourselves asking the same questions that would have likely come to Joseph: What happened? Why doesn’t God just fix this? Have I really heard from God?

Questions are natural. They can lead us to deepen our faith. When we take our questions to God, he draws near with comfort and answers. As Joseph looked back at Mary, he saw Jesus: the promise of the angel who appeared to him. God’s Word made flesh. Breathing. Fidgeting. Tangible proof that God did and would come through.

Through Joseph’s obedience, God would bring the family to safety in Egypt. Word would eventually reach them of what had occurred back in Bethlehem and turn into a testimony of divine intervention. As they remained there, Jesus would grow older. Immanuel would be with them, reminding them of the eternal presence of God and his promises. Waking up and sitting down to their morning meal with Jesus would be their reminder of God’s faithfulness, and eventually, they would come out of Egypt and fulfill the prophecy of Hosea.

As we find ourselves underneath the beating sun of suffering or trial, wondering what happened to the miracles, we may find ourselves struggling even in our obedience. Perhaps our questions feel like a swirling sandstorm obscuring the guidance of God.

But just as Joseph could look to the Son of God for encouragement, so can we. In the fulfilled promises of Advent, we find comfort. Though the road to our own Egypt may seem long and filled with sweat and stones, Jesus is Immanuel, “God with us.” In obedience, we can keep walking with our eyes on him, knowing that the cool breezes of the evening will eventually come and that the miracles have just begun.

Courtney Moody is a ballet dancer, writer, and poet of faith. Her publications include Ekstasis and The Way Back to Ourselves literary journal.

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Church Life

The Future’s Great Light

Morgan Mitchell

How Isaiah prophesies the expectation of Advent.

Illustration by Sandra Rilova

Read Isaiah 9:2-7

AFTER THE HOURS of heat, the early evening beckons with a soft light and its pleasant coolness. The late hours crack the egg of the day to reveal the golden yolk of the setting sun. It would be a mind-bending exercise to try to explain darkness without describing light—it’s likely impossible to do so. Light beckons on the horizon of even the darkest moments.

The prophet Isaiah, however, had awakened with the dawn. He was a prophet of Judah who ministered during the reign of four kings; the progeny of a family of rank and status; a family man; one who had a willing spirit to do what the Lord had called him to do. Commissioned to be a mouthpiece of God, he spoke with prophetic force even though his words would fall on deaf ears, and his throat would grow scratchy.

His work and writing bears some of the most profound words in all of Scripture, echoing themes of holiness, justice, allegiance, trust, righteousness, and hope. The words read today in Isaiah 9:2–7 reveal sparks of this truth, reflecting the contrast between light and dark, hope and heaviness, honor and gloom.

This contrast is foreshadowed even in the names that Isaiah gives his sons: the first named ShearJashub, or, “a remnant will return” and the second named Maher-Shalal-Hash-Baz as a warning, “quick to the plunder, swift to the spoil,” a balancing act that neither contradict nor cancel each other out, but fleshes out the theme that this unified story directs us toward throughout the Advent season (7:3, 8:1).

We simply cannot explain the darkness without describing the light. “The people walking in darkness have seen a great light; on those living in the land of deep darkness a light has dawned” (v. 2).

When we turn away from God, there is a spiritual darkness that will haunt and startle us. After an amazing work of God in our hearts we begin to redirect, reroute, reorient ourselves toward light, and find it so real, so sustaining, that the noble crew of C. S. Lewis’s Dawn Treader called it “drinkable”. We begin to experience the goodness of things to come like “drinkable light” and that break in the clouds and sunlight on our back fuels the drumbeat to freedom—a freedom that comes from aligning our values, allegiance, obedience, delight, and hope with our God of unfailing love.

Isaiah knew that Bethlehem would be the place that God would hem the garments of eternity. This “Prince of Peace” would one day be acquainted with the truest form of darkness imaginable—a darkness no one else could endure—so that we may walk in the light.

