Dr. Michael Reid Trice
Vicar – Luther Memorial Lutheran Church
Shoreline, Washington
January 3, 2016
Praise for the Light
Texts:
1st: Jeremiah 31: 7-14
2nd: Ephesians 1: 3-14
Gospel: John 1:1-18
Hymn of the Day: Light Shone in Darkness
Light a single candle rather than curse the darkness. This expression reminds me of when I was a child in New Mexico; we participated in the lighting of luminarias on Christmas Eve. A candle was placed in sand, in a brown paper bag, that, when lit at dusk, would burn all through night in the frigid desert winter, heralding the birth of the Christ child. The air was so cold as you lit these small candles that your fingertips hurt. The luminescence in each tiny enclosure was a symbol of enduring hope under the vastness of life itself, under a canopy of darkness, deep into night, stretching out into the heavens and the twinkling stars so far off overhead. The adage that one would light a single candle rather than curse the darkness reveals to us, in our current season of light, that hope and love is our proper home. We do not reside in an endless parade of life’s disappointments, left to curse the darkness. Hope and love can have a home in you, like light.
For Christians around the world, right now we share in a season of light, as a time that arches from the Advent of Christ’s birth through the Epiphany of lowing beasts, shepherds and wise leaders, all witnessing to one newborn child, out there in the desert expanse, on the periphery of the human story, a small light twinkling in a vast and hungry world. The Christ child event breaks upon the world.
On January 6th we celebrate Epiphany, often as a final nod from Christians to the static figurines of the crèche; like a 3-D snapshot of the manger scene with all of the actors finally assembled before us. The stasis of that moment captures like a flash from polaroid, (or on image on Instagram), but in doing so it also misses the vibrant message of Epiphany. Epiphany is not reduced to a single scene like a photograph. Epiphany is much more dynamic. It is meant to be nothing short of the human awareness of the manifestation of divine love and the fullest recognition of what and who Christ is. Epiphany is that time where we get it, or at least start to get, the connection between this young life in the manger, and a divine plan for salvation in a troubled world.
This is why our readings today, in the Gospel of John and Ephesians, are saturated in themes of new life and transformation, as we heard them just minutes ago: For instance, the scattered are brought out of deserted places, paths are made straight, and we hear of singing and radiance and an awareness of belonging in the household of God. Even our reading from Jeremiah presages a time of transformation for God’s people, where Yahweh desires the people to live as well-watered gardens, never languishing again. Throughout we witness imagery of light, life, hope, and health.
Far from a static photo of a crèche, our hymn today reflects Epiphany as a saturated moment of the human recognition of divine presence: “Sing earth and heaven, global transformation, prays for the light.”
For nearly two thousand years Christians have interpreted Epiphany as the revelatory “gonzo air drop” moment where we realize what we’re gazing down at in the cradle, and later on, in the life, work and ministry of Jesus. For 2000 years, from that first moment in the manger, ever since, human beings have been attempting to describe both the meaning of Christmas and Epiphany – the whole Christ-event. But, as we know, human language is limited and misdirected. We profess love for objects instead of people, and we describe people like objects. So amidst our limitations, how shall we describe in human terms the incarnation of Christ? How do we peer over the manger today? How do we walk amidst those figures in our past, and sort this story out in a way that impacts our lives right now, and is not a museumification of a narrative of the arrival of yesterday’s hope in the world, when this very hope is in fact meant for you, for us, for the world, today as well?
The Gospel of John is the Church’s most beloved response to this question of what is transpiring at the manger. In a search for language, the text begins: “In the beginning was the Word.” Now the Word is not just any ordinary term; The Gospel of John is as revealing as it is seemingly cryptic in this use of the Word. The author of this book has a problem for any student of theology. In a thousand words or less, they are trying to draft a first theology that describes divinity, that is framing a language of the Christ-child, and that portrays the salvific activity of God in the world. And here is where John starts – with an appeal to God who transcends the beginning and ending of time itself, and yet simultaneously yearns to enter into history for restored relationship in our world here and now.
What is at stake for John, and the early Johannine community where he is from, is a clear understanding of how God’s love that enters into the world in Christ. John calls this love, the Word. For John, the saving work of Christ in the world is a language of love that claims us before we understand it, that speaks our names first when we forget to utter God’s name in our lives. John describes God’s love as a kind that wants to take up residence in our lives like a living crèche, like light itself, that offers a Word of hope in our darkest places.
And, that word of divine hope is not meant to be at airline cruise altitude, or 35 thousand feet. No, that is a word of Love that wants to take up residence with us at the ground of our lives, where we live. From his family of origin and the humility of a manger, Jesus’ entire ministry was focused on the ground of peoples’ lives, in their daily concerns, however healthy or unhealthy, however broken or whole. This was the message of Epiphany – that Immanuel (or God with Us) – was really here, walking alongside us, through life itself.
To know in Jesus’ ministry that God knows and claims us first, brings an image of what John means when he refers to the Word. This is a God who is seeking a relationship of trust and hope in the face of life’s abandonments, and encourages fortitude in times of loneliness, and desires grace in moments of self-rebuke, and seeks humane connection in a crisis of our disconnected humanity. Ultimately, the Gospel of John refers to Christ as “the Word” because, before every human annunciation, every human word, is this divine Word, first. For John it is a Word that yearns for expression in the human voice, my voice, and your voice.
The Word of Christ spoken aloud in our lives is so essential to John, that the Latin term vocatio (for voice) is the root word for our term, vocation. What is your vocation in this world is the same as asking:
“Where is your voice resonating God’s Word in the world?” In this sense our vocations, or where the Word of God finds a home in our lives, does not begin with whether I have dotted all the ‘I’s and crossed all of the ‘T’s for understanding God. That is a lifelong journey. The point is not how purely I believe in God; rather, God believes in me, in you. And, we will spend much of our lives responding to that question of what it means to live faithfully, participating as Children of God, as John puts it. Or as the author of Ephesians notes, we participate in the beloved, hope set on God in Christ. It is a wonder.
John discussed divine love as incarnate in Christ, like a Word that is both before and beyond all language. The author draws from metaphors of light and life from scriptures much older than these gospel texts. God brings life in Christ, and that life is our light, and that light shines out in the world. And who we are in the world, our human being and our human doing, are intended to shine that very light of Christ. Our voices, are meant to live that Word.
Descend with me and travel with me for a moment to that scene, to the manger. The desert is cold at night, often with a dip plus-or-minus of over 30 degrees. There is activity; the sound of voices, the starlight high above, a young mother and her young husband. What are you meant to see here, as you peer over the straw and then . . . . I see those moments when we were children, looking up at the stars. Do you remember those moments? Your eyes scanned the heavens and fixed on a bright object, far out on the horizon. This is a near universal experience, where our imaginations are faced with the greatness of our surroundings, and we begin to paint meaning.
What were you thinking and feeling at that moment? Did you feel like a cosmological drop, or like the whole universe was an integrated gesture of divine purpose, or maybe you felt both of these things at the same time? In Epiphany, the smallest light – like a luminary, or a candle in desert sand – breaks upon the world. God chooses a child. God chooses light and hope. God chooses you.
Sing earth and heaven, global transformation, prays for the light – Amen.