Light Convergence

“The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it.” John 1:5. This passage from John ends many Christmas Eve services as we light our candles in the darkness and the lights of many candles breaks through the gathering darkness, and with amazing detail, we see faces and colors that moments ago were blurred by the gray and black shadows of a deep Christmas Eve night. 

Just days before Christmas Eve Candlelight Services, the pagans, druids, northern lands, and other secular people commemorated nature’s ‘longest night’, the Winter Solstice. It is that time of year when the sun completes its longest journey south and begins its steady climb to the north lands where  the long dark days welcome the lengthening of the days north of the equator.

When Christians around the world celebrate the birth Jesus Christ – ‘the light that shines in our darkness…’ the annual Jewish Festival of Hanukah also begins.  This is the first time since 1978 that this Jewish festival overlaps with the Christian celebration of Christmas. It won't happen again until 2027. Just as we talk about baby Jesus – the light of the world born on Christmas Eve night, the Jewish faith  celebrates the gift, the miracle, and the beauty of ‘light’. 

Like a moth, we too are drawn to light. For some moths, unlike our humanity, light can be a fatal attraction. Where some moths will exhaust themselves fluttering around the light, light gives the human spirit, encouragement, vision, and hope. Light energizes us. We are people who love and deeply enjoy the miracle of light. The longer the daylight, the happier we are.  Some of us may know people who are affected by ‘seasonal depression’.  At this time of year those who are affected by this illness begin their mornings with ‘light therapy’. Such therapy requires the person to spend time under a special light that simulates the sunshine so that they can function as healthier, happier individuals throughout the day. We love light.

In the midst of the longest, darkest nights of the year, the people of the North celebrate light. As Christians we have a season we call Epiphany.Epiphany begins with the coming of the three Kings on January 6^th and continues through the long, dark days of January and February. For the Church this is a time of revelation, manifestation of God in Jesus Christ. It is a time of ‘illumination’ when we discover who Jesus is because of God’s intervention in our darkness. 

Illumination, epiphany, is one of the central aspects of our faith in which Christians see truth. Paul writes, “For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing, it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no may boast.” Ephesians 2:8-9. He says in Ephesians 1:18 ‘…to open the eyes of our hearts…”   As Christians in the more progressive sense of the Christian faith, the ‘truth that is revealed’ and it is a season that promises that even in dark times we can see something different, something even brighter, something more powerful than the illusion of greatness that defines our nation and our our understanding of what is 'great.' 

As I reflect upon darkness and light, I am recalling so many wonderful Advent, Christmas carols and special songs that are sung in the season of Epiphany that celebrate light as a metaphor for Jesus our Savior. Although Savior language has had a strong tradition in the Christian faith and so often sounds cliche, I look at this time of year as a reminder of my role as a twenty-first century Christian. It isn't about me being saved for that promise is already manifest in the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. For me today,  savior language is not what our world needs to hear. What the world needs to hear is the 'hope' that manifests itself in the action of believers who follow the way of Christ. 

In the midst of our political turmoil, our anxiety about a Trump presidency, and a Cabinet that has no good news for the very people who cast their vote for Trump, the Church must birth the light of Christ -- the light of Hanukah -- the gathering light of the Winter Solstice and be 'hope' in real, tangible, relevant and meaningful ways for a desperate and despairing people. I am not sure what that means or what that looks like, but I am confident that God will make known to my heart and the hearts of thousands, perhaps millions of people when it is time to act. I believe the Spirit will inform us when our greatest intentions and our greatest aspirations must become the 'now!' The absence of light in this time of year compels us to grow the light of peace and justice, love and hope, and to believe that the impossible is possible. This is the convergence of light. 

 As the song-writer, Edmund H. Sears wrote so beautifully in his poem, “It Came upon the Midnight Clear”. He writes: “For lo! The days are hastening on, by prophet bards foretold, when with the ever circling years comes round the age of gold, when peace shall over all the earth its ancient splendors fling, and the whole world give back the song which now the angels sing.” May our spirits be equally inclined to join in the message of prophets and bards and believe that peace is possible even in these dark days. May the light of this season converge upon the world and may we  be that light!