“Dressed in Light”

by Bruce J. Johnson

December 2, 2001

 

I don’t know whether it is just my imagination or a fact, but it seems to me that more people have decorated their homes and property with lights this year than in any other year of recent memory. I doubt that our neighborhood is any different that others in our community. The displays range from single candles in the windows and spotlights on wreaths to those icicles hanging from the edges of roofs to stationary and moving reindeer all lit up! Hartford has had its Festival of Lights just after Thanksgiving; Goodwin Park has its drive through Duncan Donuts’ Light Fantasia and we will have our festival here at the church next Sunday evening. We have a lot of lights for that tree!

 

Yesterday’s Hartford Courant had a featured picture on the front page of the Connecticut Section with the following caption:

 

          “LIGHTING THE WAY TO THE HOLIDAYS”

 

I can’t help but think that there is something powerfully symbolic going on in all this--- some kind of deep communal statement against the darkness.

 

This reminds me of a wonderful little Sufi parable. They are usually about the adventures that happen to a crazy little man that they call “Mullah.” There’s one story that very poignant. It tells of the day Mullah was out in the street on his hands and knees, looking for something and a friend came up and said: “Mullah, what are you looking for?”

        And Mullah said, “I lost my key.”

        “Oh, Mullah, that’s terrible. I’ll help you find it.” So, he got down on his hand and knees and then said, “Mullah, about where did you lose it?”

        Mullah said: “I lost it in the house.”

        “Then why are you looking for it out here?”

Mullah said: “Because there is more light out here!”

               (Buscaglia, Living, Loving and Learning.  P.69)

         

As is the case with most parables, this one can be interpreted from a number of different perspectives but certainly for today’s purposes, ol’ Mullah knew what he was doing--- searching for the key in the light. As a matter of fact, most things are lost in the darkness where we can’t see things right, if at all!

And this is one of those major themes for advent, whether we are talking about the dreaming of Isaiah about a time when the swords are hammered into plowshares and spears into pruning hooks or a world in which people will learn war no more or the preaching of Paul…. There is always an emphasis that when light shines in the darkness, the darkness cannot overcome it. Today’s lesson is but one of many through which Paul plays off of this theme, admonishing the new Christians of  Rome or Corinth or Ephesus or Colossi to put off works of darkness and be dressed in the garments of light. Night and day, darkness and light and ultimately evil and good—all opposites… the former powerfully destructive, the latter life giving.

 

Another Beatle died on Friday, George Harrison.  Again I was surprised to read the headline in the Courant:

          “CONSCIOUS OF GOD--- FEARLESS OF DEATH.”

 

The official statement read like this:

“He left this world as he lived in it, conscious of God, fearless of death and at peace, surrounded by family and friends. He often said, ‘Everything else can wait but the search for God cannot wait, love one another.”  (Hartford Courant, 12/1/2001)

 

During the season advent we often use that word--- ‘wait,’ along with watch and get ready. There is nothing inactive about our type of advent waiting. Indeed, there is probably nothing wrong with saying that everything else can wait--- all the other stuff we do to get ready for the holidays. But the search for God cannot wait and interestingly, it is always somehow connected with our relationship with one another.

 

I have this plaque in my office, a gift from someone many years ago. It has a poem by Thomas Blake:

          I looked for my soul but my soul I could not see.

          I looked for God but God eluded me.

          I looked for a friend and then I found all three.

 

 

 

 

 

Light – walking in it and dressing with it is always associated with virtue and goodness and our capacity to love and be loved. Isaiah, after dreaming of that day of peace--- tells his people to walk in the light of the Lord--- this on their way to a world of peace. In Paul’s letter to the church of Ephesus he names his people—the children of light ----and tells them to walk in love.

 

To the Colossians, he says that they must put on compassion, kindness, meekness and patience, forgiving others just as Christ has forgiven them and above all put on love--- which draw everything into harmony.

 

For the Romans, it was the armor of light--- in others words, the very goodness of Jesus Christ.

 

Many centuries ago, a rabbi once asked his students how they could tell when the night was passed and the day was on its way back again.

 

One student suggested---“when you see an animal in the distance and you can tell it is a sheep or a goat.”

 

Another said: “When you can see a tree in the distance and you can tell whether it is a fig tree or a peach tree.

 

But the rabbi was not impressed with either of these answers or any that followed. He finally told his students--- “it is when you can look at the face of any human being and see there the face of your brother or sister. Because, if you cannot do this, then no matter what time it is, for you, it is still the night.”

 

 

Friends, this advent let’s let our lights shine in the darkness throughout our neighborhoods and in the way in which we love one another, as brothers and sisters, let us show that we bear the very light of Christ Jesus our Lord.

 

                                                                                        Amen