I am sure everyone here has climbed a mountain, hiked through the woods, or walked on a sandy beach. Recall for a moment, if you would, the feelings and sensations of being in nature. Remember the sound of the wind rushing in your ears on the beach or the stillness as you moved through quiet woods. What about the elation of standing on the top of a mountain?
Perhaps we all seek Nature because we want to get away from the challenges of our lives. Perhaps we find communion with God in Nature. Human beings know that life is hard, no matter in which culture or geological age we find ourselves.
We have been told that the people of the northern climates of Old Europe were fearful of the shorter days of winter. Eventually, they learned that the seasons always change. As their knowledge expanded, the seasons became predictable. They were grateful for the cycle of growth and harvest, and they celebrated the return of longer, lighter days on the winter solstice. They needed the Light, just as we do.
Hindus celebrate Divali, the festival of lights. The celebration recognizes each person’s journey and the challenges we face in order to become enlightened human beings. Divali tells us to recognize our “ignorance.” Our ignorance is our fear of change, which keeps us doggedly on a path of achievement and acquisition until, of course, life gives us no choice—life makes us change. How many times have we heard a person who has been in a life-altering accident or diagnosed with cancer say, “It is the best thing that ever happened to me.”
The celebration of Divali calls us to the pursuit of self-knowledge. Just as light drives out darkness, knowledge dispels our ignorance. What we find as we become enlightened, Hindus believe, is that God is the “Light of Lights,” that God brings love and Light to everyone, and that there is no greater Light than God. Hindus need the Light, too, just as we do.
Jesus has been called the “Light of the World.” Our opening words and our readings today tell us humanity
needs God,
needs Jesus Christ, born of Wisdom
needs hope in the face of reality, and
needs the Light of the Messiah
Are we any different?
Miguel de Unamuno, the Spanish philosopher, writes, it is the “tragic sense of life” that leads us to our belief in a “God of the heart … a Supreme Love.” [The Tragic Sense of Life, Miguel de Unamuno]
When our “winter” comes, are we afraid that the light will not return? In our darkest nights, what do we believe? In what do we place our hope?
Many of you know that I grew up as a southern Baptist. As a teen I sang in the church choir, went to church Sunday morning and night, attended prayer meeting on Wednesday, visitation on Friday, and the teen social on Saturday. It was my life, my connection to the “greater other.” I loved the Word I heard there, and the people, and they loved me. But I especially loved Jesus. He was a brother, a friend, a teacher and a model to live up to.
When I realized that the Word I heard was not the word of Jesus, but an exclusive, Western religion of damnation, I was astonished, shocked. I asked our pastor, “Did you mean to say that everyone who does not know Jesus as their personal savior is going to hell?” And he replied, “Yes, that is what I said.” And I questioned him further, “Well, what about the people in China, and Indian, and Africa, who have never heard of Jesus?” And he said, “They are all going to hell, and if you don’t believe that, then you are going to hell, too.” And this eighteen year-old teenager said, “Well, I guess I’ll just have to go then.” And I walked out of Fellowship Baptist Church in Nederland, Texas, and never went back.
That is not the end of the story. I was emotionally and mentally devastated. I had no church, no friends, no place to go, and I was no longer part of the “greater other.” I couldn’t eat, I couldn’t think, I couldn’t pray. I was depressed. It was the dark night of my soul. I no longer had Jesus; I no longer had any hope.
This then, the place where I found myself, is the place where some individuals have a mystical experience. William James in The Varieties of Religious Experiences [1902] wrote that while individuals have different experiences, there are four common characteristics:
First, the person cannot find words to describe it. Oh, she or he can tell the story of it; but there are no words to convey the reality of the experience for that individual. Second, there is something “noetic” or revelatory about the experience—it gives one insight into vital truths. Third, it is transitory—it happens and then it is over. And last, the person having the experience feels as if she/he is being led by, as James wrote, a “superior power.”
Here is what happened to me; I have told only three individuals and my entering class in seminary.
I was driving between Nederland and Beaumont. There is a stretch of highway that is all rice fields. No trees, flat land, empty. I had been to visit my parents and was headed back to my own apartment. I was crying, feeling hopeless, and I looked west across the open, vacant land. The sun was setting. It was bright orange, huge; you know how the atmosphere can make the setting sun look as though it covers hundreds of miles? And all of a sudden a cloud filled my car. Not smoke, not a haze; it was as though a cloud had come out of the sky and settled inside my car. “Oh,” I thought, “I’d better pull over.” I did, and as I sat there, I realized there was a presence next to me. That presence pointed out the sun and said, “There, see the sun? God is like the sun; God is light and God is love. God is always with you. Everything will be all right, forever and eternally.”
Since that day, I have had hope. Hope in God’s Light. Hope in Jesus. Hope in our ability to create God’s kingdom on earth. Only once since then have I lost hope, and that was on September 11, 2001. But over the next few weeks, through prayer and meditation, God reaffirmed the hope that I found that day before the sun.
Life is hard. It has always been a challenge to live, whether Neanderthals, the Hebrew tribes, pagans, the revolutionary Christians, the 16th Century reformers, or today.
Nevertheless, I do believe there is a God of Light and Jesus was born, just as we are, of that Light. It is a Light that illuminates all darkness. It is a light that is greater than all lights and brings love and hope to everyone.
This Christmas, make the holiday season about Light, Hope, Love, and God’s promises. I know you need to buy gifts for loved ones in your lives, but find a way, through your actions and words, to live out the hope promised by the birth of the Messiah.
Posted by UNMC Office at December 1, 2008 07:15 PM