Light in the world
John 1:1-5
1 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. 2 He was in the beginning with God. 3 All things came into being through him, and without him not one thing came into being. What has come into being 4 in him was life, and the life was the light of all people. 5 The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overtake it.
These particular words hold so much for so many of us — I reckon most of the Advent stories and passages do — that they risk not holding anything at all. We've heard them so many times.
"Creator's life shined out from the Word, giving light to all human beings."
This is from the First Nations Version of the Christian Bible and I love the language and the framework of it, "birthed out of desire to provide an English Bible that connects... to the traditional heart languages of the... First Nations people of North America" (from the Introduction).
I've written about translation before, but part of what I love about reading different translations is how that can make a text fresh, new to my eyes. The comfortable groove I get into is broken open.
Isn't that part of what Advent is about?
God has broken into the world in a new way, taking a form no one was looking for, no one was expecting. A form that many, in their disappointment or their recognition of disturbance, met with violence.
How often do we meet what we not understand with violence? Of words if not deeds, or in the stance we take within our hearts?
Light can illuminate. It can comfort. But it can also, if we are not ready for it, if we have not prepared ourselves for it, blind us.
I think of Jesus' story about the rocky ground. So much of his time here was spent preparing us to see and then to do. This Advent, how are we preparing ourselves? How are we readying our eyes, laying open our hearts? Making ourselves fertile ground for change?
Prayer
Light of the world, this Advent may we take what comfort we need, to illuminate those places in ourselves and in the world that keep your freedom from reaching us all. Amen.
