Mary doesn’t know how things will turn out when she sings
her song. She doesn’t know if
changes will come immediately or if they will take time. And yet she still sings.
In so many ways, the hope that Mary proclaims, even though
she proclaims that it has already happened, will not be fully realized in her
life. She will watch as the people
in power execute her son. She will
continue to see her people suffer.
She will continue to long for the day when these words of her song will
be finally, fully realized.
And so do we.
Whether we move towards Christmas with hearts that are full
of excitement and joy or whether we move towards Christmas with hearts that are
empty and grieving, we do so as people who live in two realities.
We live in the reality, on the one hand, of recognizing the
pain around us—of knowing that things are not as they should be. Perhaps we live in this reality more so
today than we did on Thursday.
Most of us watched in horror on Friday as the events in Connecticut
unfolded on the news. How do we
move towards Christmas in a world where 26 people, most of them young children,
have just been killed? How do we
move towards celebration knowing that for those families, for that community,
Christmas will always be marked with pain from now on?
Today in our house, we are supposed to light the Advent
candle of Joy. We could choose to
skip it altogether, knowing that the pain being experienced today in
Connecticut is so deep that to talk of joy seems ridiculous. But we will choose to light it, next to
the candles of hope and peace, because in this moment, we need to be reminded
of joy—joy that is deeper and more profound because we know what it is to
lament. If ever we needed a light
to shine in darkness, it is now.
We live in the reality that people suffer, that things
aren’t fair, that oppression is still very real, that loneliness and loss
threaten to overcome us.
But we also live in the reality that Mary proclaimed. That the conception of Jesus changes
everything, even if we can’t see it or understand it right now. That God’s mercy extends far and wide, that he has done and will do great things for us, that he has filled
and will fill the hungry with good things. We live in the reality that God’s kingdom is already
here. That God has already
defeated the powers that are contrary to his purposes. And maybe this sounds trite, and maybe
it leaves a whole lot of questions, but clinging to the good news that Mary
proclaimed, clinging to the hope that Jesus’ conception and birth changed
everything, is the only way I know to keep singing when the world doesn’t make
sense.
