The Work of Christmas

 Almighty God, whose Son our Savior Jesus Christ is the light of the world: Grant that your people, illumined by your Word and Sacraments, may shine with the radiance of Christ's glory…
(Collect for 2nd Sunday after Epiphany Year B, BCP)

Epiphany—the season of light…Have any of you, like we have, left some of your Christmas lights up a bit later this year? The ones on the bushes in our yard are still burning brightly, and I think they will be lit all the way until Ash Wednesday. This in-between time is always a hard time of year for me—The Christmas and New Year’s holidays are over, the Wise Men have come and gone, and we’re left to clean up behind them, squinting through the dark and snowy days of deep winter, fighting to find that light and hope we were singing about a few weeks ago.

This past week, I came across a book of reflections and poems by pastor and writer Howard Thurman (who was a mentor to Martin Luther King, Jr.), and reading it gave me courage for this mission to find and be light in the darkness this Epiphany.  Here is one of the poems I found: 

I will light Candles this [season],
Candles of joy despite all the sadness,
Candles of hope where despair keeps watch,
Candles of courage for fears ever present,
Candles of peace for tempest-tossed days,
Candles of grace to ease heavy burdens,
Candles of love to inspire all my living,
Candles that will burn all year long.

These candles Thurman calls us all to light are lights of God’s grace; as Episcopalians, we believe the world, and our lives, are full of God’s grace. In yesterday’s paper, there was an editorial about grace by columnist Tom Purcell, who said that, “Grace is a beautiful and necessary component of everyday life. Without it, our world cannot function.”  Purcell lists some of the antonyms of grace: ugliness, animosity, enmity, harshness…powers that seek to snuff the light of grace. Purcell goes on to say, “In a world lacking in grace…neighbors turn on eighbors…Anger becomes all-consuming and ever-increasing…Hatred rears its ugly head, with violence waiting in the wings, looking for any opportunity to erupt…To save the future, we need to restore grace to our country, our political leaders, and ourselves—and it begins with each and every one of us. We need to open our hearts and minds to what is true and good—truth and goodness hold no political affiliations.” He ends the article saying, “I pray that God bestows much-needed grace upon us once again—because grace is what we need…”

St. Paul in our Epistle reading today is talking about restoring grace to the community, too. “Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, which you have from God, and that you are not your own? For you were bought with a price…” Paul writes to the Corinthians because of their addiction to indulging their individual passions and appetites and bringing shame upon the whole community. “‘All things are lawful for me’, but not all things are beneficial. ‘All things are lawful for me,’ but I will not be dominated by anything,” Paul reminds them. Christian liberty always operates within the framework of love—God’s love and our love for our fellow sisters and brothers. Our Presiding Bishop Michael Curry said this about Christian liberty and love in a pastoral letter this past week:

“The way of love that leads to beloved community is the only way of hope for humanity. Consider the alternative. The alternative is chaos, not community. The alternative is the abyss of anarchy, of chaos, of hatred, of bigotry, of violence, and that alternative is unthinkable. We have seen nightmarish visions of that alternative. The alternative is unthinkable. And we have seen it this past Wednesday, when a monument to democracy, the Capitol of the United States of America was desecrated and violated with violence by vandals. Lives were lost. A nation was wounded. Democracy itself was threatened. My brothers and sisters, this way of love that Jesus taught us when he said, "Love the Lord your God, and your neighbor as yourself," this way of love that Moses taught even before Jesus, this way of unselfish, sacrificial love, it is the way to redeem a nation, to save a world. It is the way of hope for us all. But do not make the mistake of thinking that I speak of a sentimental and emotional love. Jesus spoke of love most consistently the closer he got to the cross. This way of love is the way of sacrifice, the way of unselfishness, the way of selflessness, that seeks the good of the other as well as the self. And that is the way of the cross, which is the way of life.” 

Prophetic and moving words from Bishop Curry…There was another of Howard Thurman’s poems that I read this week that were prophetic and moving for me. This poem, too, is about light, and the way of love, and where we go from here, in this season of Epiphany and in this season of our troubled times; the title is “The Work of Christmas:”

When the song of the angels is stilled,
when the star in the sky is gone,
when the kings and princes are home,
when the shepherds are back with their flocks,
the work of Christmas begins:

to find the lost,
to heal the broken,
to feed the hungry,
to release the prisoner,
to rebuild the nations,
to bring peace among the people,
to make music in the heart.

My prayer for us all is that we will each of us find a way this week to burn a candle, to be a light, to walk with way of love, to shine with the radiance of Christ’s glory, and to begin the work of Christmas. Amen.