Light in Darkness
Photo by Thor Alvis on Unsplash
John 1: “The Light Shines in the Darkness and the Darkness has Not Overcome It”
This year, because Christmas Eve falls on a Sunday, pastors and churches get to choose whether to begin the season of Advent on Nov. 26th or Dec. 3rd. In my congregation, we are beginning on Nov. 26th, and so I have been thinking about this impending season of light and dark, of waiting and arrival, or mystery and revelation.
Upon the backdrop of deep night and sometimes utter darkness, the Light of God is made available for us to see what we need to know or what is miraculous or what is being born in our lives. This Advent it might do us all good to remember that darkness comes first: when in a burst in the dark, the stars and planets and galaxies spin into being at the origin of God’s creation; in the womb, where each of us is fashioned in mystery and grace; in the hours when the sun sinks below the horizon and we dream dreams as we sleep; and sometimes, even in the unconscious of our minds where things are stored that we do not remember all the time, until, there comes a moment, a smell, a thought, a gesture, -- like turning a flashlight on into that darkness -- and we see what has been held for us, perhaps held until we were ready, perhaps until we need to remember.
When Jesus comes, he is like a light for us to see into the mysteries and hidden things of the darkness. He is like the hidden sun shining on the stars and moon at night so we can see we are not all of creation; we have company in the universe. He is like the blink that happens when a baby is born and suddenly out from the womb, there is shape and form, visible now in the light. He is the Light that gives us understanding to see into the dark and glean its meaning for us. The darkness holds things for us, and with the light we can look and see, just a little bit, what those things are. Things the story of Jesus tells us, like grace and forgiveness and growth and hope. We know that the miracle of life takes both the deep darkness of the soil and the warm light of the sun. We are like that.
When I was a teenager, I lived along the pacific coast where at certain times of the year, the grunion run. Grunion are little fish about the size of minnows, and they spawn on the beaches of Southern California. My brothers and I, with some friends, would go down to the beach in the middle of the night and wait to see if the grunion would come in. You never knew for sure what night they would ride the waves onto the beach, as they would send a few scouts out – you would see one or two or three surfing the waves – and just that might happen for several nights.
We would go during specific moonlit nights, along with other watchers and some coming with buckets to collect the grunion to eat, and we would all wait. Sometimes my brothers and I would light a fire further up on the beach while we waited, periodically going to the shoreline to see if we could see anything. Then, seemingly without warning, hundreds and thousands of these little silver fish would come crashing onto the beach under the moonlight and wiggling their way up onto the sand. It was like watching thousands of stars fall over the dark, wet sand.
Hoping for light, personal and collective is often like waiting for the grunion to run – you live expectantly, you live knowing this will happen, but you do not necessarily have control over the when. Maybe you see a scout of the light, a glimmer of it. But when the light fully comes it is like a thousand stars swimming around you.
As we awaken to God’s light, we begin in the deepest parts of our souls to expect it and to search for it out of all the darkness. When we see it, we remember it as something beyond our decisions – a moment of inspiration; a visiting of guidance; a clarity of what before was murky and confusing; a little bit of wonder and hope like seeing the thousands of Grunion return to the beach in the dark of night under a moon lit sky.
Some of the darkness that the testament of John talks about in its opening lines refers to the place we put our fear and hopelessness, and surely these are great problems of life. They collude to steal our spirits and snuff out our life breath. We overcome these not by will and not by determination. We overcome by watching for the light, loving the light, and loving it in a way that we tend to it as we tend to other things we care about. Because we know it will help us see what the darkness has for us, it will help us grow; it will help us dream the dreams that God has for us. Carl Hammerschlag once said, “Most of us don’t become what we can be because we can’t see it’s what we already are.”
Light, God’s creative, healing light, the light that we welcome in the birth of Jesus this Advent is about that which lets us see what we already are. Loved. Given Grace. Forgiven. Cherished. We are given the light so we can know it and we can testify to it by awakening others, being a bit of light for others.
The Rev. Dr. Mary Lautzenhiser Bellon is a clergy member of the Iowa Annual Conference. This post is republished from the conference's spiritual resource, "Abiding in Hope." Subscribe.