Isaiah foresaw a future light and was welcoming the dawn that would one day break after a long, dark night, casting beams of hope 700 years into the future. He saw a radiant heir that would come as a peasant even as he was the Messiah. Jesus shines a light past the evening, awakens the dawn, and sets the course for redemptive history—a baby growing to be a man who would experience true darkness, so that we, with sleepy eyes, may gaze upon eternal light.

Morgan Mitchell serves as a pastor in San Diego, specializing in church small groups, discipleship, and preaching.

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Church Life

The Fruit and Fire of the Spirit

Alyssa Stadtlander

Mary’s encounter with God’s power reveals the arc of the Spirit’s work.

Illustration by Sandra Rilova

Read Luke 1:30-38

I IMAGINE MARY, rubbing her eyes in the light cast by the angel in the doorway, the phosphorescence filtering through the dusty, dusky air of her room.

Some days, I imagine the angel appears to her as a young boy about her age, gazing at her with wide, curious eyes and cocked head, grinning as he makes his pronouncement about the good news that is coming through her. Other times, I imagine the angel as an older grandmother, kneeling in front of her and brushing the hair from her eyes, comforting her like a mother would upon delivering news that is about to change everything. Still other times, the angel is simply a flash of light, a pillar of fire in the wilderness, while Mary blinks, trying to absorb the message flooding her room, knowing that every moment in her life will arrange itself according to this one; there will be a before, and an after. “How shall this be?” Mary asks (v. 34, KJV throughout).

As an answer, the miraculous words from the angel slip into the warm air: “The Holy Ghost shall come upon thee, and the power of the Highest shall overshadow thee: therefore also that holy thing which shall be born of thee shall be called the Son of God. … For with God nothing shall be impossible” (vv. 35, 37).

And suddenly, something happens, full of life and earthy glory, the presence of God somehow forming that which is new and real inside Mary’s womb.

The first time I heard these words—really heard them—I wept. Desperate to feel anything from El Roi, the God who Sees, I longed for a glimpse of the Holy Spirit coming upon me, the arms of the Most High cradling my small body curled up on my college apartment couch. I envisioned my own light-filled hope that God indeed saw me and instilled purpose within me, that I was worth the effort of drawing near.

Isn’t this what God is always doing, cultivating new mercies from a generous fount, an overshadow of his Spirit and a word of change? The poem of creation itself begins with these lines, a foreshadow of the kingdom to come:

“And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters. And God said, Let there be light: and there was light” (Gen. 1:2–3).

This simple, impossible declaration that calls light out of darkness persists, enacted by a Spirit who is, even now, moving on our behalf. The same Spirit who lit the first sky with light, who became a pillar of fire in the wilderness, who poured out an unshakable presence into prophets, priests, and kings.

The same Spirit who overshadowed a young girl in Nazareth and created a holy thing inside her womb; the same Spirit who raised the girl’s son, the Word of God made flesh, to life 30 years later; who flung tongues of fire upon humanity to light our way, that we might all—Gentile and Jew, slave and free, male and female—see the beauty and presence of God together. The same Spirit is living within you, too.

In the midst of our own uncertainties, as we face the coming night, our bodies—like Mary’s, like Jesus’—have the capacity to hold the power of the Most High who is, even now, hovering over the face of the deep waters within us, creating a new way forward in the places we have deemed impossible.

This Advent season, may we practice echoing Mary’s words of acceptance–“be it unto me according to thy word” (Luke 1:38)–and pay generous attention as the Spirit fills us with power and love. May we pause and wonder on the stoop of our soul as the sun sets, as we wait for the promised light. May we feel the pillar of fire within us burn.

Alyssa Stadtlander is a writer and actress based in Boise, Idaho. Her work is published in Ekstasis, Mudfish Magazine, Fathom, and others.

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Church Life

Restless Nights and Renewed Callings

George Sweetman

Clarity comes from God in the midst of Joseph’s anxious wrestling.

Illustration by Sandra Rilova

Read Matthew 1:18-21

THE GENEALOGY at the end of Matthew chapter 1 is curious, isn’t it? After a long and, to many ears, boring list of begetting names and family lineages, the story ends with the news of Mary’s scandalous pregnancy and Joseph grappling with a miserable decision—publicly shame Mary (with the resulting possibility of her death!) or divorce her without a fuss, but likely to a life of misery and loneliness.

