In the beginning..........

In the beginning...........that is how the story starts for us.  In the beginning when God began creating....God said, "Let there be light" and there was light.

Lately, it has been fairly difficult to hold on to this image of God's created light, the first movement of this God of life.  We are surrounded by a creeping darkness that threatens the great enlightenment of God's outstretched arm.  Our 24 hour news cycle which brings all that is happening around the world to our fingertips in a flash is now bombarding us with images of violence and protests, leaving us raw with too much information and too few ideas about how to move forward.  Certainly this is not the first time that this world has been threatened by descending darkness.  One epoch of our history was even named the Dark Ages.  There have been tyrants and pyschopaths, barbarians and fanatics throughout recorded history.

When I was serving St. Johns-St Marks Lutheran Church in Canajoharie, NY I listened as one of the elders spoke of the dark days of the second World War.  Canajoharie is a small town filled with folks whose roots go back generations.  They know each other; they knew each other's parents and grandparents.  Evelyn said that each Sunday the names of all who were serving overseas were kept in prayer.....not just those who were members at St. Johns-St Marks, but all those known by those members who gathered.  An entire village of soldiers were prayed for in the village churches each week.  Death was ever present; life was precious.

Each time the bread and wine of communion was shared the gift of life in Jesus, a promise made out of love and in the pouring out of his life, was ever more poignant.  Those hours on a Sunday morning were crucial - they renewed hope, provided strength and sustained in times of loss.  They cemented community.

Our faith is grounded in this story of life out of death, of life beyond life, of death defeated by the Creator God.  In those dark days of combat, there was no where else to cling but to this promise, this Christ, this God. With their men far away and in danger, resurrection was no longer abstract.

Each Sunday they experienced that deep darkness into which God spoke these words "Let there be light" and for a moment or two they could hold onto that image of God's divine light.

In these times of great darkness, when we are challenged to confront our role in creating the darkness and sustaining systems which keep others captive in the dark, let us pray for God's light to shine into our hearts and show us our own shadows, and then lead us again to Jesus, who is the light of the world.