This little light of ours. . .
Only the Jewish Faith could give us a prophet like John the Baptist. And only the Christian Lectionary can give us John the Baptist, The Sequel.
Every year right when people are roasting turkeys and hanging holly, right in the middle of the tinsel and the twinkling bulbs, John’s voice in the wilderness nags us. . . calls us. . . to recognize a Jesus that doesn’t always fit our mold.
There is something about John that the earliest Christians thought was terribly important, and they want us to know it too. Beside the fact that John had a large following: hordes of ordinary people were leaving their ordinary lives and their ordinary tasks in order to make their way down to the river to hear John. But ordinary people aren’t supposed to seek spiritual truth, are they? I mean isn’t that why we have intellectual and spiritual elites? Ordinary people aren’t supposed to be able to shed any spiritual light. That must come from a higher authority, mustn’t it?
Apparently so, because in our Gospel this week, we find the spiritual elites of the first century, the religious watchdogs, the keepers of the holy rules and regulations, the dispensers of salvation, ALSO making THEIR way down to the river, and I dare say they didn’t walk all that way and soil their robes in the dust to be inspired by a sermon delivered by a ragamuffin prophet named John. They are there to remind everyone in that inquiring throng of ordinary people that when they want their opinion, they will give it to them.
And so, right in the first chapters of the Gospel, we get the Hebrew version of the Spanish Inquisition. At lightening-speed, they hurl questions at the prophet: Who are you? Are you Elijah? Are you the prophet that is to come? Why are you baptizing? Let us have an answer for those who sent us.
Today, they would be saying: we’re here from the diocesan office of religious decorum and doctrinal purity. Well, what do you say about yourself?
And the church holds her breath. Jesus has not arrived on the scene yet. What will John say about himself? Will he point to all his messiah-like qualities? Will he shine the spotlight so brightly on himself that the people will think that he can charge Duracells just by holding them in his hand?
He could have, but he does not, and I believe that is the key to why John the Baptist is put in the middle of our Advent each year by the church.
I am the voice of one crying out in the wilderness. Make way for another. There is a light that shines brighter than I.
That’s what we who are known as Christians are supposed to do. We’re supposed to point away from any ability or power to save ourselves or anyone else. We who have been baptized in the Holy Spirit are supposed to shine a small, but significant light on the mercy, forgiveness, love and grace of God in Christ Jesus.
How fitting it is that the Gospel of our Savior opens with the person of John the Baptist. How fitting a preparation for the advent of the Christ Light into the world! You see, what John is doing is making sense out of Christmas. He is preparing us for the birth of the Messiah in the ordinary village of Bethlehem, to quite ordinary parents, surrounded by ragamuffin shepherds.
My dear friends in Christ, you have been baptized into a strange Faith. It calls us to be as strange as John. It calls us to point away from ourselves to the One who points to God’s Kingdom. It calls us to be small and humble bits of light pointing the way to the greater light.
The native people of Northern Alaska tell a story about light:
In the beginning, they say, their village was in total darkness every day of the year. There was no light. . . ever. The people, as the story goes, lived, worked, raised their families and died. . . in the dark.
In their village there lived a crow. This crow was much revered and much respected by the villagers because she had flown to lands they had only dreamed about, and she would them tell them stories about faraway places.
One day she said to them, How sad it is that none of you has ever seen daylight.
Daylight? They asked, for they had never even heard the word spoken.
What is daylight? It is difficult to describe, said the crow. But it is very shiny.
They all agreed that it sounded wonderful, and asked their friend if she could bring them some of this daylight. The crow knew it wasn’t that simple, but the people had such faith that she could do this, so she flew up into the dark sky. She flew and flew until she started to see a faint glow of light upon the horizon.
Being the magical crow that she was, she was able to turn herself into a speck of dust and land on a woman’s shoulder in the village below. The woman was fetching water and was on her way back to her hut. When she entered her humble home, her little child brightened up and looked as if he needed something.
Now whatever is the matter? she asked him. What do you want my child?
The crow saw her chance. Still the size of a speck of dust, she flew into the child’s ear. There the crow whispered, Ask for some daylight to play with.
The child said, I want some daylight to play with.
His mother went to a large trunk that belonged to her father, and from it she removed a bag. Sure enough, from the bag she pulled out a round, shiny ball of daylight – just the right size to hold in your hand. She gave it to her child. He was delighted and began to roll it and chase it all around the room.
The crow whispered in the child’s ear again, Ask for some string to tie around the ball of daylight. The child asked, and the mother tied the string around the ball of daylight. The little boy laughed and laughed as he swung the ball of daylight round and around his head.
When the time was right, the crow returned to her proper size and swooped down and snatched the string tied to the ball of light and flew out the window and back toward the land of darkness. The mother tried to stop the crow, but her wise father said, Never mind, the child would soon be bored with it anyway, and besides we have plenty of daylight around here.
When the crow returned to the land of darkness, she flew high above the village and then let the string go. Down, down fell the daylight ball. It hit the ground and shattered into a million pieces. The daylight spread, in small pieces, all through the village – not a great amount of light, and not a dazzling light, but enough to see by.
The people came forth from their houses, and for the very first time, they saw their village, their families and their friends. For the very first time, they saw the crow who had made this miracle possible.
And to this day, the crow is special to them – the wise crow, the brave crow, who brought them a piece of daylight.
Our Christian Gospel speaks of such a crow. . . His name was John.
He came not to call attention to his own light, but to his light as a witness to a greater light.
At services during the third week of Advent, we light the rose-colored candle in the Advent Wreath. We do this each year to symbolize that even though we wait, there is joy in the midst of our waiting. The rose candle symbolizes the light of joy. John the Baptist reminds us that true joy comes only when we realize that we are not its only source.
We have a hundred opportunities each day to lay aside our egos and to point beyond ourselves. We have a hundred opportunities each day to drop a piece of that daylight ball into someone’s darkness, just holding our tongue, just reaching out a tiny bit further than is comfortable, just being present when it is less than convenient or less than comfortable.
Christmas Eve is not long away. Let us practice the fine, Christian art of seizing those opportunities. Let us dare to be a voice crying out in the wilderness:
Make way for a greater light . . . Make way for the Light of the World.
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