This is what I love about the liturgical calendar: It won’t match up to the American civil religion calendar. The first Sunday of Advent is the new year in the Church.

To live in the northern hemisphere is to experience darkness in this season. How appropriate. We live in a dark, uncertain world, full of danger and unpredictability. My Advent reading companion this year will be Fleming Rutledge’s book, Advent. Her writing is so powerful, cutting, and real to me.

She invites us to Advent because it is a dark season. We need to feel the uncertainty around us. While there are those who would declare that religion is for the weak-minded, Rutledge boldly snaps back, “Maybe that’s why some of us love this most tough-minded of all the church seasons. It so clearly shows that our faith is not for sissies.”

God, I love her!

We are in the midnight hour of the church year. It is a dark time of the year. It is a disorienting time as well. Rutledge reminds us: “The church can’t survive on sentiment and nostalgia.” (We voted for it, but that illusion will vaporize in due time.) If we cry out for nostalgia, we will wake up at midnight and discover our lamps are going out and we’re short on oil.

Advent is a time for hope. Hope in the darkness. We need to say boldly, “Jesus is Lord” and find out if we actually mean it.

“Where is the evidence for the truth of our creeds in view of the senseless violence, arbitrary cruelty, and meaningless suffering in the world?” (p. 92)

This is a season of darkness and Advent allows us to have a place of despair and cry out, “How long, O Lord?”

Christianity is different. It is not false hope. It is the religion of the God who came to be with us. He has known the storms we face. He was not sheltered. He knew suffering. He cried out for the presence of his Father. He knew despair.

The Church is called in the darkness to keep the lamps burning. We are called to live in expectation. Christ WILL come again.

Set your heart on pilgrimage. Set your heart on the darkness and sensing his presence there.