On the Road to Bethlehem

A reflection on the readings from the First Sunday of Advent from one of our sisters

I remember a night in 2015 when the electricity in my hometown went down right across the city. Street lamps, traffic lights, even the beaming “Yellow Arches” of the local McDonald’s were out for the count. I was driving when it happened and found myself coming through an intersection with five lanes of traffic moving in four different directions – in the dark. Obviously I’m still here to tell the story and everyone made it through that intersection without incident, but I can tell you it was quite an adventure.

The darkness of that night was almost alive.

So used to seeing with all my human aids, the pitiful headlights of the car seemed useless when I knew there was a wave of nervous drivers coming straight at me. It stripped away all illusions of comfort and exposed how vulnerable I was without the traffic systems to hold onto; an intersection I crossed every day was suddenly an obstacle course of impossible odds. That is, until my eyes adjusted and I realized that I had never seen the moon so heavily present and the shapes of the other people in that intersection grew steadily recognizable bit by bit. 

This is the season of Advent.

When we look at the readings for this First Sunday, we see the great aids the Father has sent us in travelling through this life. The Prophet Isaiah reveals them in the way we are led to true peace by God’s eternal laws, “Come, let us climb the Lord’s mountain… that He may instruct us in His ways, and we may walk in His paths…” (Isaiah 2:1-5)

At times, however, it is easy to forget these blessings, to go forward day to day in our comfort, developing all manner of our own aids to see us through. Family, friends, experiences, things - we begin to rely more and more on these and when they fail us (as inevitably all good things must that are not God), we are plunged into the black and tempted to believe that the Father isn’t there to help us at all. These are the moments when the lights go out, when we find ourselves seemingly alone in the dark. There is a temptation in such times to be afraid, to clasp even closer all that comforts us, to worry about our own concerns and forget the rest.

Advent, however, offers us a different choice. In fact, it offers us an invitation: what if we let go of it all and turned instead to Him who will “never leave [us] nor forsake [us]”? (Hebrews 13:5)

Advent is not Christmas; it is not yet the season of rejoicing. It is the season in which God invites us into a kind of darkness so that we might begin to see, to become vigilant and aware before the plunge comes. “It is the hour now for you to wake from sleep,” says St. Paul to the Romans. (Romans 13:11) By taking up God’s invitation, our eyes are opened to the full moon of God’s presence, our great hope shining brightly at all times despite how easily we sometimes forget. By taking up a little Advent practice – something as simple as a little prayer of self-offering every morning - we are gently emptied of all those things we hold onto instead of Him, and we see more clearly that He is here with us and that the road ahead is always lit well enough to get us through; as it was for a man and his wife, and the Child she carried to Bethlehem.

So “stay awake!”, as the Lord warns in this week’s Gospel, “for at an hour you do not expect, the Son of Man will come.” (Matthew 24:37-44) And when He does come again, we will “walk in the light of the Lord!” (Isaiah 2:5)