Not your normal Advent reflection

I'm posting the Advent Week 4 picture because we're just about there.  I haven't followed through as I intended with any of my Advent commitments, and I'm not going to spend a lot of time commenting on that.  There have been a few moments of grace this season, and I'm so thankful for that.  But the season has also been very difficult: for people in our country, for some people around me, and for me personally.

We all know about the tragedy in Newtown, CT.  No description is necessary to explain that there is pain surrounding the tragic and senseless taking of life.  In fact, I would say no description could do justice to what those in Newtown and those connected to Newtown are experiencing.

My extended family has experienced the unexpected loss of a much-too-young beloved life, and one who is like family to me has experienced losing someone who has lived a long and beautiful life.  While age and circumstance may sometimes affect the level of surprise one has when losing a loved one, age and circumstance don't dictate how loved a person is and how much that person will be missed.  My heart aches so much when people I love are hurt.

Last night was the beginning of my Christmas "vacation" from work, and it should have been fun and relaxing.  It was horrible.  The friends I mentioned in my Advent Week 1 post, the ones to whom I sent the Christmas card and invitation to talk over what had come between us, none of them have responded to me.  I had my annual Christmas party, and I couldn't invite them because they didn't want to talk to me.  They used to be the first on the list.  On two separate occasions, I encountered one of them.  (Two different people on two different occasions.)  Last night was the second of those occasions.  Suffice it to say, the silent rejection was made more than clear last night, and the evening ended with tears in the car and a truly crappy beginning to what is supposed to be days of joyous celebration.

Sometimes those four little candles on the Advent wreath seem to mock the idea of hope rather than instill hope.  In so much darkness, whether in the world or in my own little corner of it, how much darkness can those little candles light?  And while the Light may have come into the world on Christmas, can the celebration of that day really dispel darkness in the world? in my world?

I'm sure that when Jesus was born, there was disappointment and even some despair when the angels and the magi went away and the world appeared to go to back to normal, a normal that was oppressive to so many people.  I bet that the world seemed very dark to people at times, even though Jesus was a little child growing up into a man who wasn't just man but was God, and this God-man would change the world and eternity.

Jesus didn't make the world perfect, and he didn't take away pain and suffering in this life.  He couldn't because that would take away our humanity.  He never wanted it to be this way, but the choice in the Garden change everything.  Jesus has lived through pain and suffering himself and stays with us during times in our lives when we endure it.

When Jesus fulfilled the promises of the prophets, he did so in ways that no one imagined.  Sometimes that hurt or angered people who refused to participate unless Jesus did things on their terms.  And probably learning that life isn't really about getting what we want is one the most important things that we can learn.

I can't bring any of the Newtown victims or my family's loved ones back to life.  I can't trade places with any of them.  I cannot make my former friends want to give and to seek forgiveness, healing, or peace, or even make them recognize that they have been wrong, too.  There is nothing I can do to make my hurt disappear.

The Christmas season (which, in the "real" world) starts sometime around Thanksgiving, is very difficult for people who mourn the loss of a loved one, struggle with depression, are lonely, or have so many other "hidden" hurts, injuries, and sorrows.  The constant barrage of images, movies, and scenes of the "perfect" Christmas highlight what is missing and sometimes makes a hurting person feel alienated and more alone.  It can highlight the darkness in one's own life.

And so those four little candles, and then the light of Christ whose birth we prepare to celebrate, well, I have to let them remind me that there is someone who is with me, with my family, with the world when times are unbearable.  He is bigger than the unbearable, and he can bear it for us and with us.  And some day, every tear will be wiped away.  That is the ultimate hope to cling to as we draw near to Christmas.