For the Awake in the Night
Night Watch Advent series - Day 1
Day 1 - For the Awake in the Night
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“Because of God’s tender mercy, the morning light from heaven is about to break upon us, to give light to those who sit in darkness and in the shadow of death, and to guide us to the path of peace.” Luke 1:78-79
It’s 3:57 a.m. when I finally stop jotting groggy mental notes. I roll over, fumble for my readers, and start typing. I am awake in the middle of the night, thinking about what it means to be awake in the middle of the night. The irony is not lost on me.
We’re somewhere in the thick of Advent. I think it’s the second week, but I honestly don’t know. Church usually keeps me in the loop, but this is my first Advent without a church home. The timing feels cruel, a personal midnight after a long stretch of sunrises.
What I know: Christmas day is only a couple of weeks away.
What I’ve learned: Advent is the time leading up to Christmas day. The long wait.
Popular culture has effectively twisted Advent into a fun, commercial ritual that stretches one day of consumer-driven celebration into twenty-five. Keep fancy snacks on hand! Invite friends over every week! Finish the shopping (and wrapping) early, and then buy more, just in case! I always take the bait. But none of that is Advent. And none of that is what my beaten-down heart is craving.
Advent is an upending. A reversal. A reckoning. A longing. A loneliness. It is the bridge between our now and our one day, where kingdom things constantly shift into focus if we are paying attention.
Christmas is the shiny gift waiting for us. Advent is the weary night watch that gets us there.
Bobby and Lisa2 have worked the night shift as factory supervisors for as long as we’ve known them. A few years ago, after upgrading to a home with a swimming pool, they told us about coming home from work and jumping in while the world dreamed. “I float on my back and look up at the night sky,” Lisa said. “It’s so peaceful. It’s the best time to pray.”
Held within the contours of the nativity story, the Night is a central role. It serves as the backdrop to most of the action, a brilliant literary device for the coming Light. While I adore the poetry of scripture, this is more than a metaphor.
Night simply is.
Advent unfolds beneath the weight of a starlit sky. The flame of an oil lamp flickering in the temple. The dust kicking up from sandals and hooves as caravans move as one. The hot breath of livestock. The groans of a teenager. The first cries of a newborn. There was danger, desperation, and duplicity. There was a new kind of peace.
In the spilled-ink Advent sky, our hope is written. Thick with dreams and heavy with signs, the expansive nearness of nighttime somehow shrinks the atmosphere, erasing the fault-line between what is sacred and what is ordinary. Our primal instincts perk their ears in the dark. In the howl of night, we know to stay alert. Folded into the endless shadows of being alive, we cannot ignore our suffering. We grow more honest about our need. We muster the faith to believe there is meaning even in this.
On one of the longest nights of my life, the kind that lasts for years, I didn’t just know God was with me, I felt it. I stared up at the ceiling sometime after midnight, unsure of how I could endure. There was no light, no tunnel. Just a murky expanse of devastating outcomes.
Inaudible words stirred in the darkness.
“You don’t have to be afraid.”
As though I had a choice.
I stopped shuffling around in the sheets. I recognized the voice that doesn’t rely on decibels. There were no clean answers that night. But I was told I did not have to be afraid and I believed it, like Zechariah, like Mary, and Joseph, the shepherds and the magicians. It changed something inside me.
I am awake right now, 4:30 a.m., along with my neighbors whose internal clocks are wound on addiction, anxiety, or graveyard shifts. I am awake with the caretakers and the moms. Somewhere, an alarm ticks closer to a crossing guard pulling on his reflective vest. Piercing the stillness, a train engineer pulls his horn, praying we listen. My neighbor wakes up for her morning shift at McDonald’s. A young dad shakes his babies awake and scuttles them half-asleep out the door to the sitter, where they will hopefully reclaim one more hour of sleep before school.
I am awake as Paid-in-America munitions fall across Palestine in the harsh daylight of their haunting midnight. I am awake with those at our border, fleeing one catastrophe and discovering another. I am awake with my friend Ron, who walks the night streets of Goshen because it is the only thing that calms him.
Advent is a journey through the night. It begs the question, What do we gain when we consider the depths of darkness in and around us?
The answers await us in the galaxies of hope surrounding us. They are everywhere. Endless. But tonight, I’ll start with this:
When we awaken to the night, we learn we’re not alone and we don’t have to be afraid. We hold on until daylight breaks, our hands clasped permanently around the smooth contours of its truth. The sun splits the skies, the Word of God cries straight into our neighborhoods.
Emmanuel arrives, and never leaves.
This means everything can be made new, even us.
Day 1 of Night Watch goes out to everyone! If you’d like to receive the rest of the series, sign up for just $5. If you are already a paid subscriber to The Soup, you don’t need to do anything. See you tomorrow and thank you for supporting my work!
I have no assistant or editing capabilities, so you will hear occasional goofs. Keeping it real this Advent.
Some names are changed throughout Night Watch. These aren’t two of them. ;)
If I wasn’t already a paying subscriber I would pay immediately just to read these. You’re speaking our language. Never stop ever.
Amen and Amen! The bridge between our now and our one day! Agree w/ @Emily P Freeman - never stop ever.
“Advent is an upending. A reversal. A reckoning. A longing. A loneliness. It is the bridge between our now and our one day, where kingdom things constantly shift into focus if we are paying attention.”