Sumgmu’s Monthly Message, December 2024

Welcome to the season of Advent, when we get ready for Christmas! What do you intend to do to get ready? Save money for gifts? Look in catalogs for what you would like to receive? Plan parties and outings? Make special decorations? For us, Christians who know that Christmas is a celebration of Jesus’ birth, our thinking is about more than just these things.

Jesus, God Himself, was incarnated about two thousand years ago. He came to this world as light. The light has already come into the world, but there is still work to be done. There is still darkness between us and the light. Perhaps you have noticed that Advent begins in the dark.

From mid-summer the days get shorter. By the time the earth rounds the bend on December 21, it is the shortest day of the year, barely nine hours long. One thing Advent tells us is that people of faith know it will get darker before it gets light. That is what our calendar teaches us.

Week by week we will light new candles, but even as we light them, the darkness will increase. We also know that the sun will come back, just like we know that Jesus will be born in a stable in Bethlehem. These are sure facts of our lives, but so is waiting in the dark. If you have ever hungered for morning, you know that. It will come, but it will not be rushed.

In the season of Advent our job is to wait without losing hope. That is a vision of the end of time, the final coming of the Lord. If you went to sleep for even 15 minutes, you might miss the most important moment of your life. Jesus says, “Therefore, keep awake because you do not know when the master of the house will come.”

Jesus wants us to stay awake and conscious, so that we may recognize that some of our neighbors are suffering, and we may help them. In the season of Advent, our job is to light the candle and set it in the window. Our job is to watch for the one who comes to us and to open the door for him before he raises his hand to knock. Who knows when the moment will be? Therefore, let us stay awake. Happy Advent!

Sungmu Lee