Today is the Third Sunday of Advent.
On each Advent Sunday, we’ve been exploring a single word from the lectionary gospel reading for the day to call forth the beauty of this season. The first Advent Sunday word was NEAR; the second was WILDERNESS.
The Advent word today is: LIGHT.
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John 1:6-8,19-28
There was a man sent from God, whose name was John. He came as a witness to testify to the light, so that all might believe through him. He himself was not the light, but he came to testify to the light.
This is the testimony given by John when the Jews sent priests and Levites from Jerusalem to ask him, “Who are you?” He confessed and did not deny it, but confessed, “I am not the Messiah.” And they asked him, “What then? Are you Elijah?” He said, “I am not.” “Are you the prophet?” He answered, “No.” Then they said to him, “Who are you? Let us have an answer for those who sent us. What do you say about yourself?” He said, “I am the voice of one crying out in the wilderness, ‘Make straight the way of the Lord,’” as the prophet Isaiah said. Now they had been sent from the Pharisees. They asked him, “Why then are you baptizing if you are neither the Messiah, nor Elijah, nor the prophet?” John answered them, “I baptize with water. Among you stands one whom you do not know, the one who is coming after me; I am not worthy to untie the thong of his sandal.” This took place in Bethany across the Jordan where John was baptizing.
Lord of light, who sent the Baptist to offer hope and face the world’s scorn: open our ears to hear the cries from the margins, exposing our fears, inciting our vision and calling us to a step of faith; through Jesus Christ, the one who is to come. Amen.
— Steven Shakespeare
One of my most treasured Christmas decorations is a display of old-fashioned ceramic houses collected by my father in the 1970s. He loved his little village, complete with a church and a corner grocery store, with its retro storybook vibe. And I love it because he loved it so much.
But “old-fashioned” comes with some problems along with the memories.
Every year, I have to deal with 40-year old tangled cords of lights with broken and burnt-out bulbs. Every year, I run around the corner to the local variety store to buy replacements for the worn out and busted old lights.
The store — founded in 1958 — has a retro vibe of its own. I’ve been buying bulbs for dad’s Christmas village there for almost two decades. Not this year, however. There were none. I asked the clerk and he replied, “We tried to order them. But the company doesn’t make them anymore.”
Having been failed to get throwback bulbs at the throwback store, I resorted to an online search for Christmas light replacement bulbs.
All I can’t say is don’t do it.
Hundreds, perhaps thousands, of choices popped onto my screen — with normal options like size, shape, wattage, and color, but then came the “alternatives” like type of light (LED, halogen, or traditional), style (constant, twinkling, or variable), shatterproof or not, socket type, dimmable or steady, opaque or translucent, regular or triple dipped (did you know there are “triple dipped” light bulbs?).
I just wanted a little blue light bulb to replace a busted one in the ceramic church. I had no idea what to order. It was a little like wanting a cup of coffee and wandering into a Starbucks with a menu of 80,000 choices. I’m here to tell you: finding just the right light bulb can be hard.
When we think of light, we don’t think about complex decisions. We usually think of stark contrasts like on or off, flickering or extinguished, bright or dim. Too often we imagine being theology like that. We hear readings such as today’s gospel through a dualism of those straightforward choices: He came as a witness to testify to the light, so that all might believe through him. He himself was not the light, but he came to testify to the light. Believe or don’t, repent or not, be baptized or refuse. Follow the light or be condemned to darkness. Accept Jesus or be damned.
Off or on. We imagine that was no light before John the Baptist showed up and flipped on the switch. Like a quick trip to the variety store for the one perfect, old-fashioned bulb.
In reality, however, finding the light is more like trying to buy a bulb online. It is harder than it seems.
In the past, “light” wasn’t easy to grasp. It was mysterious and hard to describe, except, perhaps, by poets and prophets. But in recent centuries, scientists have sharpened our understanding of such mysteries. From physics, we’ve learned that light is, within itself, a kind of diversity, existing as both particle and wave, a small part of a vast field of electromagnetic radiation. What we experience as light is a tiny portion of a vast spectrum. We only see a certain part of waves of energy swirling around us.
I was awful at science in school — and I still struggle to grasp it. But this lay-oriented paragraph from Wikipedia helps even a bad physics student like me understand at least a little:
The modern theory of quantum mechanics came to picture light as (in some sense) both a particle and a wave and (in another sense) as a phenomenon which is neither a particle nor a wave (which actually are macroscopic phenomena, such as baseballs or ocean waves). Instead, modern physics sees light as something that can be described sometimes with mathematics appropriate to one type of macroscopic metaphor (particles) and sometimes another macroscopic metaphor (water waves), but is actually something that cannot be fully imagined….Visible light, which occupies a middle ground in frequency, can easily be shown in experiments to be describable using either a wave or particle model, or sometimes both.
