The Journey Toward Dawn
“Many of the symbols we use for Advent are a reminder of God’s goodness when that goodness seems to be in question”
One of the reasons the Bible is important is that it tells us transcendent stories outside our own experience. As most of us have spent our whole lives in the United States, we have not spend one day living under foreign rule or occupation. That is in contrast to much of the context for Biblical writers. Many of them write about or during a time when the Jewish people live with another nation in charge.
When you are not in charge of your own land or livelihood, these circumstances shape how the Jewish people understand themselves. And one of the truths the Bible makes clear is that slavery, occupation, and oppression cannot be sugar-coated. Occupation is occupation is occupation. No matter how much their foreign rulers may try appear as benevolent fathers, the final result for people living in occupation is disease, desperation, and death.
My experiences in southern Mexico and among Native people in our own country helped me to understand the Bible much better than anything I might have learned on my own. That people living in occupation would have any right to hope for a better world can be foolish. Is hope a good thing? Or do we end up hoping only to be disappointed over and over again?
These were the questions of rural Jewish communities in Galilee as Rome taxed an already poor populace, leveraged debt to take land, and raped and pillaged any communities who might object. Where was God as God’s people suffered under the boot of Rome?
Throughout Advent, the Scriptures take us right into the heart of not only Roman occupation but also the Jewish response to the end of exile and occupation with the verses we have from Isaiah. Those verses from Isaiah are a reminder to Jews in Rome that God has been present throughout the very worst of their history as a people. God will not forget the people.
Many of the symbols we use for Advent are a reminder of God’s goodness when that goodness seems to be in question. The wreath is made with evergreen boughs, usually in a circle, as a reminder of God’s never-ending, everlasting, encircling love.
The liturgical colors of Advent began with purple and three purple, one pink or rose candle, and the white Christ candle. Some time ago, to distinguish Advent from Lent, many people began moving to blue to replace purple.
In talking with a Roman Catholic sister who is a liturgical artist, she pointed out the number of references to waking, sleeping, night, dawn, and daybreak in the Advent Scripture verses and hymns. She convinced me to move to candles that go from the deepest night to the colors one might see in the sky all at once as the sun sets or rises: a deep, velvety purple, a dark blue, a light or powder blue, and rose.
We begin at midnight, with no light in the sky, not even a star, and journey toward dawn
