Bad News Into Good: The Shape of the Gospel

As Frederick Buechner once wrote, "The Gospel is bad news before it is good news." This is good news to us who see bad news everywhere we look these days.

© Seth Olson 2019

October 13, 2019—The Eighteenth Sunday after Pentecost—Proper 23 (Gospel Reflection Track)

2 Kings 5:1-3, 7-15c
Psalm 111
2 Timothy 2:8-15
Luke 17:11-19

There are some times when the lector finishes reading a particularly difficult text, and in response to hearing, “The Word of the Lord,” we all look around at each other before shrugging and saying, “Thanks be to God?” And there are even some weeks when we hear a tough Gospel lesson and we have a hard time saying, “Praise to you, Lord Christ,” as the customary response. Now, you probably already know this, but gospel literally means good news. But, what you may not know is that the Gospel is bad news before it is good. Don’t believe me? Stick with me for a bit.

One of my favorite writers is Frederick Buechner. He once wrote, “The Gospel is bad news before it is good news. It is the news that [humans are sinners], to use the old word, that [we are] evil in the imagination of [our hearts], that when [we look] in the mirror all in a lather what [we see] is at least eight parts chicken, phony, slob. That is the tragedy.” Sounds pretty rough, but this is only the beginning.

The gospel is tragedy first precisely because we forget who we are and whose we are. We are God’s children and we belong to God. We come to earth knowing this deep truth within our souls. When we gaze upon newborns we remember this clearly, but somewhere along the way we lose track of the truth. This is the bad news before the good news. But, there is good news.

In today’s Epistle—when Paul was writing to his protégé Timothy—we hear the writer speak of his gospel. “My good news,” Paul wrote. What was this good news? Simply put, though Jesus died—tragedy—he was the Messiah, was raised from the dead, and brought those who believe in him with him—good news! We will return to this shape in a moment.

To Paul though, this message was worth undergoing suffering. Sometimes Paul comes off sounding outlandish or braggadocios, but here he was spot on. He was willing to be beaten and imprisoned, so that he could share good news. He underwent the bad news before ultimately experiencing the good. There’s that shape again.

Sometimes though we cannot help but get wrapped up in bad news. There is no shortage of it today in the world and in our lives. God's own creation cries out for greater care; famine, oppression, human trafficking, violence, and disease indicate a need for greater care of our neighbors; and in our own lives stress, anxiety, busyness, illness, and broken relationships point to the yearning within us to better care for ourselves. Bad news all around, right?

How do we respond? One way to respond is to get stuck in the tragedy, or worse yet to inflict tragedy upon others. Immersed in the bad news we counter what others do to us with what is called complimentary behavior—like for like. The Old Testament way of saying this is “an eye for an eye.” Or, in the positive, “I’ll scratch your back if you scratch mine.”

We even get a glimpse of this way in Paul’s letter to Timothy. Paul wrote, “If we deny him, he will also deny us.” If we are loyal, then that’s what we’ll get in return—a tooth for a tooth, denial for denial. Except that is not all there is. This is only the first act. This is merely the set up—the tragedy before the turn, for this letter more fully says: “If we have died with him, we will also live with him; if we endure, we will also reign with him; if we deny him, he will also deny us; if we are faithless, he remains faithful—for he cannot deny himself.” This opens up another way of viewing everything: death doesn’t lead to death, but to life. Endurance leads to reigning with God. Even denial gets redemption because God cannot deny God’s self. God will always be faithful. Now we see coming into focus the shape of the ultimate Good News!

Even if we falter. Even if we fail. Even when we are unfaithful, when we cannot be trusted, God will always remain faithful and trustworthy and true. This is the good news that comes in the wake of any and all bad news. And Paul truly was one who was acquainted with bad news. He knew suffering, imprisonment, betrayal, torture, and death. He willingly experienced bad news before tasting the good news. He knew the shape of the Gospel precisely because he had lived it.

Now Paul's phrase “my good news” sparked a deep wondering in my soul. Often in the Church we will talk about our favorite Gospel. Do you like Matthew, Mark, Luke, or John? I don't want burst your bubble, but there is only one Gospel—the Good News of Christ Jesus. Even knowing that there is simply THE Good News, sometimes we restrict it to the past. We mistakenly believe that God’s Good News happened 2,000 years ago half-way around the world, and four men wrote about it, and that’s it. Since then, the good news dried up, God went into hiding, and every once in a while we get a mysteriously communication as God watches from on high—like the outline of Jesus’ face in a piece of toast. But, the truth is the good news of Christ Jesus never stopped. And, it never will.

