Shining In the Dark

“Little Willie, full of glee, poured radium in Grandma’s tea:  now he thinks it quite a lark to see her shining in the dark!”

Many congregations will observe Epiphany this Sunday, a day early.   But as one obsessively liturgical, I’m thinking about the Second Sunday after Christmas, often unvisited due to the quirks of the calendar.  These lessons certainly are pre-Epiphany, since they speak about Light and Revelation.  No star-lit travels of Magi, yet they guide our journey with Wisdom and Bright Living.  Even as we turn away from the Manger into the surrounding dark, they provide intelligence for our path.

From Between the Testaments we read from the Book of Sirach (!) 24:1-12; and from The Wisdom of Solomon (!!) 10:15-21.  Very similar in their message, they lift up the role of Wisdom (Sophia) both in Creation and in the Holy History of Israel’s escape from Egypt.  “Wisdom” is more than making Righteous Choices, and more than “knowing” the special languages of the kabbal and Gnosticism.  Wisdom is part of God, and brings divine light to those who pray (like Solomon) and see here a holy partnership.  (Remember those awful “God is My Co-Pilot” bumper stickers?)

The Epistle is full of long sentences of Paul to the Ephesians, chapter 1, vv.3-14.   Don’t get hung up on “destined”, you Calvinists, but see v.13-14 about being marked through faith with the seal of the promised Holy Spirit: “this is the pledge of our inheritance toward redemption as God’s own people, to the praise of [God’s] glory.”   This could take all of Epiphany to unpack!  For me, I’m going to list it as one more reading about God imposing Holy Wisdom and Light upon the darkened world.

Who needs to preach when the Gospel is the wonderful Prologue to John  (1:1-18)?  As those who’re extra–sensitive to the Gathering Gloom, we need desperately to hear about God’s initiative in bringing the Light, one which the Devilish Darkness can’t overcome!  Pew-warmers, in withdrawal from the phony glitz of holidays, need to hear about a REAL light that will bring hope through the long winter’s night. 

This could stand by itself as an exercise in Holy Beauty.  Yet it’s our duty to point out the real terror that Darkness instills in us, even to the point of paralysis.  Suicide bombings, fear of immigrants, distrust of other religious systems…(for my latest rant, see the note below)   And then we should speak of those groups & individuals like Willie’s Grandma, who shine in the dark!  Not of course by their own endeavors, but because they’ve ingested the Source of Light, Immanuel, God With Us.  Ready?…Set?…Glow!

God Bless Us, Every One                                         Horace Brown King

FOOTBALL!  personifies everything currently wrong with America!  Trash talk & bullying.  Win at any cost, even if you have to maim another “player”.   Cover up the sodomy in the locker-room or the rape at parties, so The Program won’t get hurt.  Violence and smash-mouth hitting.  Public irresponsibility, stabbings & DUI, glorified profanity.   I’m sick of it, aren’t you??