Go ye out to meet him and say…
An Advent Reflection for From Darkness to Light: Go ye out to meet him and say…
The Very Reverend Nicholas Papadopulos, Dean of Salisbury
I look from afar: and lo, I see the power of God coming, and a cloud covering the whole earth.
Go ye out to meet him and say…
Tonight’s service begins with those words. Their hearer is enjoined to go out to meet the power that is coming, and to say… to say…
Well, you are their hearer. What would you say?
The world you and I inhabit is not so different to that imagined by the words’ author. It feels – at the end of the first quarter of the twenty-first century – as though a cloud is covering the whole earth, as though the earth is enveloped in darkness. If, from afar, you could see the power of God coming, what would you say?
I cannot speak for any of you. But for myself? The Good Clergy Handbook probably suggests that, confronted with the power of God, I should fall to my knees in silent wonder. But I hope I would dare to stand my ground and say: where have you been? As powerful men become ever more powerful, as human pain and human misery multiply, as the planet shows critical signs of its distress: where have you been?
And how would the power of God respond? I cannot speak for any of you; I certainly cannot spea k for God. But I do not believe I would be judged for standing my ground. Or that any of us would. For when we inhabit a world enveloped in darkness and when we question the injustice and suffering that we see around us it’s not that we’re being untrue to God. It’s that we’re being true to our God-given humanity. To our shared God-given humanity.
So, God, where have you been? There are answers to that question, of course. Whole libraries full of them, and the Handbook would doubtless tell me that some are more proper than others. But they are human answers, human flailing in the face of enveloping darkness, and, ultimately, they do not matter to God.
You see, within each of us a spark of God’s life shines. We did not plant it there; we may barely be aware of it; but it flares into life when we question injustice and suffering. So we dare to stand our ground. Questions are not the enemy of faith: certainty is. For our certainty renders us oblivious to what God is doing in us and for us. And it’s what God is doing in us and for us that ultimately matters.
I look from afar: and lo, I see the power of God coming… Go ye out to meet him and say…
This Advent, what will you say?