Four candles adorn the altar at our international church in Hanoi during Advent, small flames that signify big desires, the desires of a whole world wanting something...else.
In the first week of Advent we light the candle of hope. All over the world humans hang on to hope for dear life. But with every polluted breath of air they inhale, their hope exhales into oblivion. In parched deserts they hope for one more drop of water that they fear won’t come. All the while, our brothers and sisters in the Philippines are flooded with water. It is hopeless that they will have homes to live in as the waters recede. Bring us hope, O Lord.
On the second Sunday in Advent we light the candle of peace. In this age of wars and rumors of wars, where a nuclear-powered country has just seen power pass into the hands of a 27 year-old (or is he 26?), peace is elusive. But we need not travel around the world to find conflict, division, unrest and violence. In our countries there is violence, in our communities there is unrest, in our families there is division, in our own hearts there is conflict. Is there peace to be found? From where will it come? Bring us peace, O Lord.
On the third Sunday in Advent we light the candle for that scarce gift of joy. Happiness is common—we see it in the newly rich of Hanoi, in a couple who have just fallen in love. But as any banker in 2008 or any married couple at any time can tell you, happiness comes and goes; it is cheaply attained but flees at the first sign of trouble. Joy is rarer, however, and comes with great cost. Joy is not the absence of difficulty but rather contentment, or, dare I say it, rejoicing in the midst of difficulty. Bring us joy, O Lord.
On the fourth Sunday of Advent we light the candle of love. Oh, how we desperately want to be loved. We try to earn it every chance we can, whether it be a Vietnamese student trying fervently to meet the ever-more-stringent demands of their parents, or a spouse who works 100 hours per week to get that promotion, or a lonely person who purchases the love of friends with extravagant parties and expensive gifts. But who will love the student when she fails? Who will love the employee that loses his job? Who will love the lonely when those bought friends lose interest? Bring us love, O Lord.
On Christmas, on the altar at our international church stands one more candle, tall and wide, in the center of our flickering attempts at hope, peace, joy, and love. The Christ candle shines brightest of all. This Christmas we thank God for the greatest gift, the only gift that really matters, with ten tiny fingers and ten tiny toes. The baby Jesus was a big gift in a small package, crying when he was labored into this world with sweat and blood and tears. Only a handful of people at the time knew about it--no one else cared. And perhaps many don’t much care today. Baby Jesus is the gift that nobody wants or asks for, but he is the gift that everyone needs. He came not with the expertise of a humanitarian, not with the empty promises of a politician, not with the false joy of a guru, and he loved all the wrong people. And yet this baby, precisely because he is not all those others, fulfills our desires while the others falter. They try to fix the world from the outside in, with policies and programs and quick fixes, but “the heart of the human problem is the human heart.”[1] True hope, peace, joy, and love come only when human hearts change, and perhaps this is why Jesus came the way he did. Nothing changes hearts quite like a baby--vulnerable, smiling, and cute--who happens to be the Savior of the world.
Even though he is no longer bodily present among us, the baby Jesus is still changing hearts. That is the real miracle of Christmas--that it still has power even some 2,000 years later. Every time the Gospel is proclaimed, every time everyday bread and wine are broken and shared in his name, he still comes, being born again among us, in small places and in small ways all over the globe. Whereas before he came in one place in time, now the world is his manger. “In his name the nations will hope,” the Scriptures tell us. Find hope in him, dear friends. Peace among the nations, among the creation, cannot come until there is peace with the Creator. And indeed, Paul writes that Jesus has made “peace by the blood of his cross.” Find peace in him. Dear friends, leap for joy like John did when he met Jesus even while still in the womb. And about love, hear the words of Jesus himself: “Greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends.” That love is for you.
MERRY CHRISTMAS to all our family and friends! God bless you this Christmas season as you celebrate the birth of Jesus.
In Christ,
J.P., Aimee, Celeste, and Bella