There are nights that I fall into my pillows with a mind full of restless and toxic thoughts that keep me staring at my white ceiling and from much-needed sleep. Nonetheless, what occupies my mind is nothing compared to what Joseph was dealing with upon the news that Mary was pregnant. His days must have been filled with a paralyzing sadness at this betrayal, and nights restless with their tossing and turning as he faced what seemed like only two options. Imagine: You’re excited about the prospects of marriage, you’re moving through the betrothal stage of the process—more than an engagement but not yet marriage— working diligently to ensure that all is lined up for a wedding feast that will include friends, family, and days of eating, drinking, and celebrating only to be told months before the big day(s) that you’re going to be a dad and, oh, by the way, the baby isn’t yours (of course!) or even another man’s!

When Joseph is finally able to sleep after stewing over the pain of his impending Solomonic decision, he is visited in his slumber, and the dream changes his life. A messenger from God appears to him and whispers, “Joseph son of David, do not be afraid to take Mary home as your wife, because what is conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit. She will give birth to a son, and you are to give him the name Jesus, because he will save his people from their sins” (Matt. 1:20–21).

Here’s the thing: Joseph is a simple worker of wood; he is not any rabbi’s apprentice. Nonetheless, he is a faithful Jew—going to temple on High Holy Days, observing feasts and fasts, and having some understanding of the Hebrew Scripture from the training of his youth. The angel’s proclamation of the Spirit’s presence could possibly have made some sense to him. And yet, what he’s told in the depth of his REM sleep that night causes him to take massive action and redirect the entire course of his life. When Joseph wakes, he knows what to do. Does doubt linger? How could it not? Is he still confused? Probably. Does he begin to calculate the reputational cost of his obedience? Likely. But there is no wavering for Joseph.

The Spirit’s work—that which began at the creation of the cosmos, continued through the kings and prophets as told in the early scrolls, and that animates his ancient world—that work must continue. It must be birthed. And the child, “Jesus”—not a unique name of that generation or time, but one with the immeasurably important promise he will save his people from their sins—will be received and cared for by his earthly father and presented to the world.

After nights struggling under a shroud of doom obscuring his family’s future, Joseph rises that morning with a renewed call and a God-word that rests upon his shoulders. The dawn of a new day has begun. The dawn of a new life is promised. The dawn of a new creation is about to break through, and the dark of the night has been dispelled. Everything has been changed.

George Sweetman has served as the dean of student life at Tyndale University in Toronto for the past 25 years.

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Church Life

The Eternal Testimony of Jesus’ Parents

Caleb Saenz

Mary and Joseph’s journey to the tender heart of parenthood.

Illustration by Sandra Rilova

Read Matthew 1:24-25

I CAN STILL REMEMBER our first trip home as a family after my daughter was born. I don’t know that I had ever driven as safely or as slowly as I did when we left the hospital. We had been anticipating this moment for nearly a year, but for all the appointments and books and classes and redecorating, nothing prepared me for the sudden and colossal change I had undergone. I was now a father. The safety net of the hospital was disappearing in the rearview mirror, and each creaking mile took me further into an entirely new reality.

The complicated thing about parenting is that you receive an identity change before you really know what to do with it. I became a father when I first heard my daughter cry. She’s ten now, and in so many ways I am still becoming her father. What might have felt akin to impostor syndrome early on has shifted into an indelible piece of who I am. Faithfulness through success and failure has yielded the fruit of that change.

I think about this experience often when I read about Joseph. Matthew describes him as a righteous man, who prioritized care for his betrothed and obedience to the law of Moses. When he sees that Mary is pregnant, before they were married and could conceive, his response indicates that he holds his righteousness even above his heartache, as he likely suspects infidelity. But as he moves toward a quiet divorce, saving Mary public shame, a messenger of God intervenes as Joseph is dreaming one night. The child in Mary’s womb is the work of the Holy Spirit, he is told, and this son will save God’s people from their sins. The dream ends, and Joseph rises to a new identity and with it, a new world. He might have gone to bed a heartbroken man, but he wakes up a committed husband and father.

