Christmas time is here!  And with it comes the many joys of the season – bright lights, colorful wrapping paper, and a whole host of Christmas songs handed down throughout the last several generations.  In many ways, it is a time of year for rejoicing and celebration – especially for us Christians, as we celebrate the birth of our dear Lord and Savior.

But for some of you, Christmas season doesn’t feel so holly jolly.  Perhaps this year’s holiday jubilation feels outside of your grasp, as you struggle under the weight of living in this broken, sinful world.  Maybe it is hard to look forward to Christmas at all this year.  Perhaps, there’s a loved one who’ll be missing from your dinner table, and you are not sure what the holiday will feel like without them.  Perhaps, it is financial or vocational struggles that weigh you down, as money is tight or work is difficult.  Perhaps, it is relational turmoil with family, friends, or a loved one that make it awkward at best or altogether depressing at worst.  Perhaps, for one of a dozen different reasons you are just not ‘in the holiday spirit’ this year.  But I want to suggest to you that, perhaps, ‘the holiday spirit’ is overrated anyway.

As much as I love Christmas, one of my favorite aspects of this time of year is a season that the Church has traditionally called “Advent”.  Advent is the time leading up to Christmas each year, but it isn’t just about happy-clappy good times and cheer.  Advent brings something deeper, richer, and more robust to whole season.  The word “advent” comes from the Latin word for “arrival”, speaking to the arrival or coming of Christ.  It is a season of hopeful expectation and patient waiting, remembering the longings of God’s people from long ago as they awaited the promised Messiah.

One of the best depictions of this is what we see in Isaiah 9:2-7a when the prophet says, “The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light; those who dwelt in a land of deep darkness, on them has light shone…For to us a child is born, to us a son is given; and the government shall be upon his shoulder, and his name shall be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace. Of the increase of his government and of peace there will be no end.”  About 700 years before the birth of Jesus, this prophecy was made.  Hope was coming!  But we must remember: silence is all they felt for several hundred more years until the birth of Christ.

Similarly, as Christians, we find ourselves in a time of waiting.  Jesus has come, of course, but he is to return.  And so each Advent season is a reminder to us all to look longingly toward the Second Coming of Christ.  And as we do so we are reminded of this hope.  Though we may walk in darkness, we have seen a great light.  A light, known as Christ Jesus, has shined into the darkness of our lives.  In our despair, he has brought hope.  In our weakness, he has brought strength.  In our brokenness, he has brought healing.  In our sinfulness, he has brought redemption.  In our tumult, he has brought peace.  And not just peace… but peace without end! 

Indeed, Christmas is the reminder that God speaks to us in the silent moments.  He calls us to a steadfast hope anchored not in our circumstances but in the Gospel.  And Advent reminds us that God sometimes intentionally allows us to feel empty, longing, let down in this world, so that we would see that the desires we have won’t ultimately be found in this world at all.  Our desires for relational, vocational, financial, emotional, or physical healing will only find their truest fulfillment in Him.  As Colossians 1:17 says, “[Jesus] is before all things, and in him all things hold together.”

So this holiday season, be reminded that it is okay not to be okay right now because God is moving even in your season of desperation.  You don’t have to be in the holiday spirit because God is in YOU via his Holy Spirit.  Things may seem bleak, but God is up to something.  Indeed, it is in times where things seem darkest that God’s light shines brightest of all.

“The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.” – John 1:5