advent polarity

​When you think of two things being opposites perhaps, like me, you think of things that do not go together. Perhaps they even repel each other. The truth, however, is that polar opposites are dependent on each other. The North Pole can only be a pole if there is a South Pole. A battery needs both a positive pole and a negative pole to work. 

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I think of this today because it is Advent, a season of polarities. On the one hand, Advent recognizes the brokenness of the world, shying not away from suffering, but looking it full in the face. This poem from Jane Kenyon, written in Serbia in 1993, amid the violence and death all around expresses one pole of Advent, the pole of suffering and darkness: 

Mosaic of the Nativity 
On the domed ceiling God 
is thinking: 
I made them my joy, 
and everything else I created 
I made to bless them. 
But see what they do! 
I know their hearts 
and arguments: 

“We’ve descended from 
Cain. Evil is nothing new, 
so what does it matter now 
if we shell the infirmary, 
and the well where the fearful 
and rash alike must 
come for water?” 

God thinks Mary into being. 
Suspended at the apogee 
of the golden dome, 
she curls in a brown pod, 
and inside her the mind 
of Christ, cloaked in blood, 
lodges and begins to grow. 

As the infirmaries and wells are still shelled in places like Gaza and Ukraine, we know the pain and anguish. And still, a small kernel of hope is promised. At the other pole of Advent is the outcome of that small hope. There is the promise of grace fully grown and the fullness of faith growing within and without. A poem from Thomas Aquinas sums up this other polarity of Advent – hope and light. 

Light of lights! All gloom dispelling, 
Thou didst come to make thy dwelling 
Here within our world of sight. 
Lord, in pity and in power, 
Thou didst in our darkest hour 
Rend the clouds and show thy light. 

Praise to thee in earth and heaven 
Now and evermore be given, 
Christ, who art our sun and shield. 
Lord, for us thy life thou gavest, 
Those who trust in thee thou savest, 
All thy mercy stands revealed. 

Darkness and light. Despair and hope. Suffering and joy. These are the Advent polarities that encapsulate and empower the fullness of being itself. Tell the truth of the darkness and cling to the light which is given as gift of grace. 

Pax Christi,  
Tim Olson – Lead Pastor