Mary’s experience is the focal point of the other three gospel accounts, and they provide a vivid depiction of what it looks like for her to faithfully respond to the word of God. Our experience with the Holy Spirit operates on a similar trajectory. We are forever changed by grace at the core of who we are, and the new life inside of us is to be displayed as a tangible testimony. We nurture and care for what is within so that it might go out to serve the world around us.

In Matthew’s gospel, Joseph presents us with a different vantage point. While Mary nurtured life toward its external revelation, Joseph is called as a father to witness something outside of himself that will one day occupy the center of his heart.

After the message in his dream, Joseph’s whole life became an expression of waiting. The promise from God’s messenger carried no details or dates. Joseph is to be Jesus’ earthly father, but his choice to receive that calling is less a one-time acceptance and more a daily choice to follow through with his new identity and the responsibilities it entails.

I will not attempt to speak for the Bible in its silence, but we know the realities of parenting that Joseph would have experienced. We can faithfully imagine his heart swelling as he heard Jesus’ first words. We can picture Joseph hurting with Jesus, as the Son wept over his first cut or scrape. Joseph, righteous and obedient, called to fatherhood in a dream, was surely learning to be a father as he watched Jesus dream peacefully in his sleep. This humble man who followed behind a toddler clumsily racing through his home will one day follow proudly behind a triumphant, risen king.

Advent shows us there is a burden and a beauty after awakening. Those who have seen a great light carry a responsibility to steward new life. But what is within us is at work around us, too. All things are indeed being made new. Joseph teaches us that those who wait will also witness.

Caleb Saenz is lead pastor of The Garden, a church planted in San Antonio in 2023.

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Church Life

To See a Prophecy Fulfilled

Lily Journey

Witnessing God’s ways through Simeon’s eyes.

Illustration by Sandra Rilova

Read Luke 2:33-35

THE PROPHETIC VISIONS splintered through Simeon’s mind in a fraction of a second as a teenage girl and young man walked up the temple steps with their child. The images of what had been and would come, contained within this bundle coming to meet him.

War and rumors of war.
Peace and a marriage feast.

A scrap of linen swaddling cloth.
Linen temple drapes torn in half.

The groans of a Jewish girl laboring in a stable.
The tear-stained cheeks of a mother kneeling at a cross.

Each image pointed to the completion of the promise he’d waited for his whole life: a Messiah who would usher in a world turned upside down on itself, a world where the meek were strong and the rich became poor. He might have laughed at the irony of the sight before him. A tiny baby with the strength to snuff out death, and an impoverished couple witnessing the greatest coronation in history. This is the blessing Simeon would give the God-child as his calloused hands held the infant: the blessing of paradox, for he will be the rise and fall of many Israelites.

Luke doesn’t write much about Simeon beyond describing him as a “righteous and devout man” (v. 25). We aren’t given the detailed story of the day Simeon met Jesus, and the gaps leave ripe room for imagining what Simeon experienced during those long-awaited moments. What did it feel like to wait all those years? Was he ever tempted to speed up the process, to look for the Savior another way?

As we peer through Simeon’s ancient eyes, we realize that the promise of Advent is both slow and mysterious. It requires both waiting and wondering. Personally, I’m not very good at slowness. I tend to sprint through Advent with the rest of the world, dutifully ticking away the days on my December calendar; hurry through the mysterious and confusing bits; get to the candlelit “Silent Night” and festive presents. I rush though as if the less I think about the grit of Bethlehem, the more I can enjoy the twinkling lights and Christmas trees and gingerbread houses. My impatience is a way to resist the lingering questions.

But then I remember Simeon. Simeon waited. And waited. Along with many of the other prophets in the Bible, Simeon dwelled in the paradox of Advent for years. Unlike me with my chocolate calendar, Simeon didn’t have the luxury of a countdown or the ease of knowing how the story would end. He just got comfortable with the one thing he knew: God would fulfill what he had promised.