Each one of us is called to be a gospel writer. I am called to share the good news. You are called to share the good news. We are called to share the Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ according to All Saints. This good news is diverse and unique according to each one of our voices, and yet it shares some similarities. Each one of us experiences our own Good Fridays before grace bursts in on Easter Morning. We all go to the cross on Calvary before seeing the tomb is empty. Like Buechner wrote, it is bad news before it is good news. We, like Paul, know this shape, the shape of the Gospel because it’s the shape of our lives. And, if we look around we start to see this pattern everywhere, like in today’s reading from Luke.

Seeing the arc of this leper’s life it takes the same shape as bad news looping towards good. This leper was an outcast because of his disease, and Jesus’ disciples who practiced Judaism would have looked down upon him doubly because he was a Samaritan. Samaritans had a different worldview and a different holy place, which led to conflict and even violence between the two peoples. For a Samaritan to be held up as an example for the disciples would have been challenging to say the least, but here we find this Samaritan leper’s life take the very shape of the Good News of Christ Jesus.

The leper was ostracized, ridiculed, and isolated with other lepers because of his disease—bad news. But then, he encountered Jesus. This interaction disrupted the leper’s life. He along with others asked for mercy from God. Jesus shared God’s healing with him. And, he was cured—good news! That’s it then, the leper’s life took the shape of the gospel… but that’s not it. That’s not all!

As the once-diseased man began to walk away, he observed he was cured, he turned back to God, he praised God, worshiped God by prostrating himself at Jesus’ feet, and he thanked God. We know the shape of the Gospel—tragedy gracefully swooping towards good news. But the one-time leper shows us the shape of a life impacted by good news: asking for mercy, observing God’s grace, turning back to God, praising and worshiping God, and giving thanks to God. The passage ends with some powerful words that put an exclamation point on this response to the Gospel.

Jesus said, “Your faith has made you well.” But, really he told the man, “Your faith has made you whole.” This faith, this trusting in God, allows us to walk from the bad news into the Good News of Christ with confidence that no matter what happens Jesus is walking with us. This is not just any good news it is our good news. And, it is worth sharing!

We, at All Saints, are in the midst of sharing our good news in many different ways. Last week we started a season of Shining Our Light. Today we will hear more stories of how we are revealing God’s transforming love in the world. What is this season, this time of stewardship all about? It’s about seeing the shape of the Gospel as the shape of our lives. It’s about responding to the good news in our lives and in this community with gratitude, by turning to God, and worshiping God.

God gives us everything. God shapes our lives such that through Christ all bad news bends forever towards good news. And as we walk through this life in which we see in the shape of the Gospel in multitudinous ways, may we respond like the Samaritan leper. As the light of Christ shines in our lives illuminating God’s mercy manifest within us, we are called to turn to God by praising, worshiping, and giving thanks for all the blessings we receive. What is the Good News according to All Saints? It is that Christ’s love transforms every bit of bad news into good news. And for that, thanks be to God.

The Dark Before the Dawn

What does the shortest day of the year have to do with St. Thomas?

Nine hours and fifty minutes, that is how much daylight we experienced today. If you would like to get a little bit more specific the sun rose at 6:50:59 AM this morning and set at 4:41:12 PM about fifty minutes before this evening’s service began. Of course, if you long for many daylight hours tomorrow is not your day. December 21st features almost a minute less light than today with the sun rising 30 seconds later and the sun setting 30 seconds earlier. Tomorrow, as you probably already know, is the shortest day of the year. It is also the day that the Church sets aside to celebrate Thomas, the twin, one of the twelve disciples—and we have moved that feast to this evening. We could pass over this connection between Thomas and the shortest day of the year quickly thinking it coincidence, but if we look at the life of this saint we will realize the connection with darkness is anything but coincidental.

A few weeks ago Evan preached on Sunday morning that the Christmas Season was not celebrated for about three hundred years after Jesus’ time on earth. In fact, it took a decree from the Roman Emperor to get the Nativity cycle started, and this was at least in part to subsume the pagan holiday of Saturnalia—in addition to recognizing that the Feast of the Annunciation was nine months earlier. But simply placing the day of Christmas around the same time as a raucous festival like Saturnalia would not woo those pagans to Christianity. So how did the Church wrestle away the hearts of those wild ones long ago?

