Something deep in our souls longs for a light in the dark. At Christmas it spills out on Christmas trees, and advent wreaths. We  desperately want to believe the words that angels proclaim in the night.

This Christmas I feel like the night is dark. I am carrying burdens. My heart aches for the girl with no safe home, and for the man who has fallen again into the addiction he hates.  My stomach turns at the poverty and desperation.

The world groans under the weight of the darkness.

Is this the groan that God heard from heaven on high? The cries of humanity thrown out into the night?

He would not stand by. Divinity would step down, down into the groaning darkness and be born as a mortal child.

God born like us. Born to change our story, and stop our cries.  

When I hear the groaning around me in the night, there is a way to answer. There is a peace to preach, and an unlikely joy to celebrate.

We love the Christmas lights because they defy the darkness. They whisper “hope” into the deepest night.

And so we light the Advent candles, and we sing the angels’ song.