First, while this passage is about God’s gift to humanity, obviously it does not always feel like we have already received a gift from God. Which is the pattern of our lives-sometimes we are the people who are walking in darkness, sometimes we see a great light. When we find ourselves in the walking in darkness side of things, when our warriors are still trampling with their boots, and there are still garments rolled in blood, then it is harder to celebrate the hope of this passage.
Really, the whole story of a God that works in history is a little troubling-why does an all powerful God need to wait to deliver the people? (when will God save the people, as it were).
This I think is a good place to rest for a minute-it is possible to answer this theologically in a number of ways. You can suggest that human suffering is necessary to fully understand blessing, either in this world or the next-that there is no light without darkness, no joy without sorrow. It is possible to claim that free will dictates some amount of chaos, such that we are put in positions to make choices. Free will without a broken cosmos is meaningless-if all choices are equivalent, what is the point of choice? (this is my personal favorite). Finally, you can argue for a strong dualism between good and evil where the powers of evil, while less potent than God, continue to wrestle for control over creation over time, which is why God works in history.
Any that I’m forgetting?
Advent wise, we tie ourselves up in this temporal reality-we celebrate God’s saving work in history, and in our present lives, and we pray for God’s salvation in the future, embracing our reality as beings embodied in time, embracing the now.
testing...
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