Advent in Africa: Hope in the Dark

I made a decision a few years back to only decorate for Christmas in intentionally symbolic ways, not for the sake of beauty or for stirring up nostalgic feelings. This was, of course, an easy decision given the paucity of my decorating skill and the fact that nostalgic feelings are hard to stir when you are away from family, snow, and piles of presents by the fireplace. So, I’ve invested meaning in my tree and lights, in the nativity scene, and in the candles I’ve spread all throughout the living room. (And yeah, that’s pretty much all I got…) If you ask me, I can tell you why each of these things represents some aspect of peace and joy or hope and salvation. To the skeptic, I grant that my symbolism is based more on a Naria-esque make-believe allegory than on the actual meanings of these historical traditions, but I’m just postmodern enough not to care. And besides, I have to have some way to explain them to my friends…

You're looking at the entirety of my Christmas decor...

So there I am, sitting in the dark, looking at the Christmas tree. It is just about perfect, even if I have had to cram the thing into a corner, having only enough lights to cover two-thirds of the tree. I snuffed the candles out half an hour ago, but the scent of vanilla and fake apple pie hangs in the air. The evaporative cooler is working hard to bring the temperature of the living room down below 80, and it is just nice enough that I’m thinking that if I had a fan blowing right on me, I could probably get under a light blanket.

“A.” comes in and lays down the couch, facing the Christmas tree.  It’s not his first time seeing a Christmas tree, but it is his first time living in a house where someone sits in the dark looking at tiny lights, while pretending it’s cold. How do I go about explaining to someone with no reference for this kind of thing that he is likely to find me this way quite often over the next month? In a world where people worship idols made of stuff much less glorious than my plastic tree, how do I help him understand that I’m not worshiping the tree, all appearances to the contrary?

So I take a stab at explaining some symbolism to him. “Once upon a time, trees were lit with candles, but then we started making them out of plastic, and well, plastic and open flame and fire code being what they are, we switched to small lights. So back to candles…a candle gives light in the dark and provides just enough light to see a bit.  Hope is like that—just enough light to see. So that’s why I sit here in front of the tree looking at tiny lights. It makes me hopeful.” Suffice it to say, that went well. When a few silent moments later, he says, “Well, it is pretty,” I take that to mean that he’s really grasped the full symbolic link between Christmas lights and robust Christian hope.

I give up on my attempts to explain symbolism, and we slip back into silent tree worship.  Many minutes later, I pepper A. with the usual questions: How’s work been? Is his dad’s last angry tirade still discouraging him? Where does he see God at work? I get, mostly, the usual answers: Not much work to be had these days. He’s not discouraged, but not particularly encouraged with life in general. Doesn’t know how to answer the God question.

At this, we sink back into silence, and I leave behind my glib reflections on Christmas symbolism and my gentle self-mocking for confusing A. with my traditions. My thoughts go serious, and I’m left with tough questions. What does hope look for someone like A.? He works hard as an apprentice to a mechanic, and he wants to learn more, but they simply don’t find enough work in the day to keep them busy and well paid. His father refuses to believe that A. makes no money and regularly insults him. How does hope lead him forward, when it appears the odds, and his family, are stacked against him?

What does hope look like for these guys?

Many moments later, A. pierces my silent thoughts with this statement, “You know, before you started praying for me every day, I really didn’t even know how to pray.” He offers no more explanation.  I offer a few cursory thoughts on the personal nature of Christian prayer and relationship to God, and then shortly thereafter, I turn out the Christmas lights and head to bed.

This Christmas season, I’m reading through the minor prophets. It’s really uplifting stuff; you should try it. Actually, I started because to hear NT Wright talk about the minor prophets, they are all pierced through with glorious beams of hopeful expectation. I won’t say I feel lied to, but I’ve been finding them a stiff drink of darkness and despair, with the rare nugget of hopeful longing. They do look the evil and darkness of the world right in the face, though—the personal evils of sexual immorality, idolatry, and hatred, as well as the societal evils of war, oppression of the poor, and lack of defense for the helpless.  The solutions they propose, however, don’t seem to be a match for the darkness.   