We, like Simeon, are waiting in the afternoon shadows of the in-between between Jesus’ saving work on the cross and the ultimate redemption of his second coming. The scandal of the Christmas story is that it flips our vision of the world upside down and gives us a new way of seeing. In doing so, it demands that we surrender our tendency to rush and to rationalize. How would the Christmas story change for us if we allowed ourselves to be wrapped up in the radical profundity of it all—of a child that causes both “falling and rising” (v.34)? Of divinity intermingled with the gritty, ordinary chaos of humanity? If we paused long enough, what pains, questions, and promises would bubble up to the surface? Advent offers us the gentle invitation to model Simeon’s posture, waiting patiently, pondering, and wondering.

Lily Journey is a non-profit professional, poetry enthusiast, event creative, and writer.

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Church Life

Christmas Beckons Us with Wonder

Isaac Gay

How the incarnation of Christmas can change our perspective.

Illustration by Sandra Rilova

Read Mark 10:13–16

MY IN-LAWS LIVE on three acres in western New York. A creek runs behind their house, holding the memories of my wife and her siblings playing in it as children. Their laughter is now echoed by the giggles of our children. Rows of evergreens line the property, enfolding the highs, lows, and nuances of family life. One winter’s night, as I strolled through the snow piled on the path and in the branches, my mind drifted to a vision of the “age to come.” As millions of snowflakes with their unique expression of God’s creative genius fell around me, I was once again introduced to wonder.

The French word inspirer, the source of the English word inspiration, is literally translated as breath. In the pause between our breaths, we are once in a while brought to a place of inspiration where we can observe what was previously hidden to us; our eyes glimpse the new that will one day be revealed.

As we see through the eyes of children, inspiration and wonder are the original postures of the human soul—as Jesus says, “Truly, I say to you, whoever does not receive the kingdom of God like a child shall not enter it” (Mark 10:15, ESV). The poet Dylan Thomas put it this way: “Children in wonder watching the stars / Is the aim and the end.” As mature, regulated adults, we often find ourselves neglecting everyday wonder and conserving it as a response most appropriate to the monumental and palatial. We compartmentalize our day-to-day living and can easily lose the sense of humble availability that allows children to engage with the world around them in wonder. If we’re not careful, our pride, pragmatism, and self-dependence can strip us of the essence that makes us most human, causing us to shut our eyes to the wonder that children see so easily.

The story of God’s incarnation invites a childlike posture of wonder. Amid presuppositions of a kingly birth, Christ is born into unremarkable circumstances. Much like those who awaited the Messiah at the time, our modern eyes would have overlooked Bethlehem in favor of Jerusalem. We would have ignored the shepherds on the hillside as we do beggars on the streets, looking instead for the expected grandeur of glory. But when we come to the scene of the baby lying in the manger, we find the epitome of wonder. Redirecting our gaze back to the humble and wonderful, God meets humanity in the most mundane of ways. The Incarnation reminds us that as we pause, our ability to stand in wonder is no longer predicated on magnitude, but is available in monotony.

As we gather with our loved ones and enter into the season of lights and holly, sleigh bells and nativity, it is good to gaze at the elementary; to stand in wonder during a snowfall, to delight in the taste of freshly baked pastries, to laugh along to the sound of children playing, and to answer the door to childlike faith that wonder can open. Not only do we find Christ there, but we find him inviting us to share in the way he sees the world he has created.

Isaac Gay is an artist, worship leader, and writer at the crossroads of creativity, spirituality, and contemporary thought.

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Church Life

A Promise in the Darkness

Kimberly Phinney

What Isaiah’s prophecy means for us during dark nights.

Illustration by Sandra Rilova

Read Isaiah 9:2–6

MY DAUGHTER is afraid of the dark. So, as a rational adult who’s supposed to know there is nothing to fear when we switch off the lights, I try to abate her cries with reason. But no matter what I say, it doesn’t work. The only remedy that brings her peace is the assurance of my presence: “Don’t worry, I’m here with you.” So, as I settle in beside her and await her heavy breaths of slumber, I wonder what it is about the pitch of night that is so unnerving—not just for our children but for all of us.