He came as a witness to testify to the light, so that all might believe through him. He himself was not the light, but he came to testify to the light.
Let there be light. Is it, too, particle and waves? John testified to both the particular arrival of Jesus the Christ and witnessed to the sacred radiance of the entire cosmos, the “divine waves” that are the undercurrent of the whole. One made visible in the birth of a child, a particle of existence, the singularity of a life; the larger field, the wavelengths of eternity, still-invisible to the human eye. Christ the Light.
John didn’t know quite what he was doing. How could he? That’s clear from his conversation with the Pharisees. All he knew is that the light was flickering, something was coming into view that had been part of the spectrum still hidden from view. But he, unlike many others, could see it in some measure. Yet he wanted a straight way, a path to the light. And he wanted others to enlarge their field of vision — to envision the spectrum.
And so he baptized those who came to him in the desert.
But when you baptize people, dunking them in water, you don’t create something straight. You get eddies. There’s a sloshing, splashing swirl. When you souse sinners in a river for repentance, only one thing is certain: waves.
There were waves in that river, as longing-believer after longing-believer came forth to see the light, searching for a clear way in the wilderness. But John pushed their bodies down through waves and they came up through waves. They sought a particle of certainty and wanted to see the light of salvation, but instead they got submerged in rough waters. Crosscurents flowed, starting as ripples and collided into rapids, carrying debris of doubt and despair downstream. John made waves. The baptized made waves. The river insomnolent.
Look for the light, witness it, and find yourself awash in the waves. For every candle we light, for all that we can see, there is more. Much more.
INSPIRATION
Gather up whatever is
glittering in the gutter,
whatever has tumbled
in the waves or fallen
in flames out of the sky,
for it’s not only our
hearts that are broken,
but the heart
of the world as well.
Stitch it back together.
Make a place where
the day speaks to the night
and the earth speaks to the sky.
Whether we created God
or God created us
it all comes down to this:
In our imperfect world
we are meant to repair
and stitch together
what beauty there is, stitch it
with compassion and wire.
See how everything
we have made gathers
the light inside itself
and overflows? A blessing.
— Stuart Kestenbaum, Holding the Light
A great ring of pure & endless light
Dazzles the darkness in my heart
And breaks apart the dusky clouds of night.
The end of all is hinted in the start.
When we are born we bear the seeds of blight;
Around us life & death are torn apart,
Yet a great ring of pure & endless light
Dazzles the darkness in my heart.
It lights the world to my delight.
Infinity is present in each part.
A loving smile contains all art.
The motes of starlight spark & dart.
A grain of sand holds power & might.
Infinity is present in each part,
And a great ring of pure & endless light
Dazzles the darkness in my heart.
— Madeleine L’Engle
SOUTHERN LIGHTS: January 12-14, 2024
Our theme is Reimagining Faith Beyond Patriarchy and Hierarchy — and many in the The Cottage community have signed up to gather in person!
YOU ARE INVITED to join me and my friend Brian McLaren as we reimagine our faith beyond patriarchy and hierarchy in our interior lives, in our communities of faith, and in the Scriptures.
We’ve asked three remarkable speakers to take us through this journey: Cole Arthur Riley, Simran Jeet Singh, and Elizabeth “Libbie” Schrader Polczer (our “resident” Mary Magdalene guide!). Our special guest chaplain for the weekend will be the Rev. Winnie Varghese (St. Luke’s Episcopal, Atlanta). And you’ll be treated to the amazing music of Ken Medema and Solveig Leithaug and other surprise offerings!
IN PERSON or ONLINE
INFORMATION AND REGISTRATION CAN BE FOUND HERE.
GIVE A GIFT OF SOUTHERN LIGHTS
Treat someone to the Southern Lights Conference in January with a gift card — IN-PERSON and VIRTUAL admission tickets (virtual guests don’t have to attend live — they can watch the recordings at their leisure).
Click the icon below for information — and follow the directions from there!
MUSIC
Let nothing dim the light that shines from within.
―Maya Angelou
I am getting caught up before Christmas. Thank you for sharing Springsteen's rendition of This Little Light of Mine! It was perfect encouragement for me this afternoon.
Another fine choice for word of the week. "All of us are in the gutter. Some of us are looking at the stars." (Oscar Wilde) No matter how low we might fall, we can always look for the light, appreciating the darkness that makes light possible.