Thursday, February 16, 2012

Today’s text

2 Corinthians 4:5-6

It is not ourselves that we are proclaiming, but Christ Jesus as the Lord, and ourselves as your servants for Jesus' sake. It is God who said, 'Let light shine out of darkness,' that has shone into our hearts to enlighten them with the knowledge of God's glory, the glory on the face of Christ.

Reflection

Say the word glory and images of light fill the mind--the blinding brilliance of mid-day, sunburst through clouds at the close of the day, the splendid play of every-changing hues as the sun slowly fills … or recedes from the Grand Canyon.

The Bible suggests dozens of images like this. In the beginning, God creates a world of wonder and beauty, calling light out of the darkness of nothingness.

Moses ascends a mountain to commune with God and returns, his face alight from the reflected glow of his encounter.

The glory of the Lord comes to shine on those who dwell in the land of darkness, the prophet Isaiah says.
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Zachariah, the father of John the Baptist, praises God for the boy’s birth and the mission he will pursue. “The dawn from on high will shine upon us,” his soul sings.

And when old Simeon holds the infant Jesus in the temple, he looks at the child’s face and knows that this one is “a light to enlighten the nations and the glory of your (God’s) people Israel.”

Glory is light, the light of God’s face, the revelation of God’s heart, the presence of God’s saving power shining on those whose hearts are heavy, those who hunger for life to be made new and fresh and free from all that hinders its shining.

Such glory shines in Jesus, a strange glory, though. For it is not seen most clearly in the bright light of success and adulation, not in popular acclaim and the celebration of the masses, but in surrender to the degrading suffering for the sake of divine love.

We do not reflect this glory as human beings. We do not merely mirror its reflection.

Gazing into the face of Jesus, seeing who he is, his words and works of divine love, his willing suffering unto death, his complete and utter trust of the heavenly Father--the light of his glory shines from the depth of our very being.

We become as he is, alight from within with the wonder of the Loving Mystery of God.

The daily invitation is to follow this Christ who shines with God’s glory.

Follow him into the places you have been led to give yourself. In surrender to those tasks, those people and those challenges, the glory of God will shine in dark places, and the light of God shining in Jesus face … will shine also in ours.

And once again, we shall see the glory of the uncreated light of the unimaginable God.

Pr. David L. Miller