Longing for Light: A Christmas Reflection
By the Rev. Su McClellan, Associate Minister at Coventry Cathedral and Church Engagement Lead at Embrace the Middle East
I’ve always loved the Advent season. As a child it was filled with expectation as I’d open the window on my Advent calendar each day. I could feel the excitement growing as we got nearer to Christmas. As an adult I’ve valued the chance to reflect on the coming of the baby of Bethlehem, and what that means for our lives today as each day I light the Advent candle that sits on our kitchen table.
This year has been no exception. As war has continued to rage in the Middle East, Embrace has been privileged to hold three Advent vigils. During our reflections and prayers for our friends and partners in the region, we have listened to the experience of three different women, each one a representative of one of the Abrahamic faiths. We asked each of them the same question, ‘in these dark times, where do you find hope?’. It will probably come as no surprise to discover that light featured in their answers. As Bernadette Farrell’s well known hymn, Longing for Light acknowledges, we all yearn for light.
Light weaves its way through our Christian understanding of the world. “Let there be light” is recorded in Genesis as God’s first creative act. God’s light continues to be reflected in the words of the Psalmist and the prophets, and ultimately God’s light is revealed in Jesus, the Light of the World.
There are, however, times when the world feels very dark indeed and we may be wondering where the light has gone. Has God abandoned us?
In answering that question, I often think of the people of Svalbard, right up there in the Artic Circle. Their living environment is extreme, and at this time of year they are in the middle of the Polar Night that stretches from November to the beginning of February. The darkness is absolute. But that doesn’t mean that the sun has disappeared from the centre of our solar system, it’s simply that we can’t see it from that position on our planet.
Svalbard, Arctic Circle. (Credit: Simona Ricci, Pixabay)
There are times when our lives and experience bask in the warmth of God’s light. There are other times when we feel as if we are on a lifeless, cold and dark rock, deprived of all warmth and light. It doesn’t mean that God has gone, it just means that our position has shifted and for now we are in the equivalent of a Polar Night.
The problem with Christmas as we celebrate it in the West today, is that it generates all sorts of expectations. TV images suggest cosy homes warmed with log fires and twinkling lights. Families gathering with no trace of pain or cross words. Unlimited amounts of money to spend on extravagant gifts. This is not reality. Christmas can be extraordinarily painful for people. For those of us living in the Northern Hemisphere, there is deep poignancy in Christmas coming at the darkest time of the year, as the baby of Bethlehem was born in dark times.
The shepherds and the angles, the manger and the wise men have all retained their places in the countless retellings of the Christmas story. We conveniently leave out the story’s most brutal episode, when the vasal King Herod orders the slaughter of every baby boy in Bethlehem and the Holy Family are forced to flee for their lives to Egypt. Whilst before the current war, pilgrims and tourists would flock to the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem, few would visit the little chapel that sits outside its south transept. The Chapel of the Holy Innocents is placed over a first century burial ground containing the remains of babies. It’s a stark reminder of the consequences of greed, corruption and hunger for power.
The Holy Family fled into Egypt to escape the massacre of the innocents. Mosaic at the Coptic Papal Residence in Cairo.
The tragedy surrounding the first Christmas is a reminder to us all of Emmanuel, God with us. God does not come as a conquering hero. God comes as a baby, born in an occupied land, under the rule of a wicked vasal king and forced to become a refugee. The fractures of our broken world are eventually imprinted onto Jesus’ body as he dies on the cross. Those wounds carry the pain of all humanity. God is with us. God walks with us.
As we enter another Christmas season with the unimaginable suffering of the people of the land we call holy ongoing, we trust in the God who continues to walk alongside us in our fractured world. As I draw this reflection to a close, I am reminded of the Leonard Cohen lyric that says, “There’s a crack in everything. That’s how the light gets in”.
