Sermon Delivered at Church of the Good Shepherd
Fort Lee, New Jersey
Sunday, January 9, 2022, at 8:00 & 10 a.m.
By the Rev. Stephen C. Galleher
It’s Always About the Light III
“[O God, open us to] your presence, where we may see your glory face to face.”
(Collect for the Feast of the Epiphany)
“Arise, shine; for your light has come; and the glory of God has come upon you….Nations shall come to your light and kings to the brightness of your morning.”
(Isaiah 60:1)
“For we observed his star at its rising and have come to pay him homage.” (Matthew 2:1)
This morning we stop to pay homage to the star of Bethlehem and all that that star illuminates: the light that enlightens both Jew and gentile, Greek and Roman, man and woman, young and old. This is the light of the Epiphany season. We are reading the lessons appointed for last Thursday, the actual beginning of the Epiphany season. It is a wonderful day in the church calendar, the climax of the Christmas season. As we know from our candlelight Christmas Eve service, candles, light, play a major theme during Christmas, as indeed it does today and hereafter. Light. Let there be light, God declares at the very beginning of the Book of Genesis. “God spoke, “Light!” and light appeared.
So, being fixated as I am on the subject of light, let’s look once again at this magical mystery of light. And let’s notice a few things about it. I think we might be amazed at some of the things I am going to suggest this morning.
First of all, when it is dark, say, in your bedroom at night, with no lights on in your home, no lights seeping in through the windows, what do you see? [Ask for an answer.] Nothing, right? You see absolutely nothing. This darkness is what it was with you before you were born. You come from darkness, a darkness so deep you knew nothing about it. And we often speak of “being in the dark,” meaning we haven’t a clue about something. And trust me, the older I get, the more in the dark I feel about a lot of things, in fact, about most things!
And then, let’s say you or someone turns on the light in your room. Now what? You see, right? What do you see? [Ask for an answer.] You see, in a sense, everything. Everything is now available to you to see, at least within your eyeshot. It’s wonderful; it’s amazing. No lightàlightàwe see. Like life itself. One minute it’s not here; then it’s here. We extend this light to our understanding of things. Without light, without insight or information, we remain, so to speak, “in the dark.” Something occurs, like the turning on of a light switch, and we understand where formerly we were in ignorance. How many times in your life has “the light turned on”?
And a fascinating corollary of this light that has been turned on is this. When the light goes on, who can now see? [Ask for an answer.] Yep, the answer is everybody! This light doesn’t discriminate. It illumines everything and everyone. There are no Jews or Christians or Muslims. It doesn’t shine or one race or one religion or one sex or anything like that. Light is very, very catholic in its taste.
Now, let’s move on to Level Two in our exploration of light. Let’s look at the origin of this light, or, better, exactly what it is. This exercise is a bit trickier and more fun. First then, where does this light we speak of come from? [Ask for an answer.] You say “the sun,” right? And that sun is around 93 million miles away. Whew, that’s one long walk. Ok, I’ll buy that. But is that it? What, if the sun is 93 million miles away, is this light we see here now, illuminating our space? You say, “Well, that is the sun too.” At least it comes from the sun. It not only “comes from the sun”; it is the sun. The sun is both 93 million miles away and is right here. Distant and present at the same time. We say to our pale children, “Go out and get some sun; get some rays,” and we aren’t sending them off on a spaceship, though we might wish them to get on one sometimes. Isn’t this dual nature of what we mean by the word “sun” a wonderful pointer to God’s transcendence and God’s immanence. God is far and God is near, very, very near. And we’re about to see how near!
And now, Level Three. How do we relate to all this light, to all this talk about the sun? What are we made of? Are we not, also, made of stardust. Nearly all the elements of my body and your bodies were made in a star and have come through several supernovas. I won’t pretend to know anything more than this, but I do want to suggest that these elementary observations about light and the sun are exactly parallel to the Christmas and Epiphany message. But I’ll leave it to your imagination to wonder just how closely we should identify the source of this light with who we really are in our essence. Didn’t Christ say, “You are the light of the world” and “Let your light shine before others that they may see afresh and glorify God.”
It is one message. It’s always about the light! It is that this light has shone on us, shines in us, as steadily and as eternally as the sun shines, though I daresay that the light of God will outshine that of our sun. The Upanishads say that God is more resplendent than all the suns put together. And isn’t this what the Christmas message is about. The light may be on, but, as John the Baptist, foretold, “The true light who gives light to everyone was coming into the world.” And Christ came to deliver this very message: the kingdom has come. You are this light. Let it shine, let it shine, let it shine.
And what is this light really made of. The scientists may disagree with us all they want, but Jesus taught us the deepest element of the periodic table. What might you think it is? [Ask for an answer.] Of course, it is love.
Imagine there’s no heaven
It’s easy if you try
No hell below us
Above us, only sky
Imagine all the people
Living for today
Imagine there’s no countries
It isn’t hard to do
Nothing to kill or die for
And no religion too
Imagine all the people
Living life in peace
[Chorus]
You may say I’m a dreamer
But I’m not the only one
I hope someday you’ll join us
And the world will be as one
Imagine no possessions
I wonder if you can
No need for greed or hunger
A brotherhood of man
Imagine all the people
Sharing all the world
You may say I’m a dreamer
But I’m not the only one
I hope someday you’ll join us
And the world will live as one