Lighting the way

From Helen

May I speak in the Name of God: Father, Son and Holy Spirit.AMEN

Well Christmas has been celebrated, the new year welcomed in and everything is getting back to normal. I love Christmas lights and am disappointed at the number of decorations that have been taken down – after all its not epiphany yet !  I am not really one to seem strange to other people – I know it’s surprising I do it so well but …. I do like the fact that we are still celebrating Christmas in Church. 

As the new year has begun we are still celebrating the light of Christ come into the world. We are looking forward to the year and the various things which will start back up but we do it with the hope of Christ. The light of God is in our lives and in our midst. Our gospel reading this morning reminded us of Jesus being our light – the light of the world. A light that has not always been noticed or understood. 

We hear this reading so often over Christmas and it could seem a bit the same apart from the fact that it is so good. This rather vaguely and strangely reminds me of Dollywood – bear with me, I know what I mean.

When we arrived at Dollywood – yes there actually is a theme park named after the great Dolly Parton – but when we arrived there was a big notice pointing the way, then we went to a car park where there was a train to catch with Dolly written on the side, then there were directions to enter into the theme park and then finally there we were in Dollywood. 

The beginning of the gospel of John is a sign for us of who Jesus is, what He would do and how He would do it. There is a challenge at the beginning of the gospel for us to start to think about the type of people we would want to be we, are we going to accept or reject the light ? Are we going to accept or reject Jesus ?

There is a story called the Christmas Candle which talks of our response to the light of Christ. The story tells or a new minister arriving just before Christmas in an English village in 1864. The minister is not approved of at first because he refuses to talk about the Christmas candle. The Christmas candle was a candle thought to have miraculous capabilities as every 25 years it was touched by an angel and a miracle was granted. With this in mind every year people would take their requests to the candle maker who would then decide who should get the candle. The new minister took the requests from the candle maker and started to make things happen as he helped people and encouraged them to pray their requests. The Christmas candle went missing and so the candle maker and his wife gave everyone in the village a candle telling them that it was the Christmas candle. As miracles happened people put it down to the Christmas candle. Then the truth came out and the minister was able to point people to the true light of the world, Jesus, who did make things happen. 

In our gospel reading we heard of all that Jesus is and how He would change the world. We have the opportunity to decide to accept or reject Him. We are here because we have accepted Jesus but what difference does that make to us and those around us ? In the epistle reading we heard that we are part of the family of God that thanks to the work of God we are blameless we are pure. We have light and life, we are part of the family. 

The new year has started with lots of resolutions. I remember as a child my annual disagreement with people who said that they never made new years resolutions and had decided that their new years resolution was not to make a resolution.  As I pointed out that is still a new years resolution !

The new year offers us a chance to remember that we start the new year with our celebration of Christmas. A celebration that light has come into the world and we are all part of that. We can’t carry on as normal. We must be changed. God has stepped into our world and we have been redeemed, that is made one with God.

There is a collect that talks of the fact that God joined us in our humanity so that we could join in His divinity. It doesn’t mean that we are divine – although if you are thinking of me I can understand the confusion  !!- but it means that we have a part to play. Like the villagers in the Christmas candle we are called to do things differently to shine our light, to be more like Jesus. He became one of us so that we could be, and bring others, closer to Him. We have a part to play and may we seek to show the light of Christ always by trying to be more like Him. One of the Church schools in the Diocese was looking for a statement to describe their school and one little boy said that they were lighting the way, this is our call too we are called to light the way and may we do this always. AMEN