In the darkest time, in the worst circumstance, in times of upheaval, war, and terrible poverty, there is always a light…
“The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light.” (Isaiah 9, along with all subsequent text in italics)
⟡
We walk in darkness. We do indeed. It is not, as some would have it, the darkness of this politician’s prospective ascent to power, or the possibility of that politician’s defeat. It is not that war “over there” or the repressive regime “in that country.”
All of those may well be dark realities not to be dismissed lightly, but the darkness in which we walk is more intimate, personal.
Call it sin — our own and that of others. Or if sin is not a word you can easily absorb, call it brokenness, wound, trauma. And from that sin/wound/trauma come all the confusions and contusions in a world where we simply cannot see the way, do not know where or how to go, and often fall down in ways most painful and bloody in a land of gloom.
We have seen a great light. Do you see it? A light has shone. Because of that event that happened more than 2000 years ago, which we celebrate each December, we do not and never will simply remain in the dark. There is light; there is always a light.
In the darkest time, in the worst circumstance, in times of upheaval, war, and terrible poverty, there is always a light, as tiny as a wee baby or as sun-bright luminous as that which shone on Mt Tabor. God has done this for us, and so it is done.
You have brought them abundant joy. Well, sometimes we’re not so sure about this, are we? We may see the light, we may even believe the light, but “abundant joy?” Sometimes the joy of the light in this sin-darkened world may seem fleeting and sparse, far from the abundance it promises. Sometimes it can even seem absent altogether.
… as people make merry when dividing spoils. Perhaps this is the problem. Perhaps we do see the light, do believe that light has dawned on our world. But maybe we do not “divide the spoils” as we should. We may not realize the full extent of what those spoils are — that grace upon grace, mercy upon mercy, love upon love has been lavished upon us.
It is not only a light; it is also a harvest of such plenty and richness that all of us truly have everything we need forever and for always, no matter what the material circumstances of our life may be.
And if we do not quite get that, selfishness creeps in all too fast, and there is precious little dividing, precious little sharing, and precious little merry-making. Those spoils can “spoil” all too easily. And so much for joy, abundant or otherwise, if that is the case.
For the rod of their taskmaster you have smashed. We all have labored under one taskmaster or another. Sometimes it is an external one — political oppression, abusive personal relationships, or the like. Often it is internalized — that mean old inner voice telling us we will never be good enough, that we are not loved, that there is no grace for us, that the world is a hard and lonely place.
This rod is the one that the light and the harvest have smashed and without which the external ones have no real power. We walk in freedom, in plenty, and in light, even if, in our poor human condition, we forget this often and return to the taskmaster’s strictures all too readily.
Every cloak rolled in blood will be burned. Well, it has been a year of war. So much blood, so many cloaks dripping with it. The promise here is a future one: “will be burned.” But in our world that seems to lurch from one brutal war to another with, at best, brief respites of peace here and there, even the promise is something.
Better yet, perhaps the fire in which the bloody cloaks are to be burned is already lit. Perhaps it is the fire of God’s justice and his mercy which alone can sort out victim from perpetrator, good from evil.
Only in God can the blood of the innocent be requited, the blood of the guilty receive its due punishment. All human efforts to do so simply seem to increase the number of bloody cloaks.
But if that cloak-burning fire is already lit, then even if the full victory of peace is elusive, you and I and all “people who enjoy God’s favor” can begin to become the peacemakers God desires us to be in this war-scourged world.
For a child is born for us, a son is given us… his dominion is vast and forever peaceful. This is what we celebrate. That child, that son, that man, that Jesus. The one in the manger, on the cross, in the tomb, exalted to the heavens and present on the altar, in the tabernacle and in the depths of our hearts.
To whatever extent we give him dominion, to the degree that we live in the dominion he has established — or in other words, to the extent we embrace his gospel and live it out in our daily affairs, to that extent we have (and we make) peace, and freedom, and abundant joy, and gladness, and light to illumine our way.
Merry Christmas, one and all.
Artwork by ©Patti Birdsong
