Fourth Tuesday in Advent: Winter Solstice

Today's text was the story of Joseph, which we already looked at on Sunday, so let me take a side trip. Today is the winter solstice--the day with the shortest amount of daylight in the northern hemisphere. It was an even darker day because of the lunar eclipse last night (not that it mattered for us, as the moon wasn't visible from all the snow clouds present anyway). From here on out the days only gain more daylight.

Winter is hard at times because of the cold combined with darkness. My wife strongly urged me not to look at ministry positions in Alaska knowing how hard it would be to deal with the darkness of winter there.

Light gives us hope during Advent. We love to decorate with lights--on our homes, on our trees, in our windows. We are reminded of Christ coming to earth--the Light coming into the darkness.

Yet, there are times when darkness is all there is. We know the Light. We know the Light gets rid of darkness. Yet, there are times in life when we only feel the darkness. This time of year produces that feeling in many. And it is not wrong to go through those dark times. Just as the seasons change, bringing darkness and bringing light, we have those seasons in our life as well.

But let the seasons remind us that in times of darkness, things will change. Light will come. But we may have to wait in darkness for a while. That is Advent. We wait. We wait for Christ to come. We know that Christ was born. But He was born because of the darkness in the world. We know that He will come again some day. And there is still darkness for Him to come into.

So as we wait in Advent, maybe we need to take some time to reflect on the darkness in our lives. What does Christ's light need to illuminate in our lives? Where do we need to bring His Light? And what darkness are we going through that we need to be reminded of the hope that the Light will bring?