For me, one of the hardest things about the eleventh day of Christmas is facing the fact that Christmastide is almost over. As I’ve mentioned many times before, the season of Advent is my favorite time of the year. The invitation to enter into the darkness and confront the monsters that I might find there, knowing that a light growing ever brighter on the horizon will guide me through the valley of shadows and ultimately scatter them forever, gives me comfort and drive. “When the brightness ignites can the shadow push back?”
Tomorrow is the twelfth day of Christmas and the end of the season that, frankly, fuels me for the entire year. So, today, I feel like I am finishing up a bountiful and filling feast, and my desire is to find a comfortable spot and slumber for awhile, but instead I have to rise from the table and go back to work. Anyone who has ever worked in hard, hot, manual labor knows that lunch break is an oasis and a pit. Your body longs for more fuel having burned through your breakfast, and the cool drink and shade tree are a welcomed break from the scorching sun, but. But then lunch break is over, just about the time you start to get comfortable, mentally and physically shifting gears from work mode to recovery mode, only to have to rise up and force yourself back into the sun and heat for the second half of the day. In that moment there is a great temptation to just remain in the shade and doze off. Ultimately you come to a fork in the road and have to make a decision. “This is the verdict: Light has come into the world, but people loved darkness instead of light because their deeds were evil. Everyone who does evil hates the light, and will not come into the light for fear that their deeds will be exposed. But whoever lives by the truth comes into the light, so that it may be seen plainly that what they have done has been done in the sight of God.”
In the gospel story this is not the time for rest, but the time to begin the real work. The creeping light in Advent has a way of exposing the things that have been lying in the shadows of our lives, empowering us to see our own hearts in a new light that demands attention. “As long as it is day, we must do the works of him who sent me. Night is coming, when no one can work. While I am in the world, I am the light of the world.” Now is not the time to slink back into the darkness and drift off to dream. "Awake, O sleeper, and arise from the dead, and Christ will shine on you…So then let us not sleep, as others do, but let us keep awake and be sober…Besides this you know the time, that the hour has come for you to wake from sleep. For salvation is nearer to us now than when we first believed.”
So I sit in the early morning darkness today, watching the sun, still hidden by the clouds of this overcast sky, stubbornly refuse to be dimmed. I cannot see the sun because of the heavy cloud cover, but I can see the light beginning to grow ever brighter, gradually illuminating the downtown cityscape, which itself is surrendering to the greater light. For weeks our town square has grown brighter and brighter as each business put up their holiday lights, all of which seemed to be the supporting cast for what is clearly the guest of honor — our majestic courthouse trimmed in lights, towering high above the town, flanked by 20 foot tall tree radiating light and topped with a bright star. But this morning, looking over it all from the picture window of the 2nd Street Coffee Shop, the lights on the tree are gone, the lights on the courthouse are gone and only a sparse few business still retain their lights and wreaths. The sudden burst of joy that is Christmas has begun to retreat and business as usual marches on.
Spiritually it can feel like that as well around this time. We’ve made the journey to Bethlehem, inspired to keep moving by a bright star that filled our hearts with hope as we drew nearer still nearer. We recoiled in awe as we witnessed a single star be replaced by a cacophony of angels filling the skies and singing “Do not be afraid. I bring you good news that will cause great joy for all the people. Today in the town of David a Savior has been born to you; he is the Messiah, the Lord.” Our hearts were ached, were humbled, and surrendered as we bowed before the manger throne of the child whose arrival brought joy to the world, light to the world, life to the world, love to the world.
Long lay the world
In sin and error pining
‘Til He appeared
And the soul felt its worth
A thrill of hope
The weary world rejoices
For yonder breaks
A new and glorious morn
Truly He taught us
To love one another
His law is love
And His gospel is peace
Chains shall He break
For the slave is our brother
And in His Name
All oppression shall cease
Sweet hymns of joy
In grateful chorus raise
We let all within us
Praise His holy Name
Fall on your knees
O hear the angel voices
O night divine
O night when Christ was born
But all of that is over, and now it is time for the shepherds to return to their fields. For the magi to make the arduous journey back to Persia. For Mary and Joseph and their little boy to flee for their lives as refugees to Egypt, in an effort to escape the ego driven, power hungry puppet king who is willing to slaughter children to advance his agendas and hold his ever slipping grip on power in his final years. In other words, the light has come, but the darkness hasn’t gone. Not yet. Not fully. So we get up and we get to work. To parrot the disciple often ridiculed for his doubt, Thomas, "Let us also go, that we may die with him.” So today, we leave the manger in Bethlehem and we take up the cross on our way to Calvary. Like the ever faithful women who followed the King of kings through the darkest of days — a day so dark that the sun was extinguished at noon day — into the “very early morning, when the women took the spices they had prepared and went to the tomb and found the stone rolled away from the tomb, and suddenly two men in clothes that gleamed like lightning stood beside them and said to them, ‘Why do you look for the living among the dead? He is not here; he has risen!’”, so to, we continue on our journey through the darkness, following not a star, but the light beaming into the valley of the shadow of death from an empty tomb.
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