Advent always begins softly, arriving like a gentle breath after a long season. As we step into this time of reflection, I’ve been spending time with Howard Thurman’s book Jesus and the Disinherited. His reminder is clear and powerful: Jesus came for those with their backs against the wall. For the overlooked, the weary, the misunderstood, and the ones pushed quietly to the edges of society.
Surprisingly, this same theme appears in the story of Wicked. Beneath the music and color is a tender message about judgment, fear and the way a person can be labeled without ever being truly known. Elphaba isn’t wicked. She is wounded and misunderstood, living in a world that never paused long enough to see her heart. She represents anyone who has carried the weight of being misread or marginalized.
Thurman points us toward the same truth. Jesus’ life and ministry were not centered around the powerful. They were rooted in compassion for the vulnerable, the rejected and the unseen. Advent becomes a season of remembering that God chose to enter the world through humility and vulnerability. Born into a family without status, without safety and without a place to stay, Jesus came in solidarity with those who know what it feels like to have no room.
If this season feels complicated for you, you are not alone. Many people enter December carrying grief, uncertainty, loneliness or a deep sense of not fitting into the rhythms of celebration around them. Advent speaks directly to that experience. It tells us that hope comes especially to those who feel out of place. It tells us that God draws close to the misunderstood. It tells us that the love of Christ shines gently on every heart that feels pressed against the margins.
The stories of the disinherited and of Elphaba remind us of something important. What the world overlooks, God holds close. What the world labels, God understands. What the world wounds, God longs to heal.
As we light the first Advent candle, may this small flame remind us that hope often begins quietly. It arrives for the weary, the searching, and the ones longing for a place to rest.
Where in your life do you feel unseen, misunderstood or pushed to the margins?
How might God be drawing close to you in that very place?
Who around you might need a little extra compassion this season?
Lord, as the season of Advent begins, meet us in the tender spaces of our lives.
Shine Your gentle light on every place that feels misunderstood or overlooked.
Teach us to see the quiet stories unfolding in the hearts of those around us.
Help us offer compassion, patience and understanding in Your name.
May this season draw us closer to Your heart and closer to one another.
Amen.
The Prayer Porch 