This little light of mine

In the bleak midwinter, frosty wind made moan,
earth stood hard as iron, water like a stone;
snow had fallen, snow on snow,
snow on snow..

ELW 294

I should start by saying I’m not usually one to complain about winter. I love living in an area that has all four seasons, and I’ll gladly take a few hours of shoveling now and then for the monotony of Florida or Arizona any day. Each season brings its own set of banes and blessings, and being able to experience all of them gives us a greater appreciation of the cycle of life and of God’s good creation.

That being said, this has been one crazy winter. The snow is piled so high in front of the church that we can barely see across the street, and we’ve been forced to cancel and reschedule too many important times of being together— Wednesday Church Nights, Chattering Crafters, and our second visioning meeting for the new H.O.P.E. Initiative of Lynn. We’ll be playing catch-up this month, so please pay close attention to the calendar in the Sunday bulletin each week— which may continue to change as Mother Nature changes her mood…

But as much as these snow days have forced us to stay inside and rearrange our plans, I wonder if there isn’t something holy in that too. Our lives are so scheduled that perhaps it is a kind of humbling gift to realize that the world will, in fact, go on without us for a day or two…and that all those appointments and practices and rehearsals and meetings that seem to define our lives are not as important as, say, spending a night at home with people you love around the fire.

One of my favorite things about winter is being able to use the fireplace. This past Wednesday, when it was below freezing and the roads were covered in ice, I sat in front of the fire and realized that it was the feast of the Presentation of Our Lord (Feb. 2)—forty days after Christmas—the day Mary and Joseph would have brought their baby to the Temple according to Jewish law. The gospel of Luke says that on this occasion, an old man named Simeon took the newborn into his arms, and realizing that he was holding the Savior he waited his whole life to see, said “Now, Lord, you let your servant go in peace…for my own eyes have seen your salvation…a light to reveal to the nations” (Luke 2:29-32). In many churches, all the candles that will be used for the year are blessed on this day, symbolizing the light of Christ that still burns brightly in our midst.

We didn’t get to do that on Wednesday because of the storm. But as I stared into the fireplace, I pondered the ways in which I have been able to sing Simeon’s song in my own life—times when I have seen the light of Christ reflected in you and in the ministry we do in this place. When we were baptized, we were each given a candle and told to let our light shine before others, that through our lives of faithful service, others would come to see and experience God’s love and salvation.

As we all know, the world can sometimes feel like a cold place, regardless of what the temperature is outside. And there are many people, even in our own lives, who wonder if they will ever see with their eyes what they have hoped for in their hearts. Our mission as the church to keep on singing Simeon’s song: proclaiming to the world with our words and actions that God is here in out midst, fulfilling the promise of salvation. We shouldn’t be timid about sharing that good news, or as the song says, “hide it under a bushel.” During the rest of this Epiphany season, let’s take up Jesus’ call to let our light shine, and in doing so bring some much-needed warmth to our world.

Yours on the journey,

Jon Niketh +