A Light Knocks at the Door: An Invitation to Lay Down the Golden Calves of Christmas
by Deidre Braley
A Light Knocks at the Door:
An Invitation to Lay Down the Golden Calves of Christmas
by Deidre Braley
“Let our hearts be drawn to the reason for it all, the divine Light of the world.”
—Dr. Timothy Keller
I have entered the season of Advent in a cloud of confusion and disillusionment. Hobbling toward Christmas, I feel as though a swarm of gnats is swirling around my head, my body, my very essence. For reasons I can neither see nor discern, I feel like I am being shaken upside down for my lunch money. Here—with my ankles to the heavens and my sense of identity falling all around my head like the lint and loose change from my pockets—I scan the sky for the Light and wonder why it still feels so dark.
These are the times when I begin to believe that I must take control. If the Light hasn’t come, then perhaps it’s by some fault of my own. Perhaps I must set the stage for the Light. Perhaps the Light is finicky or fickle, like an auntie who stays in the guest bedroom at Christmastime and needs the bedding just so, the temperature just right, the coffee just that way. And so I take my cues from the world around me. Our family goes dutifully to the tree farm to cut an expensive evergreen, and I take photos of my children with candy canes in Santa’s lap. I buy gifts and agonize over Shutterfly templates and burn candles with names like après-ski. We watch White Christmas and drink elixirs with snowy white foam. Beneath the twinkling glow, I am almost convinced that this is the Light, that this is all there is for us—whatever magic we can conjure or manufacture for ourselves.
But every pocket of my soul knows better.
Oddly enough, the story that keeps coming to mind is that of the Israelites and the golden calf, when Moses ascended Mt. Sinai to speak with the Lord and took too long to return. I’ve never heard this Scripture cited at Advent, and yet when I read Aaron’s words instructing the anxious people, I cannot help but see myself in the impatient Israelites: “When the people saw that Moses was so long in coming down from the mountain, they gathered around Aaron and said, 'Come, make us gods who will go before us. As for this fellow Moses who brought us up out of Egypt, we don't know what has happened to him’” (Exodus 32:1). I fear that God is not coming for me and so I fashion gods out of whatever sparkling things I can find instead.
The Israelites had understandable reasons for fashioning the calf; it was the custom of many Ancient Near-East religions to do this. Though it’s often understood that the Israelites were worshiping the calf itself as their god, cultures at the time would actually craft these animals as a pedestal for their god to come rest upon. It acted as a dwelling place for their deity. An invitation to come. The Israelites thought that their God was taking too long and that he’d forsaken them, and so they did what they saw everyone else doing: they tried to create an environment to usher in God’s arrival.
Today, I cannot help but feel that I am an Israelite, and that all the sparkling things I’ve propped around my life to welcome Advent are my tiny golden calves. “Lord,” they cry out (harmonizing with the clinking of champagne glasses and the jingling of bells), “All the conditions are right for your Light! Aren’t you pleased? Won’t you come?”
Perhaps you feel this too—this desperation for the Light to come into your life. You want it so badly and have missed it for so long that you’ve taken matters into your own hands. You’ve done every single thing the world said would bring you that elusive peace, magic, and joy, and yet you sit and read this and think in your heart, “I used to believe in these things. But they don’t exist, not really. None of this has really made a dent in that dark fog of my spirit.”
The thing is, there is nothing wrong with embracing the festivities and traditions of Advent and Christmas. It’s just that so many of us have tried to wrangle the Light for ourselves for so long and to squeeze it for all its worth that we’ve forgotten the most beautiful truth of Christmas in the first place: that this Light has been invading the darkness for all of time—long before we ever cut down a tree or poured a glass of eggnog. From the very moment when God hovered over the deep and commanded, “Let there be light” (Genesis 1:3), he established himself as One who comes before the situation is perfect, as one who is unfazed by the chaotic void. He is not a pampered, mercurial deity who demands finery from his peons before he deigns to show up; he is a God who storms the gates with Light wherever he appears and, most wondrously, he shows up when people are decidedly not in control—and when they know they need the type of Light they can’t procure on their own.
Annie B. Jones, author and podcaster, writes, “I (almost) always come limping to Advent, desperate for light, but almost too tired to look for it. Then I remember: the Light came looking for me, and that’s the whole point.” Isn’t this exactly what Jesus did when “he emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men” (Philippians 2:7)? This is why we rejoice during Advent—that we are not in control (thank heavens) for producing the light, but that the Light burst into our dusty old world without our say-so and without our know-how. It is a reminder that the Light is already at hand and that we can surrender to him. Nothing more is required of us.
When we turn ourselves over to this truth, the Light will rush in and fill every disheartened pocket of our soul. And when we allow ourselves to believe that, “Yes, our God is coming for us, and it need not be through any splendorous feats of our own,” we will hear him already knocking at our doors. Where Jesus is, there the Light will be, saying, “If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come into him and eat with him, and he with me” (Revelation 3:20).
This season of Advent, let us remember that there is nothing more that needs to be done or displayed before the Light feels welcomed to reside with us. Rather, we can experience it here, and we can experience it now; what’s required of us is that we simply lay down our golden calves (and thus, our need for control) and instead say, “We know you will come, Lord. And we’re ready to receive your Light—just as we are.”
A Prayer for Light:
Oh Lord,
We’re desperate for your Light—the kind of Light that can storm the gates of this present darkness. Thank you for being a God who comes without our say-so or know-how; thank you for being so present, even here, that if we open our doors to you, you’ll come in and eat with us. Remind us today that your Light doesn’t depend on us doing the right things. Wash us in such spectacular Light that we could never, ever accept something manufactured in place of your presence again. Oh, Jesus, Light of the World—come.
Amen.
Art: from Nativity with Saint Francis and Saint Lawrence, by Caravaggio, 1609
DEIDRE BRALEY
Deidre Braley is a freelance writer and editor. She lives in Maine with her husband and three children, and most days can be found savoring an overly cheesy bagel or drinking a second cup of coffee while working on her weekly column, The Second Cup. Her poetry has been featured in The Way Back To Ourselves literary journal and Maine Women Magazine, and her essays have appeared in Aletheia Today, The Joyful Life, and The Truly Co., where she serves as the editorial content director. Deidre is a strong believer in the power of poetry, picking roadside flowers, and skipping the small talk. You can find her on Instagram @deidressecondcup.
Her debut chapbook, The Shape I Take, was published with Bottlecap Press in 2024, and she is represented by Embolden Media Group.