The Rev. Frank Logue Enkindle Our Hearts Christmas is a season of light. Christmas trees are draped with lights; houses have light icicles dangling from the eaves. Everywhere we find more light. The light has been building through Advent and Christmas. Each week here at King of Peace the Advent wreath has had an additional candle lit. As we neared Christmas Day, the wreath glowed brighter and brighter by the week. Finally on Christmas Eve, the central candle was first lit. The central candle represents the light of Christ come into the world. That night we acted out the light of Christ coming into the world as I lit a candle from the Christ candle and then we shared that light around until everyone held a glowing candle of their own. Kason and Jalynn Helberg helped me to light all the candles until the whole mantle glowed with the light. We could see what it looks like when one small light is shared. The tiny glimmer grows and grows in the sharing until the whole room is lit. John writes about the Light of Christ in our Gospel reading for this morning. What exactly is the Light of Christ? Christ is the word used to describe that Jesus is the Messiah, the anointed one the Jews were expecting. That’s the Christ part. We know that Jesus is Christ, but what about the light. John describes Jesus as the “light of all people” and “the true light.” John was a disciple of Jesus and he often wrote using this idea of light and darkness. Darkness represents life apart from God. Light represents God’s presence. In Jesus, God took on human flesh and lived among us. The light, God’s presence, was made known on earth more clearly than ever before in the person of Jesus of Nazareth. Jesus experienced all of human pain and suffering as well as joy and gladness. Jesus experienced both the light and the darkness of our world. In his life and ministry, Jesus revealed to us God’s love and care for his creation. In this he was shining the light of God into the world. Through his death and resurrection, Jesus showed how far God would go to reconcile all creation. In showing us God’s love and care, Jesus shined the light of the one true God. The light of Jesus’ life shone into the darkness humanity had let itself sink into as we separated ourselves more and more from God. The myriad lights that surround us each Christmas are dim reminders of the bright light of Truth that was revealed by God in Christ. Each Christmas season, we remember the amazing story of how God became a human. This year, we read the Christmas story and entered it anew. Our Advent wreath and our Christmas Eve service of light signified the light of Christ coming into the world afresh. What now? Won’t the Advent wreath soon burn down? Where is the light of Christ then? I want to turn to today’s Collect for the answer. Written like “kuh-lekt” as in a collect phone call, you pronounce the word “Kah-lekt” if you want to sound “in the know.” A Collect is a particular form of prayer and we use a collect near the start of our worship service each week. A collect names some attribute of God or something God has done, asks for something specific in response to this attribute of God and then closes with praise to God. Each week the collects we pray are written to collect in one short prayer the teaching from the scripture we read. The collect can be a Reader’s Digest version of where the readings are going. Let’s look at this week’s collect together. You may want to look at your handouts with the prayer on them as I read the collect one more time:
Being a witness to the light means allowing Christ to shine in our lives. Because the love God has showed us is not a personal treasure. If the light of Christ were for you alone, it would be nothing more than a pocket warmer. But, the light of Christ is not for your own comfort only. The light of Christ shines brightest when it is shared. The more that we share God’s love, the brighter the light of Christ burns. We share the love God has shone for us in many ways. A warm smile, a listening ear, a generous hand, and a forgiving heart are all ways we can shine the light of Christ. The light of Christ shines forth whenever we show true love for one another. Two summers ago, I worked as a chaplain intern at St. Elizabeths, a large public mental hospital in Washington D.C. While I was there I got to know a man who knew all about light and darkness. He said I could share his thoughts. The client, who I'll call Mr. Morgan, had been very combative when he first came to the hospital. Mr. Morgan lashed out against everyone around. He was, as he would later describe it, in a very dark place. Mr. Morgan and I met on my routine visits to his ward. We talked almost daily. He began to attend our weekly church services in his building. He started reading daily devotions and made arrangements for a Roman Catholic chaplain to bring him communion once a week. After reconnecting to his