By Sr. Doreen, SSJD
Arise, Shine, for your Light has come, and the glory of the Lord has risen upon you (Isaiah 60:1)
The Anglican Church Calendar theme for this year’s calendar “Arise, Shine!” … seems a fitting theme for our reflections this year. It comes at a time when the whole world we live in seems to be weighed down by confusion, brokenness, and an alarming rise in violence. It is also a time when we are challenged to make some hard and costly personal, national, and worldwide choices.
It is in times like these that we need to have a spiritual shock from time to time to remind us that indeed our Light has come, and the glory of God is upon us! When I read the scripture passage from Isaiah 60 in the Message translation, I experienced a personal spiritual shock – almost a wake-up call that confronted me with the question: do you believe this – shock! Do you act like this is true? Yes, my Light has come but am I really aware that the glory of the Lord is risen upon me? Do I shine – do I reflect the glory of the Lord?
That Message translation goes like this:
“Get out of bed! Wake up. Put your face in the sunlight. God’s bright glory has risen upon you. The whole world is sunk in deep darkness. All people sunk in deep darkness. But God rises on you, God’s sunrise glory breaks over you. Nations will come to your light, kings to your sunburst brightness. Look up! Look around!”
I found in Rumi’s Little Book of Life a poem that was a gift in pondering or reflecting upon a New Year and a new theme “Arise, Shine!” and the scripture passage:
“The dawn of Glory has come spreading its light and the bird in my soul bursts with song.
In the radiant sun the dust of my body settles, and the Beloved comes to sit at my side.
Touched by His grace my forlorn heart stirs joyously and begins to dance.
The one whose back has been bent by the journey springs back to life.
The heart is the light of the world and the soul its brilliance.
One sets the beat for the other to dance.”
As we begin a new year amidst the Christmas and Epiphany celebrations, the mystery of this season opens for us all a responsibility and a commitment to ourselves, each other and to the whole created universe. We who have seen the Light, who have welcomed the Light in our hearts, are by God’s love and grace to make known that presence of God, the Light of the world, to others and the world by revealing God in our lives. God in Jesus is born to us today in order that God may appear to the whole world through us. And not just on this day, Christmas day, New Years Day, only but every day must be God’s manifestation, God’s Epiphany in the world that belongs to God!
Like Isaiah, as you read both before and after the quote in Isaiah 60, I often tell God that as a disciple I feel I have accomplished nothing, am nothing, and deserve nothing. It usually arises to the surface when I am overtired, have been unmindful of self-care, and tried too hard to be all things to all people. What amazes me most in all this, is that God’s ideas of success and failure have never coincided with my own, and God always has a better idea. For like the passage in Isaiah, God’s astonishing message to all my feelings of failure is “I will give you as a light to the nations so that my love and acceptance can reach to the ends of the earth.”
Barbara Brown Taylor in her book “Gospel Medicine” responded to this Isaiah passage with the comment: “Produce hardly a spark in your own small corner of the world and you are promoted to light the whole planet”. God’s reaction is the spiritual shock needed! It is only when we are on our knees in helplessness and hopelessness that there is room for God to give us a new vision, of ourselves, of each other, and of the world: a vision of light, of epiphany, of being set on fire as God’s beacon for the whole world.
Barbara went on in her book to say: “Stop doing a job,” God said. “Start being a light. Stop doing your duty. Start being mine. Stop worrying about whether or not you have done a good job. Start leaving that up to me. You can’t see the way I can. You just let your light shine and let me take care of the rest. I chose you and I’ve got good taste. I made you and I can be trusted.”
If I stay close to that God-source, do the hard work of being open to the God who loves me, then maybe it is time – a new time this year – to put my face in the sunlight! Maybe it is time to let God’s sunrise glory break over me! Maybe it is time to let God who has chosen me, light me up in new ways, maybe it is time to let God send me into the world in new ways to shine with the glory of God!
I share a poem prayer by Joyce Rupp to close this reflection:
“Emmanuel, you are a steady lantern of light guiding the way. Clear what has become clouded. Bring home what wandered away. Free what holds the mind captive. Revive love grown weak. Empower the goodness within me that waits to radiate its way into the larger world.
Lantern of Love, I welcome you.
Inner Radiance, I welcome you.
Beacon of the Exiled, I welcome you.
Sun of Justice, I welcome you.
Fire of Transformation, I welcome you.
Vigilant Flame, I welcome you.
Morning Star, I welcome you.
Everlasting Light, I welcome you.”
~Joyce Rupp
As we enter this New Year – may we be a vision of light, of epiphany, of being set on fire as God’s beacon for the whole world.
May we Arise, shine! For your Light has come, and the glory of the Lord has risen upon you!