Advent Comes By Night

This poem is written by our friend and content contributor Joe Spann.

Here are a few brief thoughts of why he wrote this poem:

If I’m honest, I still do this thing where I build up Christmas in my head. As the latter months pass, I start taking stock of all the issues that I hope to have resolved by Christmas. I imagine a mystical economic and emotional stasis where “all is calm, and all is bright”. I think this is why many cannot help but be disappointed with Christmas and some are completely distraught....

You are familiar with the story of Mary and the manger, etc. But Revelation tells a little different angle on the story. The Virgin giving birth while a fierce dragon literally waits to devour her. Christ came to wage war on all that oppresses mankind. It turns out that the Silent Night was also a violent invasion.

So this poem is my contemplation on Advent beyond the shiny lights and wrapping paper. If you find yourself walking in darkness this season – be encouraged. Because according to Isaiah, “The people who walk in darkness” will be the ones who “see a great light.”

Advent comes by night

When the sun retreats giving way to cold and shadow

Where predator hunts and prey hides trembling.

When the weak take shelter in high-walled fortresses and

Huddle around fires closing their eyes against the

Terror.

Advent comes by night

To a maiden spread and vulnerable in the moonlight

A young girl sucked into the central plot of human history

Stripped of reputation and wedded bliss, disjointed, disappointed,

And hunted by an ancient beast whose gaze is fear and

Death.

Advent comes by night

And the maiden’s eyes close. She labors and bleeds,

For God has chosen not a fortress of stone but her womb of flesh

As the beachhead for the eternal invasion

Into the bloody battleground of

Time.

Advent comes by night

For He has chosen not thrones and crowns

But the hearts of men as His prize

Traded silken warmth for a cold cloth and trough

And the foolish things to confound the

Wise.

By night

In the cold

To the stables, sickbeds, late night screens.

To the motels, brothels, tenements, subway benches, and cardboard boxes,

To the refugees fleeing across the desert for their lives, the ones who’ve dropped

the needles, dropped their heads in shame, and can’t lift their gaze above the

horizon.

By night

To the inheritors in hiding

A dormant royal line awakened

Whose noble heads will be lifted to

Meet the gaze of the hunting beast without

Fear.

By night

Because weakness perfects God in Man

And justice belongs not to the raised fist

But the turned cheek,

The counter-sitters wielding

Love.

Advent comes by night

For He has chosen not the fire of cannons

Or the clash of swords to mount the insurrection

But the first cry of an infant to shatter the stillness,

Disperse the shadow, and chill the heart of

Death.

Advent comes by night

For in these shadows death will no longer hunt

But be hunted by the Infant God.

From the darkness of the virgin womb

He comes to bow a thousand gods and kings and corner death

In a garden tomb

By night.