Prepare for the Light

Photo of The Very Rev. Dean Terry White by The Very Rev. Terry White, Dean

At this time of year, a particular condition I live with comes to the fore. It affects my family, and they support me wonderfully as I seek to overcome my malady. Plainly put: I have an obsession with Christmas lights. I never met a string of lights I didn’t like, and our garage shelves testify to the truth of that statement. We have strings of miniature, commercial miniature, C-5, C-7, and C-9 bulbs. In all these sizes we have strings of multi-colored and white lights alike. To give you an idea of how many lights we have, I’ll tell you that as we considered switching over to LED lights this season, it became apparent that it would cost us at least $400 to buy enough lights to replace what we put up. This became apparent because I gave into my obsession and purchased these lights which took two days to repackage and return. I told you: I have a problem. And judging by a few lowered heads, a couple of sideways glances, and several smiles, I see I am not alone.

But in all seriousness, these Christmas lights provide some release for me. At this time of year that is filled with a multitude of opportunities for ministry, seasonal anxiety and stress, as well as the personal ways we keep Advent and Christmastide, the lights are an outlet. Before the lights can be placed on bushes, fences, porch and house, they are tested, bulbs and fuses replaced, extension cords readied, and staple gun prayed over in the eternal hope that this year it will work properly. As the lights are plugged and put up and out, their color lightens my spirit. Perhaps some snow flurries are falling, or seasonal music is playing as I tinker with lights at my garage work bench. And at times, as I put out a string of the big old-fashioned C-9 lights, I recall the other homes where these lights have helped us celebrate. First there were two of us, then three, and four. In frigid Wisconsin, and windy Chicago, and now here.

All of that combines on these afternoons and nights that are the darkest of the year, to help me journey through Advent to Christmastide. These lights of mine create a sanctuary, not so much a place, but certainly a space, that allows me to encounter that which is holy and life-giving, bringing together past and present. The Daily Office readings certainly help me journey through Advent, but I must confess, so does my ritual which is hanging Christmas lights.

If we took some time share stories this morning, you might mention something similar: baking, writing cards, volunteering, providing hospitality, and the list goes on and on. We humans have an instinct for seeking God, for taking the literal or figurative journey, to a place of sanctuary, to that spot where the Divine is found, or at least where the path to the Holy is clearer and straighter. As the prophets call us: make straight in every desert a highway for our God.

The Gospel account of Mary meeting Elizabeth is such an example. In the Church’s tradition this event is called the Visitation. We’ve heard Luke’s description read, and his summary leaves plenty of room for holy speculation.

Hear are a few such thoughts from Jan Richardson who writes:

I imagine it this way: having received her courageous yes, Gabriel turns and takes his angelic leave of Mary. A shimmering rush of wind, and he is gone. The light returns to normal, the objects in the room resume their familiar shapes. And Mary—young Mary, unmarried Mary, pregnant Mary—looks around. Finds herself quite alone. Places her head in her two hands and thinks, “It seemed like a good idea at the time…”

Mary goes “with haste” to visit Elizabeth. Gabriel has told her that her kinswoman is experiencing an unusual pregnancy of her own. Mary arrives at Elizabeth’s home. Elizabeth hears Mary’s greeting, and she instinctively knows what has happened. Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit, and she cries out: Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb. And why has this happened to me, that the mother of my Lord comes to me? For as soon as I heard the sound of your greeting, the child in my womb leaped for joy. And blessed is she who believed that there would be a fulfillment of what was spoken to her by the Lord.

Elizabeth reaches out to Mary, places her hands on Mary’s belly, speaks words of welcome and blessing. Mary reaches out in response, her hands on Elizabeth’s arms or on her kinswoman’s belly that is swollen with the miracle child she has carried for months now. That child leaps for joy in Elizabeth’s womb. It is a dramatic scene, intense with the intimacy of the reaching out toward one another, holding on to one another for dear life.

Elizabeth, in this moment, appears as a prophet, though that title is not given to her. Filled, as Luke tells us, with the Holy Spirit, Elizabeth recognizes the One whom Mary carries. Yet Elizabeth is not only a prophet here; she engages also in a priestly act as she speaks her words of blessing and places her hands upon the vessel that contains the Christ. [Jane Schaberg, The Women's Bible Commentary]

Richardson concludes: I have often pondered this scene in terms of the way in which Elizabeth extends her hospitality to Mary, how her welcome is wondrous not merely for its complete absence of judgment of the pregnant, unmarried Mary but especially for her deep delight in what her cousin has done. Yet what also strikes me, is not only how Mary found a refuge in Elizabeth, but also how Elizabeth must have found something of a refuge in her young cousin. There are few things more powerful than finding ourselves in a situation beyond our imagining, and encountering someone who knows, from the inside of it, something of what it is to be in that place. Someone who can meet us there.

Pregnant in strange and wondrous circumstances, Mary and Elizabeth each find perhaps the only other person who could possibly understand what’s happening to them. With one another, they find not just understanding (though that would be gift enough), not just hospitality (though that would be mercy enough); in one another, they find a shelter; in their meeting, they make a sanctuary, a holy place.

Mary raises her voice in song, praising God’s saving help in poetic proclamation of what God has wrought in her and in the world. [theadventdoor.com]

As the great feast of the Incarnation approaches, and the still-to-do list threatens our preparation for the holy Child, we are given a gift this morning of a few moments to linger in the sacred space that Mary and Elizabeth have made with their embrace, their welcome of the other, their knowing.

And we do well to search our souls and ask if we, like Mary, are in need of a journey to find refuge. A journey outward or inward, where we can loose our self in God, in the promises of the prophets, in the messages of angels, and in the mystery of God’s lavish grace.

Perhaps we are called at this moment to enter into Elizabeth’s journey, extending hospitality to one who is searching, blessing those who are ridiculed, judged, and tossed aside like the pregnant Mary surely was.

One thing is certain: God acts in us and in the Church in the ways he acted in these women. In baptism we have been filled with new life in the most unlikely ways. The elderly Elizabeth tells us that we are never tossed aside by God – the Lord can always use us. And like the very young Mary, the Lord seeks to be born in us, and through us, and presented to a dark, hurting, and hungry world.

In these final days of Advent, may the Visitation model for us the miraculous ways God comes to us, and our need to find a holy space, wherever it may be, to let the hope and promise of the season find a place in us and grow. Then we can sing with Mary: My soul magnifies the Lord and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior.

Pray for me, a Christmas light sinner, and I will pray for us all that we remember: Christmas does not depend on us. It is for us.

Come, thou long-expected Jesus.