This photo from one of my grandsons in ministry (see December Home Page) keeps speaking to me in Advent, not least when life's darker side seems so predominate. I've never calculated it by percentage, but in morning newspapers--not to mention TV newscasts--bad news headlines surely far outweigh the good. People are hurting, even suffering. A dear friend and fellow member over time at Salem died yesterday, as did a fairly young relative of another colleague and fellow-member out east--the one expected and the other sudden.
To keep score on all that is disjointed in our world--the wars, human trafficing, rising unemployment, tribal and racial tensions, woes in national and international economies to mention but a few--often weighs heavy on one's spirit.
Has there ever been a time when Advent's message is more needed among us? To the psalmist's witness millennia ago that "For God alone my soul waits in silence; from him alone comes my salvation" (62:1), we now may add with confidence, "Christ is coming soon!" Why? Simply because, as Scripture declares, he has already come among us in human form to establish his kingdom and is coming soon again to bring it to completion!
We may still, like the psalmist wonder "How long?" But we need not wonder any more whether it is to be, for like him we know that "On God rests my deliverance and my honor; my mighty rock, my refuge is God" (62:7).
The picture witnesses to my own experience as a believer. For daily and weekly through the gloom of all that is dark in life, light breaks through from the Lord, both fueling hope and deepening my faith. "He is near," as my colleague Mark Pattie reminded us in his sermon last Sunday, and we as Christians are to live our lives in that awareness, looking in every dark cloud for the signs of his appearing.
So sing with the hymn writer, as I am singing early this morning: "Be still, my soul: your God will undertake to guide the future as he has the past; your hope, your confidence let nothing shake--all now mysterious shall be bright at last. Be still, my soul, the waves and winds still know his voice who ruled them while he dwelt below (Hymnal, No. 455).
To keep score on all that is disjointed in our world--the wars, human trafficing, rising unemployment, tribal and racial tensions, woes in national and international economies to mention but a few--often weighs heavy on one's spirit.
Has there ever been a time when Advent's message is more needed among us? To the psalmist's witness millennia ago that "For God alone my soul waits in silence; from him alone comes my salvation" (62:1), we now may add with confidence, "Christ is coming soon!" Why? Simply because, as Scripture declares, he has already come among us in human form to establish his kingdom and is coming soon again to bring it to completion!
We may still, like the psalmist wonder "How long?" But we need not wonder any more whether it is to be, for like him we know that "On God rests my deliverance and my honor; my mighty rock, my refuge is God" (62:7).
The picture witnesses to my own experience as a believer. For daily and weekly through the gloom of all that is dark in life, light breaks through from the Lord, both fueling hope and deepening my faith. "He is near," as my colleague Mark Pattie reminded us in his sermon last Sunday, and we as Christians are to live our lives in that awareness, looking in every dark cloud for the signs of his appearing.
So sing with the hymn writer, as I am singing early this morning: "Be still, my soul: your God will undertake to guide the future as he has the past; your hope, your confidence let nothing shake--all now mysterious shall be bright at last. Be still, my soul, the waves and winds still know his voice who ruled them while he dwelt below (Hymnal, No. 455).
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