Light is Returning

Anyone else feel like crawling into bed right after supper? The only thing that keeps me sane at this time of year is counting down the days till the days start getting longer. It’s less than three weeks before that happens! Surely we can last long?

It’s no wonder ancient people of all sorts in the northern hemisphere had some sort of celebration towards the end of December. As the light returned…

Jesus is called the Light of the World. Today we’re starting with John’s gospel… but a different translation that we would normally use. During Advent, it’s my intention to use a variety of translations, and perhaps it will help us hear the words in a fresh, new way.

Let’s listen to those ancient words of wisdom now:

Before time itself was measured, the Voice was speaking.
The Voice was and is God.
2 This celestial Word remained ever present with the Creator;
3 This speech shaped the entire cosmos.
Immersed in the practice of creating,
all things that exist were birthed into being.
4 This breath filled all things
with a living, breathing light—
5 A light that thrives in the depths of darkness,
blazes through murky bottoms.
It cannot and will not be quenched.
6 A man named John, who was sent by God, was the first to clearly articulate the source of this Light.
7 This baptizer put in plain words the elusive mystery of the Divine Light so all might believe through him.
Some wondered whether he might be the Light, but John was not the Light.
He merely pointed to the Light.
The true Light, who shines upon the heart of everyone, was coming into the cosmos.
The Voice took on flesh and became human and chose to live alongside us.

This whole passage gave me comfort and strength this week. A week that was full of time crunches, renovation and building challenges, social media challenges, a family in grief, and personal challenges. A reminder that I am one small part in an infinite cosmos and that God stretches back in time and space and stretches far into the future that is beyond my comprehension.

I will often go to the ocean to put whatever is troubling me into perspective, but going outside on a starlit night can have the same effect. Take a look at the this first photograph. It’s the Milky Way, taken in Keji by my son. I find it impossible to look at something like this and not feel wonder and awe. I feel so small and yet so connected to something larger than myself. It always reminds me of a couple of lines from How Great Thou Art: I see the stars, I hear the rolling thunder, Thy pow’r throughout, The universe displayed!

And this second one, also taken by my son, a time lapse taken in his back yard… with the Star Link satellite passing overhead. This one sort of makes me both feel the immensity of the cosmos and the how humanity has reached up into the sky. Destroyed some of the mystery…but made so much possible.

And then there’s this photograph from NASA.

It’s a big, beautiful spiral galaxy, identified as NGC 1055. It’s a dominant member of a small galaxy group a mere 60 million light-years away toward the aquatically intimidating constellation Cetus. Can we even comprehend that? Seen edge-on, the island universe spans over 100,000 light-years, a little larger than our own Milky Way galaxy. The colorful, spiky stars decorating this cosmic portrait of NGC 1055 are in the foreground, well within the Milky Way. But telltale pinkish star forming regions and young blue star clusters are scattered through winding dust lanes along the distant galaxy’s thin disk. With a smattering of even more distant background galaxies, the deep image also reveals a boxy halo that extends far above and below the central bulge and disk of NGC 1055. The halo itself is laced with faint, narrow structures, and could represent the mixed and spread out debris from a satellite galaxy disrupted by the larger spiral some 10 billion years ago. (NASA)

And I can’t help but we overwhelmed with awe and wonder once again. And all that vastness… all that light… all that enormity… becomes concentrated… focused… converges incarnate in Jesus… as a baby…

The most vulnerable state of being. The light of the world needed tending and caring just like each one of us did when we were born.

John’s gospel is considered to be the latest written. Somewhere around 90-100 after Jesus’s death. After the destruction of the temple in Jerusalem. Those early Jesus-followers were still sifting through the rubble of that loss. Without the Temple, formerly the heartbeat of Jewish religious life, communities were having to redefine identity, authority, and belonging.

The opening words are a way of saying, “The story began long before the walls fell. Longer even than creation. We are rooted in something deeper than catastrophe.” The words echo those of Genesis, John is saying, “The pulse you hear in the universe is the same one beating in Jesus.” And at the same time, he says, “The guiding wisdom behind everything isn’t an abstraction, but someone you can walk beside and listen to.”

The imagery of light growing, shining, and refusing to be conquered would have resonated in a world still under Roman rule. Empire hung over daily life like a storm cloud that never quite passed. John’s community knew persecution, not empire-wide, but the grinding local kind that frays the nerves and tests loyalty. Saying “the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it” was more than metaphor; it was a lamp carried through night corridors.

John’s Gospel reflects a group trying to articulate its faith in Jesus while still shaped by Jewish tradition. There was grief in that tension, and courage too. John’s poetic opening is both introduction and statement: We belong to the God who spoke creation into being. We are part of a story older than conflict, older than loss, older than the world itself.

And he introduces John the Baptist, without the fanfare of the story of Elizabeth’s barrenness and Zachariah being struck mute. Simply present… but not the light… a witness to the light. A reminder to that community and to us, that we steady ourselves by bearing light to one another. This past week, these words from that gospel reading brought me comfort and hope:

A light that thrives in the depths of darkness,
blazes through murky bottoms.
It cannot and will not be quenched.

I hope and trust that they will bring comfort and hope to you too.

From the light of the swirling stars… to the light of Jesus come to earth in human form… God is with us… we are never alone.