Hey--Despite the darkness--the Light is still here

photo by raymondclarkeimages / flickr

Of all the seasons of the Christian year—one of my favorites is Epiphany. We Baptists don’t know much about the word—but we know about the light it talks about. In tiny clapboard churches and high-steeple places people have come into their houses of worship hoping, hoping that somehow they could make it through all the things they brought with them. They all came hungering for the light. And they found the Epiphany light over and over even though they did not know the word.

Epiphany still comes on the heels of Christmas telling the story of how the Wise Men came from a long way off—following a star. At the end of their journey they stood open-mouthed and wonder-filled beside a manger. The story said “they went home by another way.” That story meant many things. First, the Herods of the world do not have the last word. It also meant that following the light they found kept them going. 

The Church through the years has sung the “We three kings of Orient are…” and been  reminded reminded that “the light has come and the darkness cannot put it out.” Those words of light have covered a lot of ups and downs in history.   I think they mean that despite it all—the darkness that is seemingly everywhere—the light really does still shine. 

Put those words down beside 2019. I know we are besieged by many things—personal problems and grief and a strange hard world. The Herods are still with us. It would be easy for any of us to think this darkness will suffocate us us all.  And yet—Epiphany comes around again. Not only reminding us of that old story of a star and strange men coming from the east. But reminding us that the terrible darkness does not have the last word.

At the beginning of World War II when England was on the edge of the terrible time that would change their world. Hitler seemed to be destroying everything. King George VI spoke to the English people. He said: “I said to the man who stood at the gate of shadows, ‘Give me a light the I may tread faithfully out into the dark unknown.’ A voice replied, ‘In order to find victory in the darkness, go in courage; and then put your hand in the hand of God. That will be better than having light and safer than knowing the way.’”

Little did the King or his people know that they would be bombed night after night for more than 50 days. Yet they endured. So let us remember Epiphany and its tiny flickering light. Just enough to keeps going. Just enough to lead the way.

A Serbian man lights his candle. 
photo by Guillaume Speurt / flickr

--Roger Lovette / rogerlovette.blogspot.com