A few years ago I was teaching a class in Taiwan about American holidays and I remember my Taiwanese students being particularly astonished that we celebrated Christmas not for just a day, but an entire month. I laughed, telling them that Christmas was a world in and of itself – with its own food, music, movies, and even clothing.

Over the last century, Christmas in the West has ballooned (quite literally with its arrival in the televised Thanksgiving parade) into a materialistic, all-consuming wonder of a season – one that leaves the marketplace salivating for higher sales and record-breaking profits. There are debates about “how early is too early” to put up the tree and whether Black Friday should be confined to after midnight on Thanksgiving night.

But a months-long celebration of Christmas is actually not new to the church – in fact, we can date the season of Advent all the way back to the Middle Ages. Historically, the church’s celebration of Advent has looked nothing like a Macy’s parade or bustling marketplace – but instead an intentional, even morose season to ponder and long for the return of Christ, the promised fulfillment of his first coming – which we celebrate on December 25th.

And it would be very difficult to truly hope for Christ’s return without an honest assessment of the darkness that surrounds all of us every day. Dietrich Bonhoeffer put it this way:

The celebration of Advent is possible only to those who are troubled in soul, who know themselves to be poor and imperfect, and who look forward to something greater to come.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Advent Sermons

What our celebrations in the secular West fail to recognize is that bright lights, loud music, sweet treats and lavish gifts do not do anything to change the reality of evil in the world. Perhaps we can distance ourselves from it for a time, but it doesn’t mean it isn’t there.

What I’m finding so beautiful in this season of Advent as a follower of Christ is that there is room for my grief – in fact, there is an invitation to mourn it.

Our year began in death – our third child passed in the womb, and we never got to meet them. In June one of our most beloved friends was murdered along with most of her family and several small children. Another friend delivered a beautiful baby girl who never got to take a breath on this Earth. I know we are not alone in walking through a year of heavy loss.

America has spent too many decades in a tremendous, outrageous epidemic of violence, rage, and murder. A manager killing 6 of his employees in a Walmart breakroom should not be another day in the news – but in this country, it is. Thousands of people will grapple with loved ones dead at the hands of senseless violence this Christmas season. What will Christmas be like in Uvalde?

And the very things that bring people joy at Christmastime – family, generosity, and recognition – are the things millions of people will be lacking in some way this year. Must all of our ducks be in a row for Christmas to be a time of unrelenting joy?

Or is it possible that Advent allows us the space to acknowledge this world could not possibly be all there is?

Because when we do so – the joy of Christmas can come alive in us! We find that sorrow and hope were meant to join hands in this season – Christ has already come and HE IS COMING AGAIN! This world is not all there is!

As we toil and reckon with the evil within us and around us – how can we possibly think redemption is humanly possible? Over many millennia humans have failed to build a peaceful, joyful world devoid of evil and suffering. Christmas is the announcement that the One who can has arrived! The great restoration has begun!

The New Testament ends with a promise that one day Christ’s work will be complete – and gives us a beautiful glimpse of the world to come, the one we could never build ourselves:

And I saw a new heaven and a new earth: for the first heaven and the first earth were passed away; and there was no more sea.

² And I John saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down from God out of heaven, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband.

³ And I heard a great voice out of heaven saying, Behold, the tabernacle of God is with men, and he will dwell with them, and they shall be his people, and God himself shall be with them, and be their God.

⁴ And God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes; and there shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain: for the former things are passed away.

⁵ And he that sat upon the throne said, Behold, I make all things new. And he said unto me, Write: for these words are true and faithful.

Revelation 21:1-5

In Advent, it is okay to mourn – necessary even. Because only then can we truly celebrate the meaning of Christmas, the birth of Christ our Savior. We celebrate Advent as we approach the darkest day of the year, which every year gives way to ever increasing light.