The
glory of the Lord shone. Take a moment
to take that in. We normally think of
light or a source of light as shining, as flashing, as illuminating. But, here, we read that the glory of God
shone. To understand what it means for
glory to shine, let’s back up and think about quite why we want light.
Darkness
can be scary. There’s a reason kids
sleep with nightlights. Light can cast
out fear. And we hear that in the angel’s
first words: “do not be afraid.” There’s
great news coming, but first: let your fear be cast out; the light’s here. Light shows us where we’re going. On a journey, we need light to find our way,
and show us our destination. And
finally, light lets us appreciate the beauty of things. However beautiful something is, it can’t warm
our hearts in the darkness.
The
glory of the Lord shone. Our angels in
our pageant carried candles to show us this, and these real, physical lights
help us see the truth: that in that babe in Bethlehem, real, spiritual light
came down. The darkness has been cast
out. Sin and death are defeated. Pain and grief are put to flight, because
light has come down, from heaven to earth.
As Isaiah put it, the people in darkness have seen a great light, and we
have. Our darkness, our fear can be put
to rest by the luminous gift of God’s only son.
That
gift shows us our way home. God has a
plan, a calling for each of us: to live wholly and holily with God and with
each other forever. And Christ came that
we might know the way to get there.
Christ came to show us what love looks like, from the crib to the cross,
and the world is utterly transfigured by that brilliant act of love. He reveals a love so powerful that not even
death, death at our hands, could keep him from us. Death is conquered, that our death need not
keep us from love either. Christ has
opened the door, walked the path, and walks with us, lighting up the way.
And
that gift lets beauty warm our hearts.
The world created good gets shadowed by sin and suffering, by in Christ
we see a world reborn, redeemed, re-made-good.
And it’s beautiful, no part of it more so than our neighbor, and it
warms our hearts.
But,
there is still suffering and sorrow and pain and grief in our world. The victory is won, but we’re still waiting
the fullness of its realization. We live
in dawn’s first light, awaiting the fullness of day. And as Isaiah said, “the zeal of the Lord will
do this.” We can always have hope,
because we know that. We've seen the
light, and we can go to any place of shadow and declare that darkness doesn’t
rule there; light does.
We
come to this place to be set on fire, to become God’s candles, shedding his
light on the darkness. We come here to
see Glory to our God, joining the angels’ song, embracing the angel’s mission
to declare to the world our good news, to tell just who this babe is. We come here to be surrounded by these
candles.
We
have candles here in the nave, because this whole church is holy. We come here, assembled as the body of Christ
for God to make us like those candles that surround us. The largest candle here is behind most of
you, it’s that one by the font, where we are embraced by God in baptism, where
God claims us as His beloved daughters and sons, not claimed by sin and death
but claimed for love and joy by Him.
Candles surround our ambo, because Christ’s light is present in His word
proclaimed, that reveals beauty and shows us the Way to the Father. And candles surround the altar and the
tabernacle, because it is there that bread and wine are transformed into Christ’s
body, our food for the journey. The babe
who lay in a manger comes to us again as food, that we might become what we
receive.
That’s
why we come here. Because we need
this. Christ didn't just come once in
Bethlehem. He comes to us anew
here. He sets us aflame, sets our hearts
on fire. And with that, we can light up
the world.
No comments:
Post a Comment