This Advent, two Palestinian children—Layna and Jivan—lit a red candle in the Nativity Grotto, a candle that names the suffering into which hope must come. It reflects Advent itself: hope born in wounded places; light refusing to be extinguished by darkness.
The red candle does not replace the white one. It deepens it.
Hope without lament becomes sentimentality; lament without hope becomes despair. Advent must include both.
Silence in the face of suffering is not neutrality. The prophets refused to sanitize pain. Jesus wept over Jerusalem before redeeming it. The early church held sorrow and hope together, believing that Christ meets us where the world is most wounded.
To celebrate the incarnation while ignoring the suffering of the communities who first received it is to proclaim only half the gospel.
Advent is not nostalgia. It is active waiting. It is courage to hope amid rupture, to love amid loss, to act amid fear. It is the faith of expectant mothers and displaced families who trust that God still chooses to dwell in fragile places.
This year, I will light a red candle—for Bethlehem, for Gaza, for every family holding faith in one hand and fear in the other, and for an awakening in the global church to be present in suffering.
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I believe that the church can still recover its sight. Our songs about Bethlehem are empty without our presence. Bethlehem needs a global church willing to see her, stand with her, and remember that Christ is found in the very places we overlook. May we have the courage to go where he already is.
