Belmont University Advent Guideনমুনা

For what may be the first time in my life, I find myself trying my best to avoid the news at all costs. Whether it is new shows and websites or my Facebook and Twitter feeds, I do not know how to handle what I see. Violence and hatred, fear and war, hunger, famine, and despair are all around us.

The episodes of violence, protests, and deaths of innocent people are no longer isolated incidents that shock and terrify us, but are becoming commonplace, everyday occurrences. People cannot figure out how to actually talk to each other, but instead argue with and insult one another. I find myself desperately wanting to believe that God is at work, hoping that the God I know will not abandon us—but that is harder than it once was.

When I read Psalm 42, I think that the psalmist was experiencing a little bit, or perhaps a lot, of what I feel these days. The writer had experienced God in life. The psalmist has seen God at work in the world and in the local community. Now, even knowing all of that, the psalmist is finding it hard to know where God is, how to see God at work, to trust and hope that God is still there, still cares for and about what is happening to them. The psalmist wants to believe, but is not sure how.

Into this kind of darkness, doubt, and uncertainty comes the good news of Advent—God is with us. And in Jesus, Emmanuel—God with us, God is no longer just an abstract concept out there somewhere, but fully human, like us. Jesus intimately knows our experiences of pain and suffering, has deeply felt loss and abandonment and stands in solidarity with us.

There are times when the world around us and experiences in our own lives are overwhelming. There are days when no matter how deeply we long to experience God, we feel God absent from us. Sometimes it seems like all we can do is echo the words of the psalmist, crying out to God and hoping that God can hear us. Advent is a reminder to us that God can, and indeed has heard us in Jesus Christ. We need not despair, for God is with us—we are not alone.

Heather Daugherty
University Minister