Christina’s life reached its fulfillment while she was still young (and, by any measure, it was an unusually full and joyful life). But our time-in-this-world continues to move and change; we continue to journey, following the “signs” of our days, months, years (for some of us, many years) and longing to find where they are leading. The road passes through obscure places, but there are also lights, like stars in the night sky, that guide us along the way, and remind us that what we seek—what we are awaiting—is not a fantasy of our own making, but the fulfillment of a promise.
We especially need lights to break through the long nights of this Advent 2022. So often, violence seems to be putting an end to fragile human aspirations, smashing them, extinguishing them, suffocating them. We need to remember that our hope is in the One who came to dwell with those who suffer violence—the One whose Love is greater than all the powers of this world.
Christina Grimmie’s 2014 rendition of “O Come, O Come Emmanuel” helps us to remember. Watch and listen as her inimitable voice brings a touch of “soul” to this traditional Advent hymn:
