Advent Darkness

In this podcast episode, Fr Richard Healey takes us back to 69 AD, amidst the turmoil in Jerusalem and the political instability following Emperor Nero’s death. Reflecting on this historical backdrop, he invites us to ponder themes of suffering, faith, and hope during Advent. Fr Richard encourages us to remain alert and faithful, drawing parallels between the ancient struggles and our own challenges. He emphasizes the importance of community and the light of faith, symbolised by the Advent wreath, urging us to be beacons of hope and resilience in a world often shrouded in darkness.

00:00:00 So come with me as we go back in time. We are on the west coast of the Roman province of Asia Minor, modern day Turkiye. It’s a Roman town that we’re in, but we speak Greek because everyone speaks Greek. Even though it’s not a part of the Greek islands, it was part of the Greek Empire under Alexander the Great. So Greek became the language that everyone around the Mediterranean would speak. It’s late December, early January. In the year 69, and the local house church, which you are part of, has heard all kinds of awful stories coming out of Jerusalem and elsewhere in Jerusalem. There’s been a war that’s been going on for a couple of years now, with the Jewish leaders trying to rally their troops, trying to overthrow the Roman authority there from the land. But the Romans, of course, don’t give up easily. And now they have surrounded the city of Jerusalem and laid siege to it. And you’ve heard that many people there in the city are starving.

00:01:34 You don’t know now. But the siege will go on for another year, before the Emperor Tiberius finally is able to send enough troops to absolutely conquer the city and completely and utterly destroy it. But at this time, all you know is that you have people that you’ve heard of, people you know, who are back there in the city: Suffering, struggling, and you’re trying to make sense of all of this. Not only that, you’ve just heard that the Emperor at the time, Nero has just died. [He was only thirty] Some say murdered. Some say of natural causes. Others say suicide. There’s lots of confusion, lots of of questions around all this. And then there’s a bit of a power vacuum that is happening there. There are different generals and governors who are jostling to take over the authority to take over the leadership. There has been a whole string of rival emperors over the last few years there in Rome. And so there’s lots of anxiety and lots of angst because will this be another time of civil war? There has been lots of long periods of peace under the Romans, but there’s also been – there’s always that possibility of civil war and that never really leaves anyone in a good situation.

00:03:05 And so as you’re sitting there looking out over the coast, a storm is coming in and you see the waves beginning to crash against the rocky walls there of the landscape, and you see the dark clouds kind of forming on the horizon and the lightning beginning to strike around you. And you think of the words that you’ve heard that Jesus said about days like this, about the end of the world, about times of great suffering, times of great distress. And so you naturally think about those words as you sit there looking out, praying for your brothers and sisters, praying for yourself, praying for your local community in that little house church that you are part of, just a few dozen people that form this little community, that becomes your whole life. As you continue to experience the wonder of Jesus and His love and his mercy and his message as it begins to to sink in and and use whatever images are available to you to make sense of what’s happening in your life. It’s kind of what advent is about.

00:04:21 Yes, it obviously leads to Christmas and leads to the Nativity, but we’re not there yet. The church doesn’t take us yet to that scene until the final eight days before Christmas. During this first part of advent, we continue to explore and continue to be challenged by moments of darkness, moments of questioning, moments when we need to really ponder. Where am I? Where is the world? What’s happening right now and how do I respond? How do I remain faithful? And Jesus gives us the the best advice for that today, which is to stay awake, to be attentive, to be alert, to experience that the Lord is here with us. Even though the weather is weird, even though strange things are happening on the horizon, even though we constantly barrage with stories of awful things happening around us. Even so, we know that God’s got this, that even in the midst of the darkness that surrounds us, there’s always going to be a little bit of light. And it’s, you know, one of the the lovely things about the advent wreath that over the course of the four weeks, that slowly begins to be more and more powerful, that little single candle is slowly joined by others, is the community that we are part of? We each stand up and say, yes, and I want to acknowledge Jesus too, and I want to live for him, and I want to be a source of light in a world of darkness.

00:06:12 And so during these days of advent, it is political, but it is also an opportunity for prayer. It is also an opportunity for holiness. It is also an opportunity to persevere in our devotion and in our faith. You know, many of us are tired after a long and drawn out year. Many of us have experienced, you know, awful things during this year. But during these final days, as we round out the civil year and begin this new liturgical year, we’re invited to continue to open ourselves to the God who’s always there, always with us, always journeying and inviting us more deeply into that experience of encountering and being loved by him.