Pushing Back Darkness
During the first three months of the Fellows program, I have experienced wonderful community, great food, brilliant people doing good things in the city of Chattanooga, and through it all, a staggering amount of generosity. From hosts around the city welcoming us into their homes for nine months or for an evening, to professionals drawing us into their work worlds or breaking from them to fill us with wisdom and wonder, these months have been overloaded with a kingdom-centered generosity and hospitality.
As we enter into Advent, we enter the beginning of a new year for the Church. We start this new year with longing, yearning, and hope. We live between the time Christ came and defeated sin and death and the time where he will come again in victory and glory to welcome us into a feast in his kingdom. And so, in the meantime, we are to live as if we were in that kingdom already. This looks like pushing back darkness, which, it turns out, can look very much like generosity and hospitality.
I am thankful for these many brothers and sisters in the city of Chattanooga who model for me and the other Fellows what it looks like to be a citizen worthy of God’s kingdom. In truth, the Fellows program is designed to shape us into this kind of citizen. We are in the process of learning where we fit in God’s grand narrative and how our specific gifts and stories can contribute to the seemingly sisyphean struggle of pushing back the darkness in our families, neighborhoods, and cities.
And yet, the struggle is not in vain, for our King is coming. Our labor will be rewarded. At The Knoble, my employer through the Fellows, we work to push back against the realities of human trafficking, child exploitation, and financial scams. What a weighty task! And yet, how comforting to know that I work to the end of pushing back such darkness not on my own, but with the knowledge that Christ has died, Christ has risen, and Christ will come again!
May those words guide us in whatever we do, be it navigating difficult family dynamics during this season, persevering in an unrewarding job, or extending generosity and hospitality to those in need. Under the kingship of Christ Jesus, all that we “have” is not truly ours. And in this season of hope, of darkness turning to light, let us remember this truth. Christ’s death, resurrection, and promised return means that, despite what our consumeristic culture tells us, Christmas is more than gifts and good cheer. We celebrate because we are painfully aware of the brokenness around us, and yet we have hope. We give to others because we have received much and are promised much. May this season be one of generosity and light, not because our culture commands it, but because we truly believe in our King’s promised return.