Wait for the Light

A personal message for Advent from Bishop Peter

I really look forward to Advent. Perhaps it is the fact that when our children were young we would gather round the Advent Candle, say a prayer and open the calendar window on the unfolding story of God’s purpose and plan for our lives.

‘Light your candles quietly, such candles as you possess, wherever you are.’ These words were written by Alfred Delp, a German pastor condemned to death by Adolf Hitler as he spent his last Advent in a prison cell, which he described as ‘three paces this way, and three paces that way with my hands in manacles and an uncertain fate ahead.’

Advent provides us with a time for thinking about the coming of Christ. True, we mostly think about it in preparation for Christmas, good food, candles and carols. As we view our world today, we may understand something of what Alfred Delp meant when he spoke of ‘an uncertain fate ahead.’ His last Advent led him to reflect that he had ‘a new and different understanding of God’s promise of redemption and release,’ as he paced up and down his cell.

It is easy to forget in the busyness of Christmas preparation, just how stark that first Christmas was. Cold, dank stable; the experience of rejection; the apparent ordinariness of it all. Yet the birth of the babe in Bethlehem was the culmination of a dream hundreds of years old. Prophets and other wise folk had longed for this day, for it was to mark the beginning of God’s kingdom coming on earth.

Advent is about anticipating that possibility still. It is about working for the fulfilment of that dream. But also believing that one day Christ will arrive in our midst again. That remains the dream of the New Testament writers, and it should be something of our dream too.

There are many who are trapped in spaces ‘three paces this way, and three paces that way’ with hands tied. Many of course are political prisoners, refugees, asylum seekers, the hungry, the poor and those whom no one seems to need. Some such folk live around us. But there also others who are nearer us, trapped in spaces because of fear, depression, isolation, or who are discriminated against because they are different in some way or another from us.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer, another German pastor who suffered under Adolf Hitler, once observed that Advent was ‘frightening news for everyone who has a conscience.’ I think what he meant was that God’s love is like a fire that burns brightly to light up dark corners, and consume all that destroys or hurts human beings, and prevents them from living fully human lives.

In 2007 we are launching a six part DVD series Changing Lives – for good. I hope it will be used in every parish, church school and college, as well as in chaplaincies in hospitals, prisons and elsewhere in our diocese.

Changing Lives – for good tells stories of hope. It invites us to make our homes and churches places of hospitality, and welcome. It calls us to see the possibility of new life in Jesus Christ as something which is open to all. It is about lighting candles of hope, so that we do not curse the darkness. It is about looking for Jesus to come again – and expecting it to happen.

A blessed Advent – and a happy Christmas.

• Make some space each day in Advent. Why not place a candle somewhere that you can light each day. Ask yourself, ‘What does Advent mean for me this year?’ ‘What is the light I am waiting for?’ Do not worry if your answer to these questions begins in a negative way. Don’t feel to begin with as if you

have got to have some profound and deep thought. Let what is there come to the surface. As you light the candle, invite God to show his light to you where you are.

• As you prepare for Christmas, ask yourself who might I invite to share

Christmas in some way with me? Perhaps you might take someone to a Carol Service, or a Christmas service. Why not offer a simple invitation to a mince pie and a drink either before or after. Or, you might think of someone to

share Christmas Day with who might be on their own, or just with one other person.

• Many organisations like Amnesty International and Christians Against Torture have ‘Send a Christmas card to someone in prison’ schemes. Why not contact them and see whether there is someone to whom you could write?