There is something about the Advent wreath that is undeniably … domestic. Surely a mature adult Christian doesn’t need an Advent wreath to nurture and deepen her faith.

My own children are grown. Nevertheless (though sometimes in a last-minute shopping trip for the correct candles), I must have an Advent wreath.

The simple rite works. In the midst of what is often a busy season, when I light the candles, I stop. I remember anew the enduring power of Christ’s light. And the little warmth and light of the tiny fire I just kindled reminds me that I’ve been granted the opportunity and the awesome responsibility to be light for others.

Saint Paul knew of the power of the light of Christ: it knocked him to the ground.

Today in the Church, we read a bit of Paul’s letter to one of his beloved communities.

The letter, though, was written from a dark place. Paul was in prison, where he awaited a trial and possibly his subsequent execution.

And yet… he does not write of his own anxiety, or despair. Instead, the letter is suffused with happiness. In today’s short passage alone, he writes of joy, of confidence, affection, love, even wisdom.

Paul could see, from the desert of his prison cell, that the Good News he’d started to spread was going to persist. These disciples he’d brought to Christ were true “partners in the Gospel.”  Paul saw that the Word of God would not be thwarted. He took a long view, and it was good.

Today, a week into Advent, we look ahead just a little way: to the marking of the birth of Jesus: Emmanuel, God-with-us.

We look ahead even as recent events that shape our lives in Church and society have come to the end of their own beginnings.

The multi-year global synod on Synodality called by Pope Francis has concluded. We await discoveries about how, or whether, the Church in the world will indeed be (as Francis exhorted it to be) a “Church of the third millennium.”

And here in the United States, the November elections are behind us. Regardless of whatever lies ahead, we have learned, to our chagrin, that we are in some ways as divided a people as we are a united one.

At times like these, with more questions than answers, it would not be surprising for many to wish they could just see a path… though they may only see a wilderness.  Many might ask “…what ought we to do?”

John the Baptist proclaims a way.   And a place.  And time.

This Advent brings us into the year of Luke’s Gospel. And the evangelist Luke – and only Luke – thoughtfully, intentionally locates John the Baptist. Luke gives John parents and family, with stories of their own.

And, here – just before we hear the comparison of John to the poetic voice found in Isaiah, crying out the mission: Prepare the way of the Lord! Make straight God’s paths! –

…before this, we hear a recitation of the names and locations of Imperial, state, local and religious power: In the fifteenth year of the reign of Tiberius Caser, when Pontius Pilate was governor of Judea… and so forth down to … John. To whom the task of preparing the way for the Messiah had come.

Not to any of those named political, economic, and religious leaders. But to John.

This rather domestically-imagined Lukan John, who leaped in his mother’s womb when her relative Mary, the God-bearer, drew near.

It is also only in Luke’s Gospel (just a few verses further along from today’s) that John, in the manner of the Christ for whom he prepares the way, compassionately reaches “across the aisle” and baptizes even tax-collectors (shunned because they worked for the Roman occupiers – the “other side”).

Furthermore, John preaches. When the crowds question him, “what ought we to do?” – he exhorts them: be equitable, be kind, care for the poor. Here. Now.

This, then, is John proclaiming the Good News.

What will we do, this Lukan Advent, to prepare a way in the desert?

We will see and seek reasons to rejoice, and we will share them.

We will keep kindling even the smallest, and most domestic lights.

And in our time and our place, we will be true partners in the Gospel.

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