Christ and The Headlines: Monday Week 2 of Advent

There isn't a day that goes by where we don't see a headline (or tweet) that sends us into a sense of

moral outrage. I was talking with some friends the other day about how I'm addicted to twitter because I savor seeing an article that makes me want to rip my shirt apart in a Hulkamania fury. The anger, I think can be good. But my disgruntled and resigned posture is not. But it's difficult to know how to respond when we see:

"59 Die in Las Vegas Attack"

"Act of Evil in San Antonio"

"White Nationalists March on University of Virgina" 

"Weinstein Paid off Harassment Cases for Years" 

The darkness is here. It takes the form of rampant xenophobia, racism, the class divide, mass shootings, and misogyny. Our pressing work, then, is to not to run from the darkness. Richard Rohr says, "Our Christian wisdom is to name the darkness as darkness, and the Light as light, and to learn how to live and work in the Light so that the darkness does not overcome us." We must resist and expose the darkness with the light of Christ. 

Banning a group of people from entering our nation because of their religion is darkness. 

Police brutality and our corrupt prison systems are darkness.

Wealth inequality is darkness. 

Violence is darkness. 

"Sexual misconduct" is darkness. 

May we not let our political affiliations or the tendency to throw up our hands in resignation keep us from understanding we live in a world of darkness. May we have the wisdom to bring light to where it isn't. Let "The wilderness and the dry land... be glad, the desert... rejoice and blossom," as we bring Christ to the desert. 

Come, Lord Jesus. 

Isaiah 35:1–10

Luke 5:17–26