Psalm 31, Psalm
35, Haggai 1: 1-15, Rev. 2: 18-29, Matt.
23: 27-39
Be strong, and let your heart take
courage,
all you who wait for the Lord.
-Psalm 31, v. 24
--------------------------------
My meditation on today’s readings is about coincidences
and about light and Saint Lucy and Nelson Mandela. First, I want to highlight what
a happy coincidence it was that I was assigned the 13th of December.
December 13th is always a big
deal in our family, a long awaited day -- it’s my husband Esteban’s birthday. Feliz
cumpleaños Esteban! I realized when I consulted the lectionary that it’s also
the feast day of Saint Lucy. I knew this was Saint Lucia season having taught at a
Swedish Lutheran college for 10 years. Augustana honored its Swedish roots and
the Swedish Lucia traditions every year by having one brave student
“volunteer?” in a Swedish 101 class don a long, white robe and a crown of
lighted candles and march around our
college-wide Christmas smorgasbord followed by other (embarrassed) Swedish 101 students
dressed as star boys carrying star wands and softly singing “Sankta Lucia.” Anyway, although we’re specifically
instructed to stick to the day’s readings (and not the Saint’s readings) for
our meditations here, I felt compelled to read more about Saint Lucy when I saw the 13th was her actual feast day and
given our daughter’s name is Lucinda and in our house she goes by Luci, which
her dad often shortens further to “Luz
“ or “Light.” I like the prayer of Saint Lucy very much and the Lucia Swedish
traditions, but, as with most of the early virgin martyr saints, St. Lucy’s
story and early iconography are a tad gruesome, so I won’t elaborate on that. Still,
I have been reciting and reflecting on her prayer:
Loving God, for the salvation of all you gave Jesus Christ as light to a
world in darkness: Illumine us, with your daughter Lucy, with the light of
Christ, that by the merits of his passion we may be led to eternal life;
through the same Jesus Christ, who with you and the Holy Spirit lives and
reigns, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.
My heart takes
courage from simple prayers like that. My response to the readings from the
lectionary assigned for today was more complicated as all the readings spoke of
fierce struggles and include strong warnings to the Lord’s enemies and foes. Psalm
31 concludes with the inspiring verse I took as an epigraph about letting your
heart take courage as you wait for the Lord, but otherwise the Psalmist speaks
of his terror and how he seeks deliverance from his enemies (whom he prays the
Lord will punish). Frankly, I’m not sure what to do with that.
So I returned
(instead) to thinking of waiting in darkness with a heavy heart, waiting to be
illumined. Waiting is difficult and it’s hard to have faith that the light will
return to a world in darkness. This past Sunday I was really struck by Karen’s
powerful sermon and the long list she cited of things we can wait for in life, often
with hearts that are heavy, very heavy and not light. It can feel almost
impossible to be lighthearted when one waits and considers the terrors the
Psalmist imagines. And I need to point out that by lighthearted I mean to be hopeful
and not in the sense of being absolutely carefree or lacking seriousness. I would
make the case that one can be, we can all try to be seriously lighthearted,
especially during this season of Advent and we do this by shining our own
light, as it were, for others. I have been and keep thinking of Nelson
Mandela’s life as I write this and especially the video clips of him as an old
man, liberated and dancing. If we have faith and let our hearts take courage…
and we let our light shine, we can navigate our way out of darkness/darker
moments.
And as we let
our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the
same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically
liberates others ~ Nelson Mandela, Long Walk to Freedom
Be strong, and let your heart take
courage,
all you who wait for the Lord. -Psalm 31
-
Kathleen
Suchenski
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