Light is wonderful, until it isn’t. The flip side of living in a land of near-total darkness in winter is that it’s a land of almost constant sunlight in the summer – the land of the midnight sun. Where we live in Alaska, the four hours of darkness aren’t even full dark. Many Alaskans use blackout curtains and sleep in eye masks because the light is relentless.
Too much light is exhausting, but it can also reveal things you’d rather keep hidden. My husband replaced the lights in our garage to LED bulbs. It was amazingly bright! But it also revealed a back wall grungy with previously unseen dirt and grime. The light illuminates, the light reveals.
Uncomfortable revelations are something we Lutherans handle communally. During worship, we confess together the ways we turn away from the light of Christ. We’re gathered as a body of Christ to support each other in faith and love and then sent out to be light in the world, to shine together.
This message is excerpted from “Light in the darkness” by Lisa A. Smith in the January/February 2023 Gather magazine.
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