own spirituality, Mr. Morgan talked to me about light and darkness. Mr. Morgan said, “If you were in a cave and you were carrying a torch like you see in a movie, what would you do if it went out?” I replied, “I guess I would try to relight it.” He went on, “But what if you didn’t have a light?” “Well I guess I would wander around in the dark looking for a way out.” I wondered where he was going with his story. I paused trying to picture the scene. What kind of darkness were we talking about? Mr. Morgan was quite philosophical, so I began to think about other kinds of darkness. Depression and despair came to mind, so did loneliness and confusion. What about you? Can you think of other kinds of darkness? Where are the dark places you encounter in life? What would you do if the torch went out in your life? I came up with another solution, “Unless someone else came by with a light. Someone else could bring a light,” I offered. Mr. Morgan smiled. I was hooked. “That’s what you do. You come around here and shed a little light. Sometimes we don’t even know we’re in the dark until somebody comes by with a light, if you know what I mean.” I did know what he meant. Mr. Morgan was talking about shining the light of Christ into the dark corners of our world. The light of Christ can be taken for granted by those of us already basking in that light. But to people fumbling around in the dark night of their own souls the dim glow of something more is all they need. To people who have let themselves get disconnected from God even a glimmer of the true light can make all the difference. But to see Mr. Morgan as being in the darkness and chaplains as bringing all the light misses something vital. It was not a case of me being the one with all the light and Mr. Morgan the one with all the darkness. Life is never quite that black and white. We will always meet the God we want to share in the people with whom we wish to share God. When I first went onto Mr. Morgan’s ward at St. Elizabeths, I was the stranger. At first Mr. Morgan sat back, watching me. But soon, he reached out to me. I was the stranger and he offered me hospitality. He began to look for me to visit the ward, to welcome me. He often shared with me other clients’ concerns and introduced me to new people on the ward. It was in his hospitality that I saw the light of Christ. All I did was to reflect some of that light back to him. I did not go to St. Elizabeths as the one with all the gifts, trying to shed light among people in the dark. I went in all my brokenness to St. Elizabeths. I took my own inadequacy, my fears and apprehension about working with severely mentally ill persons. But ministry does not depend on our adequacy, but upon God’s. So even with all my own faults and fears, ministry occurred. I met Christ in the clients at St. Elizabeths as they met Christ in me. Even in the dingy wards of the mental hospital, the light of Christ shines brightly. Where are the dark places you encounter? Maybe those dark places are in your own heart. We all encounter dark places at times. Prayer, scripture reading, and worshipping God with fellow Christians are all ways to help spread the light of Christ into the dark areas of your own life. Then as the love of God grows inside you, you will see chances to share that love with others. A kind word and a listening ear are the most frequent ways we share that love. The light of Christ can shine through simple acts such as welcoming a stranger to church. Or you may find yourself swallowing pride, offering forgiveness and patching up an old friendship gone sour. The point isn’t so much what you do. The acts themselves are not the Christ-like example. The real point is who you are. As you get more grounded in scripture and connected to God in prayer, you can go from stumbling around in the dark to walking in the light. Then you realize what you have been all along—a child of God. Being a child of God doesn’t happen because of what we do, but because of God’s action. So, even when you feel least worthy of the love God has shown you, you can still spread that love to others. And the more you spread that love to others, the more you will experience it yourself. Christmas Day is now behind us. We gather together this morning on the verge of a new year. In fact we gather here on the verge of a new millennium. It is time to take down the Christmas lights and to pack away the Advent Wreath for another year. It is time to look ahead to what comes next. All those Christmas lights will be safely tucked away in the attic as the days lengthen toward spring. But where will the light of Christ be? The light of Christ will be where it belongs, shining forth in our lives. I want to ask you now to join me in prayer. Let us pray together the collect for the day and ask Christ to enter in and enkindle our hearts anew. Let us pray:
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