Wednesday, December 11, 2024
John 1:5 “The light shines in the darkness and the darkness has not overcome it."
The church I pastored before my retirement, South Haven UCC, housed a local hunger center through the Southeast Clergy Association in Bedford, Ohio. The center was open every Tuesday and Thursday mornings in the basement of our church. Since space was limited, the guests who arrived sat in metal folding chairs on either side of the long hallway, patiently waiting to be called into one of the converted Sunday School rooms to receive their groceries. My office was on the main floor and when I had occasion to speak with the hunger center staff I would walk down the steps and down the hallway past the folks waiting for their food assistance. The faces of our guests often looked sullen as they patiently, waited in those uncomfortable metal chairs for their turn. Often I hurried past, intent on communicating an "important" message to the staff or lost in my own thoughts.
At some point God gave me a gentle nudge of awareness and it dawned on me that I had been completely ignoring our hunger center guests. How often do we pass by others, caught up in our own troubles or thoughts, oblivious to their need and their humanity? So the next time I came down to the center I stopped to introduce myself and chat with the folks waiting in line. And an amazing thing happened. It was as if a light switch had been flipped on! Once gloomy faces lit up with smiles as folks talked about their kids, their grandchildren, their jobs (many were employed though still needing food assistance) once they had been noticed. We chatted about the weather, the foibles and triumphs of our favorite sports teams, about this and that, and in those brief moments, our guests were no longer invisible nameless statistics. They were neighbors with hopes, dreams, laughter and struggles like you and me.
In Matthew's gospel people asked, "Lord when did we see you hungry and give you food,... a stranger and welcomed you, sick... and visited you? And he answered, "As often as you did it to one of the least of these my brothers and sisters, you did it to me."
Advent anticipates and Christmas celebrates the Word made Flesh. The light that has come to the world in the person of Jesus Christ. Sometimes that light is hidden behind the shadows of fear, sadness, hate, loneliness and by our own ignorance or indifference. But Advent reminds us that God's light is always there, if we have eyes to see. If we stop to notice. And if we let God's light shine through us.
"The light shines in the darkness and the darkness has not overcome it."
Good news for a world too often cast in deep shadows.
Rev. Terry Bartlett
District 3 Regional Elder