At this time of the year you may notice that we celebrate a lot of big-time occasions in the church! Of course, there are Christmas Eve, Christmas Day, and Epiphany, but we also have St. Stephen’s Day on the 26th, St. John the Evangelist’s Day on the 27th, Holy Innocents on the 28th, and Holy Name on January 1st. And, tonight we celebrate the Eve of St. Thomas’ Day. Why so much celebrating? I believe those Christians wanted to lure over even the pagans into not only a day of celebrating, but a whole festive season. While all these feast days may not be major ones, they all point to what it means to be a follower of the Incarnate God. “Alright, alright,” you say, “But, why start with Thomas on the 21st?” Well, it’s as obvious as the difference between night and day you see.

The shortest day of the year, at least in the Northern Hemisphere, means it is the darkest day of the year and who better to teach us about moving through the dark than the disciple of doubt St. Thomas? Thomas was not with the other disciples on the day of Resurrection. Where was he? Well, he was out. Perhaps this meant he was more scared than the rest, but that appears illogical, as the most afraid would have presumably been the most hidden. He could have been going to comfort others, helping the poor, or trying to figure out where Jesus was if he was not in the tomb. When he came back he discovered that the others had been visited by the Risen Lord, he wanted what they received—an encounter with Jesus. Thomas’ desire to see God often gets framed as doubt, but I’m not so sure I would classify it as such.

St. Thomas’ witness of the gospel stretches far beyond being an excuse for us to question God. For the rest of the disciples Jesus’ Resurrection was made real on the Easter evening, but Thomas sat dwelling in the darkness of Good Friday for another week before Christ’s light dispelled the gloom. We may very well celebrate this saint’s day on the darkest day because he was the one who had to wait so long for his vision of Resurrection. This is so helpful for us at this time of year.

I am not sure about you, but at this time of year I notice more the absence of those who have previously been so meaningful in my life. Thomas noticed Jesus’ absence, and longed to see him again. He yearned for the light to come into not just any darkness, but his darkness. We yearn for this too. For many this is a cheerful time, but for those who miss their loved ones around the dining room table or the Christmas tree Thomas gives us hope. Christ Jesus responds to Thomas’ frustrations and yearnings with an appearance that points to the truth that darkness will not be forever. Christ’s light will shine in the darkness and the darkness cannot overcome his light.

On these shortest days of the year, when the light seems absent, and the dark appears heavy I invite you to wait with Thomas. The darkest moments are tough. We want so badly to rush out of them; however, in the deepest gloom we have the greatest opportunity to practice that belief in the light and our trust in God’s faithfulness to us. Into the darkness comes the light. May we sit still and wait and watch with Thomas who wanted to see the light coming, returning to this world.

You Are Salt and Light

A divisive world with rivals competing for limited resources. Political adversaries fighting tooth and nail. Violence spilling out into the streets. War knocking at the door. And, the hopes and values of a nation never fully realized. If you think I am talking about the last several election cycles in the United States, I’m not. Perhaps I could be, but these unsettling phrases describe the times in which Jesus spoke. This was the world in which the words we heard in this morning’s Gospel lesson were spoken.

Jesus preached the Sermon on the Mount to the people of Israel, not to a Christian community. Our eternal teacher entered into a very particular context within the history of Judaism. For years the people of Israel had been passion-ately debating, and all sides wielded their holy texts as though they were swords made uniquely for their cause. Several variables heightened this conflict to a fever pitch.

First, the people of Israel were being occupied by the Romans. “God’s Chosen People” had in fact been banished or occupied by Gentile rule since the Babylonian exile—that’s a long time! Yes, the Israelites were back in their home-land, but they had no control of the larger government. There were Roman soldiers trampling through their towns. The Temple was controlled by someone else, and all the prophecies of a divine king coming to reign had never came to fruition. From this occupied context questions arose about how to interpret the Law and the Prophets.

Three main strands of understanding emerged. One group was the Sadducees. We know from elsewhere that they did not believe in the Resurrection, but they did believe in working with the occupying powers. They sought to practically collaborate with the Romans, which often led to other Israelites claiming that they were traitors to God and His people.

A second group were the radical Zealots. As far as the Sadducees were on one side, the Zealots were on the other. Instead of working with their rulers, they wanted nothing more than to overthrow the Roman Empire. Being zealous has its roots in the Zealots’ behavior. This group even took up arms to attempt coups against local rulers.

