Bringing the Light of Jesus
by Lisa Allgood, Executive Presbyter
When Jesus spoke again to the people, he said, “I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will never walk in darkness, but will have the light of life.”
This week it just seemed like the best blog had already been written years ago by Henri Nouwen:
“There is little praise and much criticism in the Church today, and who can live for long in such a climate without slipping into some type of depression? The secular world around us is saying in a loud voice, “We can take care of ourselves. We do not need God, the Church, or a priest. We are in control. And if we are not, then we have to work harder to get in control. The problem is not a lack of faith, but lack of competence… God, the Church, and the minister have been used for centuries to fill the gaps of incompetence, but today the gaps are being filled in other way, and we no longer need spiritual answers to practical questions.”
But there is a completely different story to tell. Beneath all the great accomplishments of our time, there is a deep current of despair. While efficiency and control are the great aspirations of our society, the loneliness, isolation, lack of friendship and intimacy, broken relationships, boredom, feelings of emptiness and depression, and a deep sense of uselessness fill the hearts of millions of people in our success-oriented world. The leader of the future will be the one who dares to claim his irrelevance in the contemporary world as a divine vocation that allows him or her to enter into a deep solidarity with the anguish underlying all the glitter of success and to bring the light of Jesus there.”
Other than my photography obsession, I have mostly sworn off social media these days – too polarizing, too much angry fearful indignation without a shred of love and, even in those people I know to be devout Christians, without the light of Jesus. I even deleted the Presbytery Facebook account – as much as I loved that it could help us connect across our churches, it too had become full of hateful words.
Yes, the world is crazy. It was in Jesus’ time too.
Yes, we feel like we are spinning into darkness. It did in Jesus’ time too.
Yes, Jesus flipped tables in the Temple and yelled back at the Pharisees and Sadducees, calling them to account (notice He didn’t spend time yelling at the Romans). And there are times for us to do the same.
But Jesus spent the majority of His time teaching others about the Kingdom of God come to earth, and healing and redemption and salvation. About service, and the washing of feet. About love.
In equal measure of our time, we should do the same.
