Saturday, December 20, 2025
(click here to listen to or read today’s scriptures)
Such a strange mercy
Must you also weary my God?
Therefore the Lord himself will give you this sign:
the virgin shall conceive and bear a son,
and she shall name him Emmanuel.
Advent’s third week draws to a close. On Sunday we can add love to the three candles already burning: hope, peace and joy. And in less than a week, Jesus will be born again into our helplessly selfish world and remind us all that we don’t need to go that way.
The angel said to Mary,
Do not be afraid,
for you have found favor with God.
Behold, you will conceive in your womb and bear a son,
and you shall name him Jesus.
In his recent grief Winn Collier wrote to his friend John, who just lost his beloved father. “The belligerent truth is that I believe in the Light far more than I believe in the gloom. I know how much I need these Advent days. Like Isaiah, I will settle on the promise which always stirs the bones: Arise, shine, for your light has come … over you the Lord will rise.”
Advent’s sun rises tomorrow on the winter solstice, our darkest, shortest day. At around 9 am this Sunday in Texas and Illinois, the sun will strike the earth at the most shallow angle of the year. The sun rises, and on this day the cold world beneath laughs in the face of Isaiah. Are you sure the Lord will rise? Just look around you. It’s dark. It’s cold. The sun is talking to you. Time to give up and say goodbye.
But no. It doesn’t matter if right now it’s dark. Doesn’t matter if right now it’s cold. Advent’s wonder is all in the waiting.  Now is the time to learn how, and God teaches me in spite of myself. All four candles are nearly lit. The great white Christmas candle is on the brink.
Winn writes again, a year later:
During Advent, we often speak of waiting – this is one of the threads we grapple with during the season of bright sadness. But our “waiting” is no mere biding our time until the dream comes true. These days are a crucible, a surrender. A wrecking ball to the ideals, even the good ones, which have served us to a point but now must be relinquished if we are to follow love to the end.
My cousin-best friend’s wife’s little sister passed away this week, a sudden end of her strong, shared, sweet life. Friends and family eulogy is all about the joy. On Facebook with a photo – “Remembering my sweet little sister and friend. Full of joy – Here we are singing a family song that my Poppie used to sing to my (grandma) Nannie Margaret Ann. This happens to be Meg’s given name too.” (and Margaret Sandel’s too, by the way)
… and “Meg, I loved you and love you. What a grace-filled light. Rest in peace finally little sister. Jesus, thank you for catching her and keeping her. Amen.”
Edward Hopper’s Day After the Funeral remembers his friend George Bellows, who died suddenly of a ruptured appendix in January 1925. Gazing at the picture sobered me. I thought of my friends and family, and the losses they are living through. I thought of our lives too, and the delicate balances we live within every day.
Sit quietly, sigh softly, pray and pray.
Pastor, storyteller and Valpo professor Walter Wangerin took years to die after his cancer diagnosis. While he waited he shared what he was learning. Like my friend Don, for many years Walt wrote a weekly column in his weekly newspaper. Winn repeats his words,
The nearness of death has relieved me of the need to strive toward goals and triumphs. No need to prove myself. I walk a level plain. Today is today. Tomorrow will come. And though I continue to plan activities well in advance, living doesn’t depend on their accomplishment, nor would any of them define me. I am already defined. Today is today. Tomorrow is enough…We are. It is enough.
During these last days of Advent there is great joy in heaven. The angels wait and watch, showing us how. Jesus is coming. We are free to join the angels in their eternal song. As Winn says, “It’s a kindness when God helps us recognize how everything is only mercy. But Advent is such a strange mercy.” He remembers Frederick Buechner’s Godric’s twelfth century words …
What’s lost is nothing to what’s found, and all the death that ever was, set next to life, would scarcely fill a cup.
And then in a burst of enthusiasm, Winn turns “advent” into a verb.
Advent on, my friend. Advent on …
(posted at www.davesandel.net)
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