“What is coming upon the world is the Light of the World. It is Christ. That is the comfort of it. The challenge of it is that it has not come yet. Only the hope for it has come, only the longing for it. In the meantime we are in the dark, and the dark, God knows, is also in us. We watch and wait for a holiness to heal us and hallow us, to liberate us from the dark. Advent is like the hush in a theater just before the curtain rises. It is like the hazy ring around the winter moon that means the coming of snow which will turn the night to silver. Soon. But for the time being, our time, darkness is where we are” (Frederick Buechner, The Hungering Dark).

Apparently, we’re having a shorter than usual Advent season. It starts next Sunday and lasts only 22 days this year. But for a lot of us, we’ve been waiting a lot longer than 22 days for God to show up strong in the world and make everything right. Some days, it feels like 2,000 years plus 22 days.

But just as the hush in the theater means the curtain is about to rise and just as the hazy ring around the moon means snow will soon be falling, so we know that Advent will come and God will keep His promises and be as faithful as ever.