All of us, at different times, have felt that sense of profound loneliness. A feeling of sorrow that we can’t quite put our finger on. Perhaps it is that sense of deep yearning for goodness, for meaning, for purpose.

When the world seems at its darkest, when stories of crime and environmental destruction surround us, when we are tempted to throw up our hands and say to hell with all of it, Advent comes as God’s reminder that God is ultimately in control. That is the very foundation of the Christian faith, that ultimately God will be victorious.

Not right away perhaps.

There may be times when it appears that God is losing and may even have lost it all. There will certainly be times of crisis and crucifixion but in the end, always and ultimately in the end, we believe that love will be triumphant. God will be victorious.

It is that faithfulness that undergirds all of the Advent season. It is what gives us the courage to seek God hidden in ordinariness, ugliness, even tragedy. God is there waiting to be discovered by those who are willing to look.

Do you remember those times as a child, awakened by a nightmare, crying alone in your room and Mother came to comfort you, to say the right words, to take you into her arms.

"There. There." she would say. "Everything will be all right."

Everything will be all right. The message of Advent.

Not that there will be no pain. Not that there will be no failure, no great disappointments but, in the end, everything will be all right.