How to Live as Light in a World of Darkness

Have you ever waited for something, or someone but it took longer than you expected? If you have, then you know that sometimes the waiting feels like an eternity. But you do it, because you are convinced it’s worth the wait.

Advent is a time of waiting.

It’s not the passive kind of waiting like spectators at a parade. Instead it is waiting in active anticipation. Like a child before their first visit to Disneyland, their imaginations are fueled by the stories they’ve been told of the “Happiest Place on Earth”. As they dream about it, it becomes a reality in their minds, thoughts, words, and expectations. So, even though they have to wait for the day when they pass through the turn stall and are officially admitted to the magic kingdom, they’ve already been living it in their spirit.

Advent is like this.

We too wait for a magical land. We wait for it in eager expectation, and hopeful anticipation. The world we long for is a place where there will be no more tears, no more death, no more mourning and we will feel no pain (Rev 21v3-4). It is a world where God promises to make all things new (Rev 21v5). A time when all the injustice and evil acts will finally be reversed.

During the season of Advent, we are confronted with the unpleasant reality, that we live in a world where darkness threatens to extinguish the light. We see this reported everyday on the news, we discuss it on social media and we preach about it in our churches. There are times, when it feels like the darkness keeps getting thicker and heavier as it settles over our world. It is out of this place of darkness that our cry for light ascends.

Advent is about the Light illuminating the darkness.

Advent is the triumphant declaration of good news that “The light shines in the darkness” and the darkness cannot overcome it (John 1). The darkness is a daily reminder that the world isn’t as it should be. It is an appropriate metaphor for our exile. The Old Testament is filled with stories of God’s people living in exile. Yet even in the midst of their laments, their deep grief and sorrow they clung to hope. They clung to the promise of a better future, not as a way of escaping their present situation, but rather as a means of strength as they lived in a foreign land. This hope wasn’t wishful thinking; it was the language they used to redefine and re-describe their present reality as a temporary passing place on their way back home. Today we cling to the promise of the age to come when everything will be as it should be. Advent is our emphatic “No” to the looming darkness.

Advent is when we anchor our hope in the One who makes all things new.

The season of Advent is a longing for a world, where mass shootings, homeless refugees, natural disasters, perpetual wars, terrorist attacks, and partisan politics are realities of a world long ago forgotten. Sadly, we are no longer surprised by these tragic events, because we are accustomed to hearing about them. It is so easy to feel helpless. The question that forms on our lips, “Is there anything we can do?”

How to Live as Light in a World of Darkness?

In the same way children actively anticipate their first trip to Disneyland by planning their day at the amusement park, we too must wait actively. How we wait is just as important as what we wait for. As we wait for the age to come, we must be light in a world of darkness.

We are light when we selflessly love others with no regard for their faith, skin color, beliefs, or ethnicity. We are light when we behave in a way that goes above and beyond the bar of the status quo that has been set woefully low.

We are light when the joy we carry in us, is poured in to the lives of others. When out of our abundance we give generously to those less fortunate.

We are light when we interact peacefully with those that don’t see the world in quite the same way we do. It’s learning to see things from their perspective, instead of trying to force them to see things from our own perspective. It means speaking with words of kindness and not words of hate and division.

We are light when we remain faithful to the sacred task of being a blessing to the world, and not a curse. In a world of darkness, we are invited to be “stars that shine” (Philippians 2v15).

We are light when the love of Christ compels us to be His hands and feet in this world.

I am not saying that if we live like this, then all the evil and injustice in the world will go away. That is too simplistic and naïve, if not ideal. What I am saying, is that we can only be responsible for our own actions. We cannot control other people. We must be intentional about the things we do and the words we say. It isn’t helpful to point out the bad in other people, only to go one living hellishly ourselves. However, if we can live as light, then we will get glimpses of a better world, one where heaven and earth meet. It is the manifestation of God’s kingdom come, on earth as it is in heaven. (Matt. 5) It is the world that Jesus spoke of when he said, the Kingdom of Heaven is at hand.

As the season of Advent draws to a close and the radio no longer plays Christmas songs, and red cups go back to white, and ornaments are discounted at 50% off, may you choose to walk the path of light, and shun the darkness.