The Pharisees, a third group, walked down a middle path. They were the most divided group of the three. Some Pharisees wanted to fight the powers, while others sought to found isolated communities that would protect the ways of being part of the tribe of Israel. This latter group would practice their piety privately (try saying that three times fast). And, if they could not stop the Roman Empire from controlling their land, they would at least preserve their covenant with God until God came back to earth. Into this divided context Jesus came to preach his Sermon on the Mount.

As the people of Israel felt strained, divided, and conflicted, Jesus spoke some-thing that did not abolish what had been written, but fulfilled the hopes, dreams, and themes of the Law and the Prophets. As one great Biblical scholar, put it, this sermon was “a challenge to Israel to be Israel” (N.T. Wright, Jesus and the Victory of God (London: SPCK, 1996), 288). Jesus did not side with throwing over the government for we are to love our enemies as our-selves, nor did he befriend oppression or its perpetrators, nor did he go the way of the Pharisees. In fact, these Pharisees were the ones with whom Jesus most often quarreled.

I have heard it said by some priests that they could never preach something from the Old Testament as it was a series of books only focused on law, rules, and an oppressive God. What stands out about Jesus’ ministry is his extensive use of the Law and the Prophets to show us the way of God. This way is hid-den in plain sight right in the midst of the first two-thirds of our Holy Scripture. Jesus did not come to abolish what had been written, not one stroke of a letter of it in fact. Instead, Emmanual, that is God with us, came to fulfill all that had been hoped, dreamed, and otherwise written.

In this way we can approach this passage about salt, light, and righteousness, which Jesus spoke in today’s Gospel lesson in a richer way. The Sadducees’ ways had led them to losing their flavor, like salt without its saltiness. The Zealots’ ways had put them out of right relationship with God and neighbor. The Pharisees’ ways of following the Torah had driven many of them into hid-ing their light, like a lamp under a bushel. Jesus warned that they could not lose their particularity, nor place their passionate hope on God only acting in the future. God’s reign was already started, and it is still happening right now. Jesus came to inaugurate the reign of Christ, which holds onto that which is good and at the same time makes all things new!

We today may be caught up in ways that are not unlike the traditions of the people of Israel in Jesus’ day. We place our allegiance in something or some-one else over our love of God and neighbor. We become violent and aggressive toward those with whom we disagree. We seek to preserve our Traditions in secret, but deny living justly, kindly, and lovingly in public. We all too easily slip into unhealthy spirituality, losing our flavor, hiding our light, and falling out of relationship with God and other.

The way that Jesus came to walk, exemplify, and show to all was not different from the Law and the Prophets. Jesus’ way was and is the same way that God always intended, merely amplified to its loudest level. We need this way now more than ever.

In a world more divisive than I have seen in my lifetime I yearn to see the way of God. Not blind allegiance, not deaf protesting, nor stunted piety, but another way! Jesus came to fulfill the law, not to abolish it. He came to unite all those divisive groups, but many were not willing or able to listen. We are challenged to hear Jesus calling us and to respond to that call. We are called to take up our part in fulfilling God’s law. We are called to be salt and we are called to be light, and as Jesus showed us it is through Christ that we are called to be one with God. Let us preserve our flavor. Let us shine our light. Through Christ let us unite for we are more flavorful and all the brighter, as we all shine in God’s constellation together!

Salt and Light

This coming Sunday’s Gospel lesson contains two very basic elements of human existence: salt and light. I do not have to go too far in my train of thought about these two substances to recognize that I would not be here without them. Salt serves to preserve food, to liven up meals, to clean cast iron (along with some water), to make water boil quicker, and probably much more that I am not thinking of at this very moment. Light is so important to human existence that we quite often associate its absence with non-existence! So we can quickly understand why Jesus would think it critical for salt to maintain its flavor and for light to remain visible, but what does it really mean?

 

Salt does not easily lose its flavor. In fact, some scientists maintain that NaCl (sodium-chloride or salt) will taste the same until it reacts chemically with another substance. Light is such a strong force that darkness has no ability to endarken it. That is light shines into the darkness and the darkness will not overcome it. So why worry about salt becoming un-salty? Why fret over light being hidden? Well, because salt does interact with other compounds. Light does get snuffed out. And, Jesus saw that even the beautiful, salty, light-filled cores of his followers could and would be tainted by other elements of this world.

