God's Glory
Category: Epiphany
Speaker: The Rev. Shearon Sykes Wiliams
My family and I recently discovered that our neighbors have been having an on-line discussion about why some unidentified house in the neighborhood still turns their Christmas lights on every night. (It is early March after all. Christmas is way in the rear view mirror.) Well, that unidentified house is ours. We are the strange ones. I hadn’t really noticed that we were the only ones with our lights on until then.
But there is a method to our madness. My husband Robbie always puts up the lights early in Advent, early December, just as the new liturgical year begins. They are white icicle lights along the eaves. We put them up in early Advent as a reminder that we are beginning a new year with God, a new year to become more deeply aware of God’s glory in the world. They shine as a light in the darkness as we anticipate Christ’s coming anew at Christmas with the freshness that only a newborn child can bring. They radiate the love of God throughout the 12 days of Christmas as we dwell in the mystery of God coming to us in such a peculiar and unexpected way. The lights shine as we journey through the season after the Epiphany, following the wise men who set out on a long and arduous trip, with nothing more than a star to guide them and an unnamed longing in their hearts.
And the lights at our house come on every night through Shrove Tuesday, (Fat Tuesday) the feast before the fast. We turn them on before the pancake supper and turn them off for the last time when we come home after the pancake supper. Then we put them away until the next Advent. We take them down after Shrove Tuesday because the next day is Ash Wednesday, the day that begins Lent, a 40-day season of penitence and austerity that encourages us to journey with Jesus to the Cross on Good Friday so that we can experience the ultimate in God’s glory with the Resurrection on Easter Day.
So we’ll turn the lights out after the pancake supper this Tuesday. That doesn’t mean that God’s glory will be put away. It just means that there is a time and a season for everything. The focus shifts. Each season of the liturgical year offers us special gifts for experiencing our relationship with God in ways particular to that season.
Today is the final Sunday of the Season after the Epiphany. Shrove Tuesday (just 2 days from now) will be the culmination of the trajectory set back in Advent as we awaited the birth, celebrated the birth during Christmastide, and experienced the joy of that news spreading throughout the world beginning with the wise men on the 12th day of Christmas. Advent, Christmas, Epiphany: seasons of light- followed by Lent, a season of soulful preparation for Easter. It’s not that the light of Christ doesn’t shine during Lent; it’s just that it shines in a more muted way. And the visuals of our worship space will reflect that. When you come back to church on Ash Wednesday, this Wednesday (just 3 days away) things will look different and sound different than they do today. It’s part of the rhythm of life, our life with God, a liturgical cycle that enriches our experience of God’s glory in different ways.
Today in our reading from Exodus we heard the story of God’s glory manifested on the mountaintop as Moses received the law. The people below were in awe as they saw the cloud of God’s presence covering the mountaintop for 6 days. And finally, after all that waiting, God’s presence came forth from the cloud as a devouring fire. And Moses was given an incredible gift – the gift of the law- the gift that would remind the Israelites that God was with them always. And that they were to be in relationship with God by following the law that God had given them- not to be a yoke of burden, but to give them greater life- a rule of life to ground them and give them accountability to God and their neighbor.
And in today’s Gospel we listened to the story of Jesus on a mountaintop, not as one receiving the law as Moses received it, but as the fulfillment of the law, the embodiment of why God gave the law to the Israelites. Jesus is the ultimate expression of God’s deep desire to be in relationship with us- in a very personal way. Jesus comes to us in the flesh as a newborn child, a light in the darkness at Christmas. And today Jesus is transfigured on the mountaintop, his face shining like the sun and his clothes dazzling white.
Tonight when I go home I’ll turn on our lights thinking about Jesus on the mountaintop and the light shining in the darkness. Does this ritual that I have change the world? I don’t know. But I do know that it changes me. It connects me with the light within me, all around me, and far, far beyond me. And it gives me strength for the intentional journey of Lent, 40 days of traveling with Jesus through the darkness, confronting my own darkness and the darkness of the world around me, a journey with God that helps me experience the glorious light and surpassing joy of Easter morning.