Advent Devotional by Kim Kankiewicz

Isaiah 9:2-7

The people walking in darkness have seen a great light. (Isaiah 9:2)

Note to readers: If you prefer to keep Christmas Day festive, please save this devotional for a later day. I hope that acknowledging the co-existence darkness and light will bring comfort when festivity feels impossible. My devotional:

This story comes with a warning. It is not set on a Christmas morning

awash in unseasonable sunshine, like Victorian London on the day of Scrooge’s redemption.

This is a story about running barefoot in darkness because you had no time to put on shoes before your daughter bolted from the house. You’d spotted in her frenzied eyes

the hunted look you’d seen before. This time you were ready when she fled.

In this story, your feet slap against frozen pavement. Cold air stings your lungs.

You walk your daughter home, safe for tonight but not saved from darkness.

This is Christmas in a pandemic.

Private pain and global suffering converge in the figures of your family

slouched on the sofa, bathed in the television’s blue light.

You watch a church service without a congregation

and then a Lawrence Welk Christmas special featuring clips from

a previous Lawrence Welk Christmas special.

Time folds in on itself, a visitation by ghosts

of Christmases past, present, and future.

You are in a vet’s office on Christmas Eve 2015, sobbing farewell to your dog.

You are packing for a funeral the day after Christmas 2016.

You are driving two thousand miles to bring your daughter home for Christmas 2021,

the grief of her absence and the joy of her return melding in a somber hope.

But on this day, Christmas 2020, you are hollowed of hope.

You will hobble into the new year on bruised feet,

turning your face upward in search of great light.

Keep searching,

keep expecting,

and one day you will see:

The miracle of the incarnation is not the end of darkness.

The miracle is a barefoot God running through darkness beside you

until morning dawns anew.

Kim Kankiewicz