We had a moving opportunity at my church to host an interfaith winter solstice celebration at our church, put on by the Greater Philadelphia Center for Spiritual Living. Present at the service were faith leaders representing Jewish, Muslim, Buddhist, Hindu, New Thought, and Christian communities. We were each invited to share two reflections from our traditions on the prompts: “Deep Darkness” and “Luminous Light.” I was very touched and inspired to witness the uniqueness of what each speaker shared, as well as the profound points of connection. Here is what I shared from my Christian tradition.

From Deep Darkness …

For those of us who are Christian, this month is a season we call Advent. “Advent” means “arrival” or “dawning,” and it is a period for us in which we prepare our hearts for our celebration of the birth of Jesus, at Christmas, the dawning of what we call Christ in our midst.

In Advent, among other things, we retell the stories of Mary, Jesus’ mother, and what she experienced during her pregnancy, which were powerful and mysterious and sacred experiences that prepared her for what was to come. So, in the darkness of December, there can be for us a sense of gestation, of something mysterious and beautiful growing in the depths. There’s a mood of expectation, and of yearning, for what this new birth will bring. This is one dimension of what darkness can mean.

For Christians we experience in Jesus what we call God’s “Incarnation,” the embodiment of the Creator’s Holy Love in its human form. Through Jesus we believe that God in all God’s majesty and mystery, joins us in our human condition, that the infinite is made intimate. Jesus does this in very particular ways to challenge us to see how the love and mercy of the Divine embraces each and all as we are – even, or in fact especially, those whose humanity gets caught in our blind spots: Jesus identified in particular with the least and the last and the lost among us – “That which you do to the least among you,” he taught, “you do to me.”

In Advent for Christians we can prepare ourselves to receive this gift of Christ anew, by naming and honoring what it means for us. To help us with that, our practice is to light a series of candles on each of the four Sundays in Advent. Each candle represents a dimension of the gifts we find through Jesus: Hope, Peace, Love, & Joy. Each Sunday at our worship services we focus on one of those divine gifts.

Now, this being a season of greater darkness, and of expectation for what has not yet arrived, our practice of lighting the Advent candles is an opportunity to recognize the shadows, you could say, in which we kindle these lights. We have an opportunity to recognize the forces in ourselves and in our world that deny and oppress Hope, Peace, Love, & Joy, even as we yearn for them and are guided by their lights. This is another dimension of darkness. What are those forces that deny and oppress the gifts of God?

Especially this year, in this winter holiday time that is so holy for so many, with war raging in the land that is so holy for so many, as I have been lighting our Advent candles, I have been lighting them with sorrow on my heart. It has been humbling to light candles with the knowledge that within myself are both the lights of Hope & Peace & Love & Joy and their shadows, this is true of all as within all people, including those I may want to treat as my enemies or who may want to treat me as their enemy. We have both the light and the shadow within us. In that, I have been feeling a deep yearning that we all may be free to be the beloved beings we were created to be.

That is my prayer within the darkness.

… To Luminous Light

To suggest something of the meaning of the light within Christianity, let me offer two poems by Christian poets:

Godburst by Ann Weems

When the Holy Child is born into our hearts

There is a rain of stars

A rushing of angels

A blaze of candles

This God burst into our lives.

Love is running through the streets.

The Work of Christmas

By Howard Thurman:

When the song of the angels is stilled,

when the star in the sky is gone,

when the kings and princes are home,

when the shepherds are back with their flocks,

the work of Christmas begins:

to find the lost,

to heal the broken,

to feed the hungry,

to release the prisoner,

to rebuild the nations,

to bring peace among the people,

to make music in the heart.

Delivered Saturday, December 16, 2023, at the United Church of Christ at Valley Forge, by Rev. Nathaniel Mahlberg

Image by Zafer from Pixabay