Death & Advent

A good friend of mine just lost the baby she was carrying.  

Kyrie Eleison

Such tragedy will inevitably change the way we act and celebrate the season of Advent and Christmastime, yet it does not change the meaning.  For all of the things that we surround ourselves with during Advent, it’s the things which are not there that carry the greatest understanding of the need for this season. 

More than anything else Advent is a time of longing and darkness, and as such it fits us well.  We long for what was, for what we thought might be, for all that is gone, and that which we cannot get back. 

A person absent from the Christmas table.  An empty spot in the pew on Christmas Eve.  One less person to shop for, one less set of arms to hug, one less set of ultrasound pictures to pass around.  The pain, the darkness, the longing for what is gone, for what we cannot get back, is crippling. 

But this is what Advent is all about.  For God has not promised that you will ever feel better about such death in this world.  He has not promised that life will turn around for you, or that next year will be better, or whatever shallow or false comforts you’ve been given.  Christ, however, the Savior of the Nations, has promised to come. 

This is Advent.  Christ comes again on the last day to forever set things right.  He binds the broken-hearted, He lifts the fallen, He strengthens of weak, He rescues those in need of saving.  And during Advent, we long for His return to do exactly that, to wipe away our tears and to make all things new. 

As such, we who live with wants and desires and dreams that will never be in this world, we need Advent, for it points us to the promise of our Savior.  The one who comes wrapped in our flesh as a newborn child so that He might go to the cross for my friend’s lost baby, for your loved ones, for you.  He comes to us now in Word and Sacrament, delivering this life and salvation purchased on the cross, and He will come again.

So we wait.  We long.  We utter the words, “O come, o come, Emmanuel, and ransom captive Israel, that mourns in lonely exile here until the Son of God appear.”