The Weary World Rejoices

"A thrill of hope, the weary world rejoices, for yonder breaks a new glorious morn." 

It's tempting to write off Christmas when you're grieving. It seems to be a time for holiday cheer, not for grief, and yet, this time of year often serves to magnify our grief and make us even wearier than we may already be. We feel like we don't fit into the Christmas season. 

Advent is a season of waiting, though and before the celebration of Christ's birth, there was a weary world. It had gone 400 years without a word from God. It was groaning and yearning for God to act, to fill in the missing component. The world was waiting for Jesus, whether they knew it or not, and they could feel that emptiness and incompleteness that only he could change. I can relate with that right now a lot quicker than I do to the more positive feelings that surround our idea of Christmas. Maybe it's not so incorrect of us to mourn more deeply this time of year after-all, in fact, maybe it's just as in-line with this advent season as any other emotion. Advent is a season of waiting, and whatever it is in our lives that we may be waiting on, the truth is that we are waiting on the Lord to act; to intervene, to save us from our despair and hopelessness.

More than 2000 years after the birth of Jesus, we approach advent with an utter certainty that soon, Christmas will come. Soon, we will be celebrating the coming of the Lord in the same way that the angels, shepherds, wise-men, and those who recognized the arrival of the messiah did all those years ago. Soon, the weary world will rejoice. This is such a wonderful reminder that as we feel more keenly the brokenness of our lives this time of year, that we can wait with confidence and anticipation of God's action and deliverance in our own lives also. We do not know how long it will last, but we know that the Lord will deliver us from this too because we know that he has already delivered us from much more; we know with that same utter certainty that we can put our hope in him as we wait. We celebrate this child in the manger, because without him, we would have no hope as we face these weary seasons of our lives. We celebrate that in the scope of eternity, our weary souls will soon rejoice as well. As we have a full understanding of what it is to be weary and waiting upon the Lord, we can celebrate  the coming of the Jesus with an even deeper joy as we eagerly anticipate his work in our lives and his second coming when he will fully and finally fill our weary world and weary souls with the completeness that comes only from him. He is the thrill of hope in our weary lives. He brings the new and glorious morn. He brings joy to our suffering and thankfulness to our discontent hearts. He brings salvation, hope, and joy to the world.