Our Gospel reading
this morning is the wonderful account in the Gospel of Luke of the nativity of
our Lord. It is good to note that it is
only one part of the story. Did you
notice what was missing? It tells us of
the visit by the shepherds. But we have to turn to the Gospel of Matthew to
another part of the story—the part which includes the wise men or Magi coming
from the East. We have turned them into
kings in our retelling of the story. The
Gospel of Mark, the earliest account of Jesus’ life doesn’t even have tell us
of the events of the birth. The Gospel
of John takes a completely different approach.
It gives us an account which is a retelling of the creation story. John tells us that Jesus—the Word was with
God in the beginning:
In the beginning
was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. 2He was in the beginning with God. 3All things came into being through him, and without
him not one thing came into being. What has come into being 4in him was life, and the life was the light of all
people. 5The light shines in the darkness, and
the darkness did not overcome it.
In essence, John
gives us the big picture—the cosmology of the creation. I like that because I am the type of person
who likes the big picture. I don’t do
that well with details as Lorna will tell you.
John does sum up for us that is important fact that with the incarnation
the Light came into the world and the darkness did not overcome it; Jesus is
the Light of the World.
Whenever I hear
that passage—that truth, I am reminded of the hymn that was one of my
favourites when I was growing up—Jesus Bid Us Shine:
Jesus
bids us shine with a clear, pure light
Like a little candle burning in the
night;
In this world of darkness, we must
shine,
You in your small corner, and I in
mine.
That hymn resonated
with me when I was young. It resonated
with me because it affirmed my desire to be in my small safe corner. I was and am a strong introvert. I found the world to be in many ways a big,
mysterious place that I had trouble figuring out how to be in. It was much better for me to be in my own
small corner where I didn’t have to try to figure out what my role was in the
world. In my small corner I could let my
light shine. However, As I grew older I
discovered that in my small corner my light didn’t shine that brightly and I
realized I had to come out of my small corner and be in the world.
Out of my small
corner, I discovered that the light of my candle could join with other lights
and become a much bigger light that will enlighten the world. There is a movie made a long time ago—in 1940—that
I saw on TV when I was young that illustrates.
The movie, Young
Tom Edison starring Mickey Rooney. It
is, as the title suggests, the story of the life of the young Thomas Edison the
inventor. In one scene Tom’s mother is
very ill and needs an operation to save her.
The old country doctor says he can’t operate because there is not enough
light in the home (there were no hospitals in the area and the only source of
light in the home was oil lamps. Tom,
being the inventive young man he was, realizes he can solve the problem. He breaks into the general store and steals a
full length mirror. He sets it up in the
dining room and places all the oil lamps in front of it. The mirror focuses the disparate light from
all the lamps and reflects one brilliant light onto the table where the doctor
is able to operate on his mother. Of
course she is saved and little Mickey—sorry Tom— is the hero.
I don’t know if
this story is a true event in the life of Thomas Edison but it contains the
capital t Truth just as the nativity stories of Matthew and Luke and John
contain the Truth of Jesus Christ. Jesus
Christ is the light of the world. We
each can light our little candles in our small corners. However, if we come together as the Church,
the body of Christ our lights will join together and be reflected through the
mirror of Jesus Christ. That light will
be the light of Christ and will enlighten the world.
As it says in the
Gospel of Matthew, “You are the light of the
world. A city built on a hill cannot be hid”.
Let us be the light of the world and let our lights so shine that the
world knows that Jesus Christ, the Light of the World is born today. Hallelujah.
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