Mankind has feared the dark in its various forms since time began, as made clear in our ancestors’ fireside epics and the torrid arc of history. I, too, came to fear this darkness in the grip of a chronic illness, which nearly took my life in 2021, as sepsis raged through my frail body after a failed surgery. So, perhaps our children’s fear of the dark isn’t without merit; rather, it is the first pang of the dread we adults have come to know as the very real anxieties that keep us up at night.

Children’s darkened rooms serve as a foretaste of evil they know little about, as shadows of their once familiar toys become harbingers of ruin. The day this imaginative void becomes something true is the day our children learn, like those of us who have gone before them, that there really is a flip side to the coin of life: good and evil, peace and war, health and sickness, life and death.

Isaiah, the messianic prophet of the Bible, knew about this darkness, but despite the black cloak of chaos and war that surrounded him, he anticipated a far greater flip side: a coming Light—with a capital “L”—because this Light would arrive as a baby and forever redeem the dark side of the coin. Isaiah prophesied, “For to us a child is born, to us a son is given . . . and he will be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace” (Isa. 9:6). This Light would bring justice, righteousness, and peace with “no end” (v. 7). Isaiah urges the people of God to take heart! I can almost hear him now, speaking into my own darkness and its aftermath: Dear soul, hold on! Hope for your suffering and light for your darkness are here! The Messiah is coming, and he will reign for eternity!

Light is referenced in the Bible more than 250 times, and each time its symbolism is clear: Light represents the presence of God, Christ, and holiness. In his 2013 Advent sermon, the late Dr. Timothy Keller calls Isaiah’s prophecy of Christ “the unexpected, ultimate Light.” Christ is the Light that “came to overcome the deep darkness of the world,” Keller exhorts. Thus, Christmas is the birth of Light— the great panacea for all that plagues mankind in the shadows. This is why the Advent season brings with it great anticipation and is a time so many look forward to. But there is a “withness” in Isaiah’s prophecy that is for us all year round, in whatever darkness or suffering we face.

I asked my daughter what it is about my presence that helps her overcome her fear of the dark, and she said, “It solves my loneliness.” We might not be so different from our children after all. If we face the darkness alone, there is reason for great fear. But if we believe in Christ’s “withness”—his promise, I am here with you—then we, too, can find a reason to breathe our own deep sighs of relief in the darkness, so that we might sleep to dream and then to anticipate the greatest coming Light of all. Alone in my hospital bed, I learned this hard and beautiful truth firsthand: We must endure great darkness in this world, but we also know the bearer of all light. For it is written in John 1:4–5, “In him was life, and that life was the light of all mankind. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.”

Kimberly Phinney is a writer and professor. She is founder of the literary community www.TheWayBack2Ourselves.com and has been published in Ekstasis.

Church Life

A Time for Wonder

Conor Sweetman

Introducing Christianity Today’s 2024 Advent devotional.

Illustration by Sandra Rilova

The Christmas season might seem like an odd time to turn to Ecclesiastes in your Bible. As December dawns, there’s no time to ponder the ephemerality of life—the house needs cleaning! The cookies need baking! The presents need wrapping! The family needs to be entertained! Or maybe the season that feels bereft of spare time is exactly the moment to ponder the fleeting nature of our lives.

We often engage a wide spectrum of experience during this unique season. Ecclesiastes bears testimony to the reality that there is a specific time for everything—for planting and sowing; for crying and laughing; for lamentation and celebration. Wherever the Christmas season finds you this year, you can take heart in the fact that God orders reality according to seasons and rhythms that are sometimes dark and sometimes light; sometimes heavy and sometimes full of levity.

In this Advent devotional from Christianity Today, we move through the cycle of morning, afternoon, and evening, each with its own tone and specific reality to press into. As we move through the weeks of Advent, this devotional guides us along a journey through times of renewal, trial, revelation, and ultimately to a time of wonder at the great gift that we have at Christmas: Christ’s incarnation on Earth, his taking on flesh for the sake of love and our salvation. Dive in, find the time to witness the days of Advent through the eyes of wonder, and join as we worship together.

- More from Conor Sweetman

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