On the First Sunday of Advent

I wish that I could remain proverbially "fat, dumb, and happy" when it comes to things religious.  When I was young-ish, I could skate through most any church service without a care, only stumbling on things that were monumental in terms of heresy or apostasy or the like.  Now I find that I catch my feet on a thousand little things that I would hardly have noticed in my younger days.  I think that is caused by being much closer to my death than my birth.  When you are nearing the end of your timeline on earth you tend to take stock of all of the things you have picked up along the way because it becomes harder to carry them all, and you question things that you would have hardly noticed before because you are measuring them against eternity and trying to decide whether they have any lasting value for you after all.

On this First Sunday of Advent we heard about light, light coming into the world, light coming into the darkness.  And I wondered whether it was presumptuous of us, on this First Sunday of Advent, to once again mention the Us/Them distinction, as in, "We walk in the light", while "They (the elusive they) remain lost in darkness."  Okay, I know the scriptures, I can quote all of the ones popping into your head as your read these words that would seem to bolster this distinction.  But even if the world lies in the hands of the wicked one, can we really say that everything is darkness?  If so, where does innovation  invention, composition, or creativity come from?  From what source does courage, generosity, compassion, loyalty, or empathy spring? Did God really turn His back on the world and leave it to its own devices so that all it produced in His sight was the filthy rags of failure and despair during that interlude from Adam's sin to the coming of Jesus?  Or was there always a glimmer of eternity stuck away in the hearts of each and every person that was put there by the very hand of God, sometimes brighter, sometimes dimmer, never being completely extinguished, and ultimately finding its meaning in the coming of Jesus?  I only ask because I look at the world, then I look at the church, then I look at the world, then I look back at the church and it seems that the distinction is one of words only, and that both of us seem to be sharing a shade of gray more than either of the two extremes.  On this First Sunday of Advent I do find hope in the words of Isaiah 42 quoted also in the gospels, "A bruised reed he will not break, and a smoldering wick he will not snuff out..."  If this is what the coming of Jesus offers to me then I am thankful that whatever light I do have will not be taken from me until the day that makes all things light be fulfilled in me.