My body has been tilting toward the start of advent for a long while. The longest stretch of the liturgical year is ordinary time and, by the end of it, there is a shift inside my bones– a kind of painful dissonance that needs attention if not resolution. Every year, I become a student of the prophets in the Old Testament and every year I learn something knew about the judgment they announced. Judgment doesn’t sound like something you’d put on a sugar cookie at Christmas time. You won’t find “judgment” etched in calligraphy on a greeting card and it will never be the theme of a holiday party. But judgment and darkness is exactly where my bones can make sense of the evil world where we live. Because my bones live inside a temporary, dying world where all is not well. All is at war, wrapped up in self-preservation and protection and kneeling at the throne of prosperity. All is not well.

I used to think we were Easter people, Christians. Our greatest festival is celebrated in the victory of a King overcoming death and offering eternal life to anyone who believes! Alleluia! I still think that is true. Just as true as the best Easter cheer, though, is the honest Advent groan. And in Advent we groan… bellow even from the very deepest parts of us, and we join all of creation in our recognition of the reality that things are not as they should be. As much as I would love to think the streamers and champagne toasts and overflowing plates of the Easter feasts never end, they do. And we are left with reminders that the systems and structures and powers and personal agendas of this present world are laced with darkness.

Fleming Rutledge famously (and ominously) reminds us that “Advent begins in the dark.” This is a holiday sentiment I can get behind. It sits honestly in my bones. Advent begins in the dark, but not without a hope for the Light that no darkness can overcome. This past Sunday, all my dreams of apocalyptic texts preached came true and we heard a sermon I’m still swimming through. The New Testament text came from Luke 21 and by the time he read verse 28, he had already basically read a script from a graphic end-of-world movie that has all the worst and horrible parts. But, when he got there to that verse that followed all the judgment, I thought, “this is what it looks like to live without fear.”

Luke 21:28 “Now when these things begin to take place, straighten up and raise your heads, because your redemption is drawing near.”

Straighten up and raise your heads.

Advent is when we remember the first coming, look forward to the second coming and are present in the many comings of God into our lives on a very ordinary basis. But, the second coming will not be like the first or like the many comings we experience as we see a sunrise or feel the comfort of an embrace. The second coming will be the most terrible thing we will have ever witnessed because all that has wrought destruction on this earth will meet a fair and impartial judge.

I remember, growing up and hearing about the blood to the horse’s bridle and the wars and chaos and famines and terror. I remember my little girl heart thinking, “I do not want to be around when that happens. Please, God, don’t let me see that.”

But that doesn’t sound like the ache of all creation. That little girl was afraid of Jesus’ promised second coming. That little girl didn’t have a right picture of where belief placed her in that scene. That little girl didn’t know that she could raise her head, because she would be joining the groan of all creation for the Savior who had finally returned to make all things well. The destruction is deserved. But as terrible as the destruction will be, my eyes will be on my Savior, the Lifter of my undeserving head. And this is why Advent begins in the dark, but not without joy. Not without hope. Not without any light at all.

A friend sent this video to me awhile back and I’ve never seen or heard something capture the beauty and terror of second coming of Jesus quite like this. The innocent, pure tones in the children’s voices are haunting, but not afraid. It is the chorus of those who know their Father and are eager to reunite with Him, eager to meet the light that outshines the sun, eager to truly have all needs met and all comfort given. I want to pair my aching in Advent with that kind of eagerness for Jesus. Because that’s what hope does. It doesn’t shrivel with the true sorrow weight of the world, no. Hope ALSO leans with eagerness toward the Promise, because the One who keeps it is steadfast.

And now, there is a tiny baby in my belly. The shock of it was existential in a body already fighting for stability. Yet, I hear the announcement within my own bones: though it is dark here, it is still worth life. Though this is not forever, it is still worth the right now. And I wonder, does this new life in my belly know that a womb is a temporary home? Does she anticipate her own transition into the next transitory space of mortality? Does he feel trapped inside a womb or safe inside a home?

Maybe it is both.

And just like that, we enter into this season of the coming. The aches and pains and longings that the world already feels in wars and wickedness and earthquakes and estrangements doesn’t have to take a back seat to happy endings. Many aches and pains and longings won’t have those. But, we do have Jesus, come. We have Jesus saying no to the throne and the glory and the fame and the comfort of heaven. We have Jesus saying yes to climbing inside the temporary shelter of a womb, growing like an impossibility of grace. We have Jesus being human and dying human and raising God and conquering death. And we have Jesus, coming again.

And when He comes, I will lift up my head.