The Wondrous Mystery: An Upper Room Advent Reader

By Benjamin Howard

During Advent we think about a wondrous mystery: that God chose to become human and lived among us. The Savior of the world was born a vulnerable child. The king who will rule all of creation lies in a humble manger. The Wondrous Mystery invites readers to reflect on several paradoxes that make up the Advent season: light and darkness, peace and strife, solitude and community, simplicity and complexity.

This daily Advent reader incorporates meditations from Weavings: A Journal of the Christian Spiritual Life. Writers include Barbara Brown Taylor, Henri J. M. Nouwen, Sue Monk Kidd, Wendell Berry, Wendy M. Wright, and other voices from Weavings, contained the teachings and perspectives of some of the finest theologians and teachers of Christian spiritual formation.

Compiler Ben Howard writes, "The glory of the Advent season is that it's irrational. It shows us a glimpse of the way that God turns the world and our expectations upside down. . . In a season filled with the longest, darkest nights, we are told to wait for the coming of the most beautiful light."

• Language: English
• Publisher: Upper Room Books
• Release date: Sep 1, 2019
• ISBN: 9780835818926

Benjamin Howard

Benjamin Howard is a writer and editor in Nashville, Tennessee. He holds a Master of Theological Studies from Lipscomb University.

Book preview

Introduction

Behold a new and wondrous mystery!"

Those are the first words from St. John Chrysostom’s sermon on Christmas morning. It’s such a beautiful way to phrase the meaning of Christmas and the Advent season that leads up to it. It’s exciting, it’s filled with anticipation and awe and joy, but it’s also mysterious. It’s the place where the dark meets the light, where the simple meets the complex, where peace and strife stand side by side. The Savior of the world is born, but he is a child. The King who will rule lies vulnerably in a crib.

It’s natural for us to try and resolve the paradoxes that surround Christmas and the Advent season, but to do so robs the season of its beauty and transcendence. The glory of the Advent season is that it’s irrational. It shows us a glimpse of the way that God turns the world and our expectations upside down. In a season increasingly filled with events and get-togethers and family and friends, God calls us to sit quietly and wait for the coming of the Lord. In a season filled with the longest, darkest nights, we are told to wait for the coming of the most beautiful light. In a season of death, we look forward to the birth of eternal life.

Though we think of Advent in terms of the Christmas celebration, Advent itself is not a season of celebration. It is a time of waiting, a time when we challenge ourselves and confront ourselves during the deepest, darkest time of the year. It is only at the end of Advent, after weeks of searching our souls, that we celebrate birth and light and life.

Throughout the meditations in this book, I invite you to sit with the paradoxes that make up the Advent season. I pray that you live in the tension between light and darkness, peace and strife, solitude and community, simplicity and complexity. In the process, I hope that these writings challenge you to reflect on the new and wondrous mystery of God and the profound way that Jesus’ birth flips the world as we know it and signals the beginning of God’s kingdom.

In the name of the One who dwells in the paradoxes and turns the darkness into light, this is my prayer. Amen.

—Benjamin Howard

WEEK ONE

LIGHT and DARKNESS

Let There Be Light

Read Genesis 1:1-5

God said, Let there be light; and there was light. And God saw that the light was good; and God separated the light from the darkness.

—Genesis 1:3-4

Let there be light." These words became a family code word for us when we heard a storyteller share an Iroquois tale about how the animals in the forest held a council to decide if they should have light in the midst of an all-dark world. This pretime story offered two main characters with opposing opinions.

Bear adamantly growled, We must have darkness. This put an end to most discussion since Bear, by virtue of its size and gruffness, carried a lot of weight in the council of animals. But young Chipmunk, undaunted by Bear’s power, bravely sang out, Let there be light, again and again until the sun actually spread its gleam throughout the forest world.

There has been a stark contrast between the darkness and the light since the Creator first placed light in the sky to overcome the total darkness of the universe. But the bottom line comes down to two passages that have a cause-effect relationship: The Word was the source of life, and this life brought light to people. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has never put it out (John 1:4-5, GNT). And because of this, You yourselves used to be in the darkness, but since you have become the Lord’s people, you are in the light. So you must live like people who belong to the light, for it is the light that brings a rich harvest of every kind of goodness, righteousness, and truth (Eph. 5:8-9, GNT).

I share with each of my children my faith that God is ultimately in charge of the world. I also share with them the reality of this world’s present darkness in some of the forms it takes. This doesn’t mean detailing the gruesomeness of extremist murders, but it may mean explaining that, There are some people who kill other people. Rather than leaving my children