Resounding Joy

New Year's Day flames out in peach, pink, and periwinkle. The evening air is full of the scent of snow, woodsmoke, and savoury dinner as I step onto my porch to watch the repose of the day. Inside, candles and fresh tulips nod their cheer as the five o'clock greyness rolls over the foothills.

I love winter and fresh starts. I love being up in the frosty night to greet the new day and year with fireworks. I love bright sun spilling in my window and waking eyes, church bells tumbling me out of bed, and the brisk walk to worship. I love blank pages waiting to be filled and new years feeling hopeful in the face of the unknown. At any other time of year, the unknown has a way of frightening me a bit; but at the beginning of the year, the unknown is exhilarating. My expectations are much more malleable in January than they are in June. In the crisp air I feel awake and ready for what God is going to bring. By the wilting heat of summer, I feel drowsy and resigned. 

At the beginning of things there is life and energy and optimism, and those are needed to propel us into another year. The New Year opens in the midst of Christmastide, when the Candle keeping the dark at bay has come—He is the hope of Easter redemption. Winter is dear to me with its variegated grey clouds, heaps of snow around dried grasses, chipper little birds piping their carols, bare branches stark and striking against the stars; its sharp, pure air breathed out in little puffs, in warm fuzzy slippers, copious pots of tea, stew simmering on the stove, hot bread all flaky from the oven. . .Winter is joyous.

Winter is both the cosiest and the most invigorating season. No wonder our fresh start comes just days after the winter solstice and the "dawn of redeeming grace" of the Incarnation. There is something comforting about God slipping into flesh, becoming vulnerable and subject to want, need, and humanity. Yet there is something enlivening, exciting about it, too. Dawn has pushed back those grey skies with honey-coloured sunlight and sharp air in our lungs. There is hope that the Light—whether of day or of moon and stars—will illuminate our path. That the Light will guide us into His ways. 

As I scrambled out of bed this morning I felt inspired, awake. The bells beckoned me to tread the icy path to the little white church around the bend. There my eyes were greeted by life-sized shepherds, wise men, and the Holy Family. I smiled, glad to see them back, as they had been vandalised a couple of Christmases ago. I sneaked in on the opening hymn, my three-year-old niece's favourite song: Joy to the World! I was totally unprepared for the garlands of greenery, the woodland pine and branches, the red berries, and a huge live tree covered in poinsettias and lights. The clean plaster walls looked merry, as did the gentleman I joined in the pew. My winded voice sang out, "Repeat the sounding joy!" and we did. In the Eucharist, like the angels told the shepherds, and the shepherds told everyone about the baby in the feeding trough, we repeated the resounding, reverberating joy that God became flesh and tabernacled among us—that our redemption is nigh.

Emmanuel...

Christmastide is here. Here. Now. This is Christmas. Though the world is weary and rejoicing to have limped through ‘the holidays’, many traditions have just begun celebrating Christmastide after forty days of darkness and fasting. The season of light has dawned, culminating in a day whose very name means manifest or revelation. Light does that very thing, it shows us what we would have walked right past in the darkness; it reveals the shapes we feared in the night as friendly, familiar things; it makes manifest God’s gift of himself to us.

God gives himself to us…The Incarnation still staggers my mind and heart, sometimes to the point where I give up thinking it through. To be honest, near the end of the year work and friend-gatherings reach a raucous tilt and I hold out hard for the airport. I slide into my window seat with a sigh, watch the night glide past, and take a break. The problem is, I take a break from my habits and routines because I am away from home. I often go to bed late and rise late, skip quiet time and journalling, get easily nettled, and skimp on self-control in just about every area. The last week of Advent and most of Christmastide are often spent in self-inflicted semi-darkness. Sure, there are starlight points in the dark skies of my soul, but it often seems like the sun of revelation is suffering a prolonged eclipse.

Unlocking the front door of my cabin the first week of January seems to coincide with the shadow passing from between me and the Light of the world. I slip back into my own skin, my own home, my own habits. The new year stretches before me like a glorious sunrise—I don’t know what the day will hold, but it opens bright and full of hope.

Amidst my dim Christmastide and my looking forward to a fresh year, someone I love dearly mentioned how bleak the coming year looks from this vantage point. She said it seemed like she was stuck in an unyielding cycle that someone else chose for her. There isn’t an end in sight. Now, I can see only hope that the coming year will be better than the last for this belovèd friend, as this year reeked for her. Perhaps I am young and naive, but in my mind, there is an irresistible hope in new years and seasons.

Mid-conversation, I suddenly wondered about the Children of Israel, those between the Old Covenant and the New, those deafened by nearly four hundred years of silence—did they ever lose hope? Did the Messiah seem impossible to them? Obviously they passed down their long-held prophecies and expectations. Mary readily received her role from God, knowing there was to be a Messiah. All of Israel seemed to be peering about for their Saviour throughout the gospels, uncertain if the Man from Galilee could really be the One foretold. They all knew the history, but did they ever get furious that the prophecy sat there, unfulfilled? Did they consistently beg God to defend his name and bring forth the Saviour for these promised people? How many generations were snuffed out in darkness, never seeing the coming Light?

What if my friend never sees the dawn of change, of salvation from this rotten situation in her lifetime? Does God not care? Is God not powerful and kind enough to bring redemption and resolution into a very fractured situation? We talk theology often on this site, but do we believe God intervenes for the unjustly accused, the abandoned, the orphans and the widows? Do we live like God is with us? For the in-the-quiet-darkness Israelites, the Incarnation was hoped for, was yet-to-come, but was never fulfilled. However, we know—we know that God is with us, he has come. He is here and he is not silent. He does not stand aloof nor remain indifferent to our plight. But what is he doing when nothing changes? Theology fails to comfort the abandoned and hurting. Heady discussions aren’t the equivalent of the Holy Spirit changing hearts and healing brokenness. All our comments and platitudes don’t end that bleak feeling of the sucking, downward spiral of depression when nothing changes, even though a person has remained faithful to Jesus. If God is with us, why is hope often invisible for the steadfast, God-honouring believer?

I want answers for my friend; for myself. Yet all I have is questions. I still see the Light rising in hope, but how do I give my vision to my friend? How can I be her eyes and impart God’s hope to her? How can I bear her burdens and share my joys? Reality sometimes presses us hard with its weight—how do we hold on to real, robust hope that makes our souls buoyant? When we trust God to stand up for himself, to stand up for what is right, how do we not lose hope in the waiting?

I don’t have solid answers. I don’t have something tangible that keeps depression at bay. I know God is with us. My friend knows he is with us. She wants to see him with us. To see him move. To see his power. To see the Light dawn in the pitch black she’s been living in…But what if she is in the middle of a kind of “four hundred years of silence” history with God? What if the coming hope is so bright that it must be preceded by inky silence to contrast just how mighty God is? That’s not a query my friend can cling to; not the light at the tunnel’s end that she needs to see by. But it may be the truth; it may be reality. I believe she will trust God, even if redemption doesn’t come in her lifetime. It will be a continual, exhausting choice—but God with her and in her will help her walk in the starlight. And I believe that her prayers and obedience will advance the dawn in all its glorious brilliance, even if she never sees the Dayspring.