Advent Week One: Hope
Standing in pitch-black darkness can be both suffocating and crushing. Life and breath seem to vanish, for what could exist in that empty blankness? And yet, the darkness itself has substance and almost tangibly weighs on us, wrapping us in fear and doubt as our eyes are robbed of their ability to verify our surroundings. If this is true of physical darkness, how much more true is this of emotional and spiritual darkness? Our own sins or this chaotic world, polluted by generations of sin, can hurl us into a pit of shadowy despair, enveloped by addictions, financial distress, broken relationships, abuse, sickness, and more. But in that darkness, the faintest glimmer of light, as dim as it may be, shines like a beacon to the burdened soul, calling them onward in hope.
As the ancient people of Israel and Judah were enticed into greater and greater sins and the threat of Assyrian invasion grew, “distress and darkness, the gloom of anguish” overshadowed their land (Isaiah 8:22). They knew what it was like to feel that “thick darkness.” Just like us, they too longed for a twinkle of hope. It is just at this point that God promises hope: “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” (Isaiah 9:2). This hopeful light would come as a child, whose name is “Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace (v 6). He would take up the throne of David and establish everlasting peace, justice, and righteousness (v 7). How they longed for this light to shine!
Today, we have more than a promise of light but the light himself — Jesus Christ, who breached the gloom of this world and whose “light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it” (John 1:5). Through his perfect life, sacrificial death, and triumphant resurrection, he gives us a “sure and steadfast anchor of the soul” (Hebrews 6:19), the certainty of healing and restoration. As we journey into this season of Advent after a year of uncertainty and difficulty, may hold on to the hope we have in Jesus, the light of the world.
