Give You as a Light

As we move deeper into the season after Epiphany, we continue to explore the glory God reveals among us. While we often emphasize Jesus as the revelation of God’s glory, this week’s Old Testament reading from Isaiah 49 invites us to consider how God reveals glory through us, God’s servants. We are also now firmly in that small corridor of Ordinary Time that bridges between Christmas and Lent. The beauty of Ordinary Time, whether the few weeks at the beginning of the calendar year or the long months through the summer and fall, is that it opens space for us to focus on how to live the substance of our faith in the day-to-day moments and happenings of our lives. Visually, then, consider how to bring forward images and symbols of the ways your community has revealed God’s glory in the last year. Perhaps it’s a gallery of photos of vacation Bible school, neighborhood partners, and potlucks on the altar. Or maybe you want to pull in symbols and examples of creation from your area to place in the worship space as reminders of our partnership with all creation to reflect and reveal God’s glory. The green paraments of Ordinary Time certainly lend themselves to emphasizing God’s glory that shines through our relationship with and care for creation.

Liturgically, consider creating space and time for prayers of the people that emphasize the places and people throughout the world in need of peace, love, and care. If we are called to be a light to the nations, we must be willing to name the places where evil and suffering live in the shadows. Importantly, though, it is not our job to tell God about all the terrible things happening in the world. It is our job to tell one another the truth of what is happening around us and how God is at work and calls us to be at work in response to the troubles throughout the world. When we are weary, worried, and worn from all that is wrong in the world, we must remind one another that God, who gives us as a light, is the source of our light. As Derek Weber says in the Preaching Notes, this is how we become a part of the light that we proclaim.