At our cores we are salt and light. Within all of us the element of Christ flickers; however, we can so easily get caught up in out-flavoring or out-shining others. We can fall into the most human instinct of thinking that it is us who makes our light shine or our lives taste good. We mistake our place for God’s own. 

God through our ancestors gave to us laws that were so helpful to live in community, so that we could taste and see that life is good! While Jesus came to amplify God’s love to its loudest levels, this teacher from Nazareth was not doing something wholly different from his prophetic forbearers. He came to fulfill not to destroy what already was. God came to earth in Jesus to preserve and make more abundantly known what was, not to tear it down to do something different. Jesus took the themes of forgiveness, love, acceptance, hospitality, healing, righteousness, integrity, grace, and more and he brought them into his own age. These themes were present in the law of his people. Then, he fulfilled those laws, so that we might experience not the letter of those laws, but the grace of God within them.

We have the same opportunity today. We are called to be salt and light, like Jesus’ first disciples. Jesus asks us to co-create with him. The law has not faded away and while Jesus fulfills the law that action is one that started long ago and comes even into the present. We are called to fulfill with Christ the eternal law, which are those themes that lead to wholeness and oneness with God, neighbor, and creation. This sounds lovely, but the trouble comes when we believe that our way is the only way. We must maintain our saltiness and our light, but not at the expense of trampling on others or snuffing them out. Do not lose your saltiness, nor hide yourself now, but let us together find ways to bring our spices together and let us shine all the brighter as a constellation of lights. You are salt and you are light, let us taste and see that the Lord made us good.

Matthew 5:13-20: Salt, Light, and Shame

There have only been a handful of times when I have really gotten into real trouble in my life. I mean the type of trouble where one is called to the principal's, camp director's, or coach's office. It is funny how those particular memories are etched into the fabric of my being. Shame cannot come out with just one wash, instead it takes years of spinning around and rinsing. I can remember one such encounter very vividly.

I had done something at camp that was a clear violation of the rules. When the camp director confronted my cohorts and me, we were all very meek, humiliated, and saddened by our thoughtless behavior. Still, I felt that I was more guilty by association than an outright offender and in a private meeting I pleaded my case. One of the camp matriarchs found out about trying to pass the buck, and she simply said, "If a man does not have his word, what does he have?" My mouth gets dry thinking about that moment. As if I had just swallowed salt water, yet it seemed that I had lost my saltiness.

This coming Sunday's gospel follows the Beatitudes (Matthew 5:3-12):
"Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
"Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted.
"Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth.
"Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled.
"Blessed are the merciful, for they will receive mercy.
"Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God.
"Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God.
"Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness’ sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
"Blessed are you when people revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account. Rejoice and be glad, for your reward is great in heaven, for in the same way they persecuted the prophets who were before you."

Jesus' short list of those who are blessed enlightens this message about salt and light. The poor, those who mourn, the meek, the hungry, the merciful, the pure, the peacemakers, and the righteously persecuted all receive blessings. To be blessed is to be salt and to be light. I imagine most of us at some point have been one of these blessed. Yet, for us to deny this blessing is for us to lose our saltiness and to block out the light. While I am not one for using shame as punishment, there is a difference between denying the Truth to avoid the shame of punishment and recruiting shame as a fear tactic. In my moment of denial I lost my saltiness, I blocked out the light of what it is to be blessed.

Now, I am not condoning seeking delinquent, illicit, or immoral behavior for the sake of experiencing some sort of persecution. Rather, I am saying that in our poverty, sorrow, meekness, hunger, mercy, purity, peace-seeking, and persecuted states we receive God's presence. When we are in a rather impoverished spiritual state we can clearly see God walking with us in ways that are not always apparent when we are riding high spiritually.

Additionally, I do not think getting in trouble for not following camp rules constitutes righteous persecution, rather in the shamed state I occupied, I clearly felt a closeness with God who called me into a deeper relationship. Jesus fulfilled the Law not so we could ignore it, but so that we might with him feel blessings and keep growing deeper in our saltiness and our lightness. Now I wonder, "How do we teach that we are blessed in our weakness without instilling shame in one another?"

1 Peter 2:1-10: God Called You Out of Darkness into Marvelous Light

When I was sixteen years old I could not wait for summer time to come. With my driver’s license in hand, I felt a new sense of freedom and that would only be compounded by the summer job I was taking at camp. For the first half of the school break at Camp Winnataska all of the sessions are girls’ camps, and the only boys out at camp are the college-age staff members and three high school males who wash the dishes after every meal. This was to be my post for two weeks. To make things even better I was going to be serving with two of my best childhood friends, Alex and Brooks.

