One Light
A Weary World Rejoices - Part 3
Sunday, November 29, 2020
Matthew 2:1-12
“Where is the child who has been born king of the Jews? For we observed his star at its rising, and have come to pay him homage.”
Matthew 2:2
We come this week to the official first Sunday of Advent, but unlike a typical Advent season, we are jumping headlong this week into the “birth narratives” or Christmas stories written in Matthew and Luke. There is something about re-contextualizing our traditional readings that offers valuable insight for our own lives. For example, rather than waiting until Epiphany in early January to journey with the wise men to find the Christ child who was likely around 2 years old when they arrive, what if we allow their star to illumine our journey to Christmas itself.
Like the wise men, our weary world and our weary souls are all searching for a light to follow. Tragically, most of the lights we see today are artificial and easily controlled and manipulated by their human creators. It is rare in our cities and towns to look up in the night sky and see a star clearly enough to follow as the early navigators did across deserts and seas. Perhaps it is all this artificial light that makes us weary in the first place. New York may have a reputation as the city that never sleeps, but with light beaming into our eyes from screens of all sizes day and night, it is a wonder that any of us sleep at all. In truth, many do not, at least not well.
If we are to take seriously this Advent journey and learn to rejoice in our weariness, we must first examine the source of the lights we are following. Then we must consider the ways the artificial lights we shine may be leading others the wrong way.
Either we follow the starlit path to the Light, or we light our own paths into the darkness.
What lights are drowning out the light of the star in your life right now?
Listen to this week’s sermon here: