The Advent of Empathy
Back in July of this year my wife and I lost a child. My wife was five months along in her pregnancy when our fourth child, another son, died. It was excruciating for us. We are still not over it, may never be. I recognize that many people have suffered significant loss in some form or another this year.
It’s easy to get stuck in grief when we lose something significant or simply when our expectations are not met. We may find ourselves in a seemingly endless downward spiral or fighting hard to put on a good face. We suck it up and try to move on. In the midst of these times we need support. Actually, loss or no loss, grief or no grief, we all need genuine support in life. Often we get sympathy but we need something deeper. We need empathy.
Empathy is not a word that most of us use in our everyday vocabulary. Empathy is the identification with or experiencing of the feelings, thoughts, or attitudes of another. It’s not feeling bad for someone; it’s feeling bad with them. It’s recognition, connection, and solidarity. Their pain becomes our pain.
Empathy is the ministry of presence. To some extent, those who empathize with you experience what you experience. They fully understand. When someone empathizes with you, they are nonjudgmental, safe, and supportive. Empathy helps us become and stay whole.
But what does empathy have to do with the advent season? Advent is a time of preparation and renewed expectancy. Literally, advent means a coming into a place, view, or being. It’s an arrival, onset, commencement, or start. Advent represents our expectancy of God doing something new and profound. The birth of Jesus brought the presence of God to humanity in a new and profound way. It was the birth of a new, more intimate way of relating with God, one in which we experience divine empathy.
God came in humility and vulnerability. Jesus was born in Bethlehem, a rural town of little consequence. His actual birthplace was most likely a lowly basement cave. Jesus spent his first nights of sleep in a feeding trough. He grew up in a working class family at an incredibly difficult time in human history. Despite all this, Jesus modeled what it means to live in intimate connection with God and offered himself as a bridge to make this intimacy a reality for us. Ultimately, God proved in Jesus that he empathizes with our every situation.
The advent season is a fitting time for us to pull back and reflect. We consider past expectations against what has actually happened. We face current reality, make adjustments, and look ahead. Hopefully, we look forward to what might come next.
During our advent reflection, we may consider God’s consideration of our pleasure and pain. How close is he to it? The advent of empathy is the advent of compassion. God understands and identifies with us…completely. Empathy has come. God feels with us.
Take some time to consider the advent of empathy. During this advent season, expect empathy. Entertain hope. Embrace the empathy that came in the birth of Jesus. Hope is here.
Merry Christmas!
For a child is born to us, a son is given to us. The government will rest on his shoulders. And we will be called: Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace. - Isaiah 9: 6