A Visiting Dawn
Luke 1:78–79 (CSB): Because of our God’s merciful compassion, the dawn from on high will visit us to shine on those who live in darkness and the shadow of death, to guide our feet into the way of peace.
I’ve grown to love the spaces in between. I haven't always. And to be honest, I haven’t yet fully. Yet I love them more now than I once did.
I think it is the experience of anticipation. It is the close of one chapter while the next is just over the page. It is the turning of the seasons, where the air smells suddenly different yet achingly the same. It is the hint of light in an otherwise dark night, long before the sun shatters the distant horizon.
This is what Advent speaks most loudly about to me. It is an in-between moment, where the dark night still presses in, but the anticipation of a coming dawn awakens the senses to see what can only be hoped for. It is the now but not yet, experienced in reverse. The not yet invades the now with the gradual but inevitable surety of a tide. This is Advent.
The Spirit inspired utterances of a former skeptic ring loud across the ages, “the dawn from on high will visit us to shine on those who live in darkness and the shadow of death,” ushering in a way of peace that was born from merciful compassion. Yet long before we had heard of this mercy, or experienced compassion, or knew peace—all we had was darkness. All we had was the deep shadow of death that lay cold across us, like a blanket that could not keep warm, like an ill-wind that steals our breath rather than give us oxygen to shout praises. Before the dawn is the night.
But the dawn visits us. Not a dawn like the countless we’ve seen before, not a dawn that follows the pattern of every other, rising till it inevitably sets into darkness again. No. This is the dawn that gave birth to every dawn since. This is the dawn from on high, the eternal light that shines in our truest home. The dawn that banishes any need of lamp or torch to light our way. This dawn will know no end, nor will it reach the Zenith of existence to fall and fade away. This is the dawn that visits us in that first Advent, and the one that dwells with us ever since.
I’ve grown to love the spaces in between. I haven't always. And to be honest, I haven’t yet fully. Yet I love them more now than I once did. The hope of dawn still carries me.
