The Afterglow of Advent
“This will be remembered as a time that brought us together while at the same time pushing us farther apart than we ever thought possible.”
We are experiencing a time in history that has changed everything for many of us. The way we work. The way we live. The way we love. The way we gather. And yet, we see glimpses of a new day in a new year ahead. A new way of getting our normal reframed. A new way of moving forward.
For many of us, it won’t look like it did before, and we don’t want it to. For others of us, we will pick up the old rhythms, old ways, old wants, because we never really left them behind. We just hoarded them in a safe space so we could access them again when the world opened up.
There will be an aftermath to this pandemic that will carry both positive and negative consequences. There will be ways we will have changed that we never intended. Some of us reacted with fear to uncertainty all around us. Others of us chose to be pro-active and make lemonade out of lemons and choose not to let fear be the boss of us. Our choices in this season shape who we will be as we emerge on the other side of the chaos.
Because all great changes are preceded by chaos.
We will look back on this year as a year that challenged us, called up our potential to rise in adversity, to become more human in good ways, to challenge inequity of gender and race and show compassion to those on the frontlines and forgotten in the back streets.
This year also called up our human tendency to dig in our heels and hang on white-knuckled to our point of view because we felt it was our right. Politically and socially we lined up like soldiers with our opinions raised like swords against each other to create a divide so wide that there is no bridge strong enough that can be built where we can meet in the middle.
This will be remembered as a time that brought us together while at the same time pushing us farther apart than we ever thought possible.
But we will do as we do before. In no time at all we resume unhealthy rhythms and addictions just…keep…going.
And that is the danger. We want to be changed. We need to be changed. But fatally, we have forgotten that the only event that could change us in the deepest places has already visited us.
No global catastrophe or pandemic can overshadow the one and only great event that confronts our human tendency to go back to the ordinary. This one global event, ripe with paradox and mystery is the love of heaven breaking into our chaotic world and bringing with it the person of Jesus, God with us.
We can never go back to normal because the afterglow of the great reawakening of humanity made possible by a babe in a manger still illuminates the universe.
The life giving, pulsating energy that keeps the planets in place still reverberates throughout the heavens. The stars still continue to shine. The world keeps turning with synchronicity greater than any digital device can manufacture.
Let’s not let the aftermath of a pandemic overshadow the afterglow that we flourish in as sons and daughters of the King of the universe.
When Christ broke into our world, he also broke into our hearts. He touched the dead, pain-filled and broken places. He declared that we were to rise again, walk again, live again, dream again, and turned our mourning to dancing. He’s the only one that could.
Would you bask in the afterglow you radiate with in the midst of this chaos and into the future – because you reflect he glory of God in this world?
The glow of a single person that reflects the light of Christ eclipses a million failed human attempts to create false hope in a world of grEy.
We will never cut through the grey and uncertain days ahead unless we believe the light of Christ will continue to pierce the darkness.
There is no grey in the afterglow – only the candle of light that continues to radiate for millenniums. Nothing can ever be the same. There is no going back to old ways, old rules, old rhythms, old doubts, old fears. The new has come and shattered complacency and unbelief. The new has come and unlocked centuries of chains that kept us bound in hopelessness that the promise of a Messiah was just a pipe dream.
He has come. The light is all around you. He is here. The Kingdom is here. The Kingdom is in you. Christ is in you.
May you bask in the afterglow of Emmanuel with you and in you. May you never cease to be astonished as God continues to write His story – and yours – and spread light and life not only in this sacred season but for the rest of your life.
Cathie