Advent Poem

Not celebrate?

Your burden is too great to bear?

Your loneliness is intensified during this Christmas season?

Your tears seem to have no end?

Not celebrate?

You should lead the celebration!

You should run through the streets

to ring the bells and sing the loudest!

You should fling the tinsel on the tree,

and open your house to your neighbors,

and call them in to dance!

For it is you above all others

who know the joy of Advent.

It is unto you that a Savior is born,

One who comes to lift your burden from your shoulders,

One who comes to wipe the tears from your eyes.

You are not alone,

for he is born this Advent season to you.

Anne Weems. “Not Celebrate?” Kneeling in Bethlehem.

To you. No matter how dark the time of year or season of life. No matter how heavy the burden or deep the loss. You are not alone. He is born this Advent season — to you. Emmanuel — God with us. The light that shines into our darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it. That’s the promise of Christmas. And my prayer is that you and I will see it, and believe it, and celebrate it — God’s gracious sunrise in Jesus Christ.

By the tender mercy of our God, the dawn from on high will break upon us, to give light to those who sit in darkness and in the shadow of death, to guide our feet into the way of peace.