Holy Nights 2020, Light Without Shadow

Christmas Season

1 John 1:1-7

 
What was from the beginning,

what we have heard, what we have seen with our eyes, what we have beheld, and touched with our hands: the Word of God which bears all Life within itself—that very Life revealed itself. We have seen it and so bear witness to it and proclaim it to you as the Life that is through all cycles of time. It was with the Father; now, it has revealed itself to us. We have seen it and heard it, and we proclaim to you so that you also can live in spiritual community with us; that is, our community with the Father and with Jesus Christ, his Son.
               
These things we are writing so that your joy may be full.
 
And this is the message we have received from Him and proclaim to you: that God is Light, and there is not any darkness in Him.
 
If we say that we have community with Him and yet conduct our lives in the darkness, what we say is a lie, and what we do is without reality.
 
Only when our Life is fully permeated by Light, as He Himself is in the Light, are we truly united in community, and the blood of Jesus, His Son, cleanses us of all sin.

Holy Nights
December 27, 2020
Cynthia Hindes

The sun shining onto a lighted candle will naturally cast a shadow. The shadow of the solid candle. The shadow of the wick. But the light of the flame casts only the barest image of itself, outlined in white. We can see the heat shimmer and the faintest shadow of smoke. But the light itself casts no shadow.

We can liken ourselves to the candle. Our bodies are like the candle's solid wax. They cast shadows. But we can offer our inner substance to worlds, divine and earthly. The offering of self to God is reflected back from Him to generate in us a love that is creative. The warmth of our love and enthusiasm ignites an invisible flame. The purity of our living thinking generates a light that is clear and without shadow.

John announces to us that God is light; and that in Him, there is no darkness. What is it that casts shadows? Solid matter. But love and joining our lives with Christ generates light—Christ light in our daylight, the light of His life. In a poem by Nelly Sachs, we can hear of the light of the living Christ:

All the while like flames
It chases through our body
As if it were yet woven through with
The star's beginning
How slowly we light up in clarity –
O after how many light-years have
Our hands folded to ask,
Our knees sunk
And our soul opened itself
To thank?*

*(tr. by Ruth and Matthew Mead)
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