It might sound like difficult work, washing dishes for about two hundred people three times a day for a couple of weeks, but I still think of it as one of the best jobs I have ever had. We would wake up right before breakfast, eat, then wash dishes, take a nap, wake up in time for lunch, eat, then wash dishes, take another nap, go lay by the pool, go to dinner, eat, then wash dishes, and then stay up all night. Pretty soon I had completely switched from being an early riser, who loved the day time, to a night owl, who could not wait for the sun to go down.

Mostly at night we would keep to ourselves, but a few times we used the shade of night to play pranks on the male staff members or to go steal kisses from the girl leaders under the shadow of the moon. As Alex, Brooks, and I had grown up at camp we knew most of the trails like the backs of our hands, but learning how to maneuver them in the darkness was this daunting, yet invigorating task. On one particularly dark night, we had been out past our curfew and were headed home when we saw the flashlights of the directors searching through the woods nearby. Fearing being caught out too late, I sprinted away without any thought of leaving my comrades stranded in the woods. Running down old familiar trails in the moonless, cool night air I felt freer than I had ever felt in my entire life.

When I arrived back at the lodge where the dishwashers resided, I waited for what seemed like an eternity for Alex and Brooks to return. Almost immediately after my heart stopped pounding, the guilt began to weigh on my soul. I had left my friends alone in the darkness. After waiting and waiting and waiting. They came sneaking in about twenty-five minutes after I did without having been caught by the directors. After breathing a sigh of relief we sat around for a spell and I kept thinking of what it would have been like to have been blinded by the beam from a flashlight. My eyes hurt just thinking about getting caught in that ray of light. A few hours later when we were all still too excited to sleep we sat out on the porch and watched as the darkness slowly dissipated and the light of the sun crested over the horizon of pine trees enveloping all of camp in its warm embrace.

After two weeks of nocturnal living as a dishwasher, I had a tough time adjusting to being a citizen of the light again. For the entire week break between girls’ camp and co-ed camp I felt so tired that all I could do was sleep and eat. Eventually I did recover, but the contrast of being blinded by a flashlight and sitting peacefully watching as the sun peaks over the trees sticks with me. Today’s reading from the first letter attributed to Peter allows us to think about ourselves as God’s chosen people who are “called out of darkness into his marvelous light.” As we move towards the quiet, dark season of watching and waiting known as Advent, I ponder how it is Christ comes to us and how it is that we share Christ’s light with those around us.

In all my sneaking around at summer camp I never was tied down by a ribbon of light shining from a director’s Maglight. Thank Heavens! Still on a few occasions a friends did catch me in the face with a flashlight. It was not fun. I walked around stunned for a few minutes stumbling. Ironically that light, the thing which helps us to see more clearly, can also be the thing that blinds us.

This can be a difficult time of year for those who have lost someone dear to them or for those who celebrate this season quietly. With so much jolliness around us, it is easy to be swept up into gleaming the light of Christ wherever we are going. Yet, that light and that joy when used like a flashlight often feels overwhelming to those who are not yet ready to step into the light. I know that when I meet those who are walking around in darkness, I often want to so quickly drag them into the light, but I believe when I do this I am denying God’s gift. It is like me sprinting from my friends and leaving them alone, stranded in the darkness.

Instead, if we were to sit together in the darkest part of the night, and we were to study a sunrise we would find that the light does not come all at once, as one stream of light drowning us with overwhelming brightness. Instead it wraps around the darkness slowly, allowing for the night to say its farewells and to kiss the dawn at its arrival. Genesis 1 description of God’s light overcoming the darkness can make us believe that God does not sit with us in the night. Yet, Matthew’s gospel from today reminds us that for God all things are possible.

God is with us in our dark times. Christ Jesus walks with us during those times of doubt, depression, and dimness. Yet, when we are called out of those times of darkness it can be startling to immediately step into the light. Instead of rushing into the fullness of Christ’s light, we can stand still right where we are, feeling the holy light within us and the Holy Spirit whipping through our hair as we wait in the stillness. It is here, in the darkness, that we begin the season of watching and waiting. Let us not be too quick to blind one another with our flashlights of Christ and instead may we, with God’s help, be patient and wait for the coming of the Son.