The Shape of Light: A Homily for 3 April 2012

 St. Alban's Episcopal Church, Monroe, La.

Jesus said, The light is with you for a little longer. Walk while you have the light, so that the darkness may not overtake you. If you walk in the darkness, you do not know where you are going. While you have the light, believe in the light, so that you may become children of light. (John 20:36, NRSV)

Light is a very big deal in our culture. When we have a bright idea, we think of a light bulb going on in our head. When we are puzzled or confused, we want someone to “shed light on the subject.” We refer to a person we love as “the light of my life.”

Humans need light to thrive. Some of us, like one of my graduate school friends, actually get depressed when the days grow shorter and the shadows of evening come earlier.
   

iPhone Diary: 4 April 2012 (The Shape of Light)

Many of you know that I’m a photographer. Light is one of our creative tools. Recently, I have gotten connected with an international network of photographers through the online social network called Google+. One of my new friends is Joel Tjintjelaar of The Netherlands. He is a landscape and architecture photographer, but his subject really is light itself. In fact, he has an album of photographs online called “The Shape of Light.” Joel shows the shape of light by photographing how it interacts in various ways with buildings, bridges and other structures. (You can see his work at http://www.bwvision.com/. The image above is one of my interpretations of the shape of light.)
   
The shape of our light is Jesus the Christ. In the passage from John above, Jesus invites us to become children of the light. We do this by walking with him. Of course, we cannot walk with him exactly like the disciples to whom he was speaking. We must seek the shape of Jesus the Light in the world around us.
   
Sometimes that is easy. We have no trouble seeing Jesus the Light in a beautiful sunrise or sunset, flowers, trees and other wonders of creation. We have no trouble seeing Jesus the Light in the faces of those we love.
   
But it can be hard to see the Light of Christ in some of the faces God puts in our path. Not all of the people we are called to interact with and to minister to are equally lovely and loveable. 
   
And at times of loss and disappointment, The Light seems to elude us or even to have gone out completely in our lives. We walk in darkness and cannot catch even a glimmer of light, much less see the shape of Jesus the Christ.
   
Faith is knowing that The Light is there, even when we cannot see it. Believing in The Light is knowing that God is with us in the darkest times. Holy Week is a week of growing darkness, and what sustains us is knowing that the blinding light of Easter is just around the corner.
   
As we continuously seek to walk with Jesus the Light, as we strive to be aware of his presence in our lives, we become bearers of The Light. We take on the shape of the Light of Jesus the Christ! And then we will see his face in those human faces God puts in our way to minister to. We will see the Christ-Light we bear reflected back to us!