Unsettling Advent 2025, Day 8
“Lord, when was it that we saw you hungry and gave you food or thirsty and gave you something to drink?” (Matthew 25: 37)
In the northern hemisphere, Advent is a cold, dark time of year. It is a time of watching and wondering what may come — mimicking fallen autumn seeds now dormant underground, waiting for new life.
We light candles in windows, go to bed earlier, offer guests tea, coffee, and cocoa to warm bodies and spirits, and cook hearty soups and stews. The pace of life slows, our energy wanes alongside nature’s hunkering down for the winter. Spiritually, we draw inwards. We meditate on hope, peace, joy, and love — even if we might not actually fully feel them ourselves just yet.
For those of us who have economic privilege, many Advent practices are possible because of that baseline economic security. We have the safety of the surroundings in which we live and worship, so we can host Advent gatherings and feel safe in places of worship. We have homes, and the electricity to heat them, and lighting for darker days. We turn to stoves and ovens to cook warm foods — and we have the food we need to nourish winter bodies. While these should be basic universal human experiences, they instead exist unjustly as privileges for the few.
What happens to this time of wistful waiting if all people do not have a home, safety, heat, light, or food? How do we observe Advent in a time when so many go hungry?
Hunger is closer for millions of our neighbors than it has been in a long time. In the United States, SNAP benefits were frozen for over a month this fall, and we soon enter a new year that will bring additional, difficult restrictions, leaving many without even the small amount of food relief that SNAP provides.
Around the world, the early 2025 cancellation of USAID has led to 660,000 deaths so far. In Sudan, Congo, and Gaza, extreme hunger exists and even famine is now predicted in some places. The anticipated Christ child is a Savior who told disciples to feed the hungry — yet more than 47 million Americans, including nearly 14 million children, are part of the more than 700 million worldwide who go hungry every day.
In these realities, wistful waiting becomes desperate longing and uncertain hope. When we pray “Come, Lord Jesus” in these circumstances, we mean it with intensity and raw yearning. Stripped down to the bare necessities, our Advent practices must include a gritty resolution to act in the face of injustice, to engage in mutual aid, to fund grassroots community solutions, to call public officials to account, and to challenge any public and corporate policies that keep people locked in poverty and hunger.
So as we sing Advent hymns, gather in community, light candles, and wait hopefully, may we also embody in our actions our coming Savior’s call — to feed the hungry and to provide compassion, love, and justice for all.
Rev. Rebecca Barnes is an ordained minister in the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) and is coordinator of the Presbyterian Hunger Program.