By Revd Fiona Bennet (From Seeds December 2025 – January 2026)

The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light.’ Isaiah 9:2.

The people who walked in darkness were people who had been driven from their homes and their country of Judah to live in the land of their oppressor, the superpower Babylon. From what we can tell, the captive people taken to a foreign land were not treated as slaves there but the status, quality and opportunities of many of their lives diminished.

Their homes lay open for others to take, and their homeland was a province of Babylon. They were forced to build new lives in an unfamiliar and unwelcome place. Where would they find the energy? How could they sing the Lord’s song in this strange and unwelcome land? (to quote the psalmist). The prophet Isaiah described the experience as ‘walking in darkness’.

But while in the darkness they found light; hope was born. Hope that, despite their circumstance and history, God had not abandoned them. Hope that their situation would not always be or feel so bleak. The future was still uncertain, like a newborn child full of potential, but that potential, held in God’s promise, gave people a reason to keep on living in faith.

Sadly, in our world today there are many people who know what it feels like to be driven from their homes, lives and land, and even among those who have not experienced this horror there are many other experiences in our world today of bleakness and the sense that we are walking in darkness.

Advent is the season which invites us, while in darkness, to see the light. Advent invites us to discover the Hope that God has not abandoned us and even now is working to create new life from the ashes of the old. Advent invites us to keep living in faith; trusting that the one who comes to us in Jesus is with us walking in the darkness, loves us infinitely; and, even when unseen, is always steering us towards the potential of goodness for all. Hope in the darkness.