In Joel, for example, the shining high note is this promise of God pouring out His Spirit and making prophets of all sorts of people.  I can’t help but wonder, did Joel, a prophet himself, ever want to say, “We prophets have been prophesying for a long time. The problem isn’t lack of prophets; the problem is that people aren’t listening.” Maybe the minor prophets understood hope better than I do, but I think at times I would have needed to say to God, “The hope you are offering isn’t enough in the face of this darkness.”

Have you ever been completely swallowed by darkness? On moonless nights here in West Africa, this can happen easily, but the first time I ever remember this happening to me was on a drive from Sacramento to Salt Lake City. A friend and I were driving back from a conference and had decided to drive through the night. I was working lots of night shifts at the time, so keeping myself awake wasn’t a problem, but when we hit the Nevada desert with no other cars on the road and no light to be had for miles around, it felt as if we’d been completely consumed.  Even the hi-beams on the car didn’t seem to do anything but give us a few feet of sight in front of the car. I remember there was a stretch of several miles in which I couldn’t tell whether we were going uphill or downhill because my perspective of our surroundings was so confused. Our lights were just not sufficient for the immensity of the darkness.

I suppose coming to grips with the immensity of the darkness is the first step in understanding what true hope really is. We live with a lot of false hope in our world these days. Inside the safety of our suburban homes, with our trees, fires, and piles of presents, we stir up feelings of hope because everything is going pretty much the way we’d like. This is weak hope that doesn’t stand up to any serious challenge from the dark. It’s the belief in Santa that never makes it out of childhood. We need to recover a hope that shines stubbornly on despite the crushing presence of evil. As long as we hide ourselves from the reality of the evil in our world, we live with this weak hope and are susceptible to being crushed under the weight of the next wave of darkness that catches us by surprise.

What does real hope look like in the face of incurable disease? In the face of systemic poverty? In the face of terrorism? In the face of a world that seems to be punishing instead of helping its most vulnerable? What does real hope have to say to my own darkness? To the voices of self-critique that suggest that I’m never doing enough? To my own propensity to quarrel and fight, instead of making peace? To my tendency to stray from the Lord for things I already know offer no satisfaction?

The minor prophets never provide a complete explanation for their hope. Instead, they illuminate the next step—return immediately to the Lord--and they plant the idea that somewhere out there in the darkness the Lord is up to something that will be a game changer. The reader is left wondering if this is enough. Can this hold? Can it resist the tide of darkness?

Even on the other side of the nativity, the incarnation, the crucifixion, and the resurrection, I’m bad at hope. This advent season though, I want to struggle with this mystery of hope. I want my instinct, when staring out into the dark, to drive me back to the Lord and wait as somewhere out there, He sets in motion a transformation, a heavenly invasion of earth. I want to march all the more boldly into the darkness, holding up a candle of hope. I’ll wonder if it is enough, but I’ll keep marching.

After all, headlights in the Nevada desert dark seem so insufficient, and yet they lead you home.

Maybe learning to pray to a personal God is enough to lead us home. Maybe a world full of Spirit-filled prophets is just the army of candle-wielding protesters needed to bring down the walls of injustice. Maybe an innocent baby really is able to best the monsters of this world.

Prayer Requests

1. Pray for A. as he learns to pray.  Ask the Lord to speak to his heart this Christmas season.

2. Pray for a friend Djakari, a new Christian, who has been having disturbing nighttime visitors that are threatening to harm him. Pray he’d find victory in Christ.

3. Pray for the many patients we have in our chronic wound clinic who seem to be making no, or infinitesimally small, progress in healing. Pray that we can inspire them with hope and find solutions to their problems.

4. Pray for the variety of outreaches that will happen during the month of December. Pray also that we can use it as a time to encourage national pastors in their work and ministry.

5. Pray for a young man named Enoc who works at the hospital, as he is having some mental health issues.