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Foundry United Rev. DeeAnne Lowman, Associate Pastor |
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Shadows of Advent Friday, December 21,
2007 |
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Prayer
Move over the face of my deep,
my darkness, My endless restless chaos, And create, O God; Trouble me, comfort me, stir me
up, and calm me, But do not cease to breathe your
Spirit into my wakening soul.[i] In astronomy, the winter solstice is the moment
when the earth is at a point in its orbit where one hemisphere is most
inclined away from the sun. For us in the northern hemisphere, that happens
annually in December between the 20th and the 23rd of
the month. The word solstice derives from Latin sol
(Sun) and sistere (stand still), Winter Solstice meaning Sun
stand still in winter. The solstice is the time of year
when the day has the shortest length of sunshine and the night with the
longest period of darkness. This year for us here, the solstice occurs
tomorrow morning - at 1:08AM on December 22nd to be exact. For some, this is a
day of celebration. Many cultures
revere this day and night as the time when the days will begin to grow
longer, leaning the community toward the time of planting and growth. But for many of us, the long darkness does
not bring celebration. Today and tonight may feel like the sun stood
still. Other days might have felt that
way, too. That day when he breathed his last breath; when her boss told her
that her last day was Friday; when there was too much month left at the end
of the money; when he wanted to call his parents and tell them about his new
love, but knew that they would never acknowledge the relationship; when she
couldn’t pull herself out of her bed because of her depression; when the
doctor came into the room and told him they were out of options and he would
die soon. The sun stands still at
times like these, leaving us deep in the shadows. It is as if all the light
in the world is directed toward the other side of the globe. We are tired,
weary, sad, empty, even cold from the lack of light. The sun may be standing still in our world
tonight; we know it is shining brightly somewhere else. We may want the world to turn and the light
to shine on us, but we don’t wish the shadows to fall on anyone else. We know
what being afraid of the darkness is about. I grew up with
night-light in my bedroom because I was afraid of what the dark night would
bring. As a child, I remember the streetlights from my neighborhood creating
frightening shapes on my bedroom walls as the light shown through the
enormous pine tree in my backyard. When the light was shut off in my room, I
could see nothing but the scary shadows, swaying and reaching out to grab me.
My mother would remind me that the shadows weren’t shadows without light –
they were because of light. There is
always light within the darkness, she would tell me. Sometimes I could
remember that; other times the fear and anxiety I felt overwhelmed the reassurance
of my mother’s words. But when we are in the
shadows and darkness, our eyes and lives begin to adjust to the night. We can see the empty side of the bed, the
shirt that is not our own left flung over the chair, the checkbook left open
on the desk. These things do not
vanish in the night, but rather they remain and oftentimes we wish they would
just go away. This is the pain and fear that the night and shadows can bring.
Sometimes we think by retreating into the night we can obscure our vision of
the thing that pains us. But our eyes
adjust and there they are. Jan Richardson in her book Night Visions
says that many of us find ourselves in the dark – “good or evil or in
between, of our own or another’s making.
Our work is to name the darkness for what it is and to find what it
asks of us.”[ii]
For some of us here tonight, the darkness and shadows have offered us a place
out of the limelight – a place where we can rest and recuperate and pay attention
to our own needs and wounds. While we
are there, in the dark night, our eyes do adjust, and we begin to see among
the shadows a truth about ourselves or our relationships or our losses that
we couldn’t see in the glare of the day.
For some, the darkness provides for us a place where the seed of our
existence can begin to grow again when we never thought that would be
possible. The night affords us the nourishment we need to begin to gently
crack open the new possibilities for our living – a living that might not
have seemed possible upon the death of our loved ones, the loss of our jobs,
the economic hardships we’ve faced, the diagnosis we’ve received. We begin to grow toward something, toward
what we aren’t sure right yet. But there is a sense that we are moving, even
if it is simply movement toward getting ourselves to come to church on a cold
December night to begin to try and sense the presence of light in the world. So we come here tonight, perhaps in an attempt to
name what is real for us in our own shadows and dark nights. What has become clear to us while we are in
the shadows? How have we cared for
ourselves in the dark night? Have
there been others who have companioned us?
What can we take from the shadows of our loss and disappointment that
will help us to live into the life we desire – that God desires – for
us? Have any of us begun to emerge
into the light? We know that as we emerge from the night and shadows, our
eyes and hearts may not be entirely ready for the glare of the day. Some of us aren’t ready to see the light of day
right now. It may be too bright for us
to take. We know from the prophet
Isaiah that “the people who walked in
darkness have seen a great light; those who lived in a land of deep
darkness— on them light has shined.”[iii]
The light is already there – shining on us.
We don’t have to see it to know that it’s there. That is the promise that God offers. That is God’s covenant with us: on us light has shined and will continue to
shine and will be there when we are ready to see it and receive what it
brings. The promise of this season –
one filled with waiting, watching, wanting – is the presence of God and the
light of hope, even when we can’t see it or feel it. We may not be able to
sense God at all, that in the dark shadows we feel alone. We may not be able to see God’s presence
among the other shadows of this long night.
The hope of the story – the story of Christmas – is that even when the
night is dark and scary and lonely, God bursts into the world and helps us
all to see. The star in the East that
hovered over the stable on that night so long ago can help us lean away from
our grief and fear and doubt and pain and lean into a world filled with
newness and life. The light that God provided on that day was a bright star,
light that marked the beginning of a new time, a different era of justice,
peace and love. The light from the star lingered for some time, perhaps as
long as two years after the birth of Jesus – all while the Wiseman were
searching and searching for a promised king. Remember that the solstice is, in
fact, not a day or a night, but a moment. This year - 1:08 Eastern Standard
Time December 22nd to be exact.
Our pain or grief or loss or illness may linger much, much longer that
an instant. God offers us a bit of night vision so that we can see in the
shadows. God companions us while we are there, even when we don’t know it or
sense it. God is also the one who helps us to live with the hope of light in
the midst of our shadowy living right now, helping us to know that the God
who loves us surrounds us, shines on us, waits with us, grieves with us. May this promise of God’s presence and
companionship comfort all this night and every night. www.foundryumc.org |
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