Shine On Us Living in Darkness

Peter Bauer

Nearly four years ago now, our area San Antonio and the surrounding Texas Hill Country, experienced another worldly event. We had snow, make that eight inches of snow, that covered roads, trees, downed power lines. There was no traffic for days.

My wife and I hibernated in the house, in the living room on mattresses in front of the fire. There was no power and thus no furnace heating the house. Due to the strain on the power grid, every 10 minutes the furnace would come on. We would think finally this ordeal would be over. Then the furnace would go off again and we would have to wait another hour for the cycle to repeat itself.

I didn’t see patients for days. No electricity begets no internet. So I laid in my Lazy Boy recliner, covered myself in quilts and wondered if this was going to be the end or at least, at a minimum, a throwback to the 19th Century.

The snow and the cold were real. But this wasn’t the romantic “Christmas in Connecticut” scene with Barbara Stanwick riding in a horse-drawn sleigh. No, there was no water unless you went outside, collected snow, and melted it.

This was working hard to stay warm reminiscent of someone living in a gulag in Siberia. You felt bereft. You felt like you were in darkness, especially at night apart from some flashlights. I joked with Kate that we were experiencing our own military cold weather training.

Then, finally it was over, the power came back on permanently. The bright sun outside melted the accumulated snow, which started to turn into slush and streams of water rushing out the driveway onto our street.

Yes, we had survived the great atmospheric storm.

According to reports, the February 2021 snowstorm in Texas, also known as Winter Storm Uri, resulted in an estimated cost of between $80 billion and $130 billion in damages, making it one of the most expensive natural disasters in Texas history.

Right now, we are facing another kind of storm. More people in the LGBTQ community and in other demographic communities are expressing fear and concern staying here. One of my students, who is from here, said, “As soon as I get my degree, I’m getting the hell out of here! I don’t want to subject my kids to this kind of hateful environment.”

You probably know people who are feeling the same way. This is so unsettling. Where is the acceptance and support of helping people in their daily lives? Where are, in the words of former United Church of Christ General President John Thomas, “the extravagant welcome?”

As Rev. Billie Watts reminded us previously, “The schools are not talking about these inequities, so the Church must talk about these conditions and realities.”

The minor Prophet Malachi talks about the arrival of God’s joyous kingdom with the question are you ready? Malachi is looking forward to the day when Israel will be restored from the rule of Persia.

Commentator Ann Stewart notes:

Malachi’s proclamation may strike a discordant tone with our Advent expectations. Our preparations are often informed by pastoral images of sweet baby Jesus surrounded by choirs of angels and placid sheep around the manger. Jesus brings serenity, peace on Earth, goodwill to all. And while we can affirm that the coming of Jesus Christ, the prince of peace, is good news of great joy for all people, this does not mean that Christ’s presence demands nothing of us or leaves us unchanged. 

What could Christ’s presence demand of us? What would we have to change? 

That’s a powerful question to consider. People who have been addicted to drugs, and or alcohol and who are now trying to be in recovery, know that they generally can’t be around substances, but they know also the need to change behaviors that made them vulnerable for addiction.

People who have been affected in the reality of interpersonal violence, know that they have been manipulated by charm, deceit, and dependency in the insatiable need to exert control over another human being. This can be a Herculean struggle to break away from abusive behavior or to stop exhibiting abusive behavior towards others for fear of having to confront diminished self-esteem.

So where do we need to change our spiritual lives? What do we need to do to break away from this mentality that God’s in control and so therefore we don’t need to do anything. We don’t need to show up.

Luke’s telling of the story of Elizabeth and Zechariah waiting for the birth of their child is interesting. Elizabeth wants to name the child Zechariah after his father.

But it is Zechariah who declares that the child’s name will be John. This underlines a new reality, a new identity. There are other instances in scripture where we see this phenomenon, i.e. Saul who becomes Paul, etc.

Zechariah’s song includes this message:

To shine on those living in darkness and in the shadow of death, to guide our feet into the path of peace. (Luke 1:79)

The late Father Raymond Brown, who wrote the book The Birth of The Messiah (1977), and who taught for years at Union Theological Seminary in New York, observed:

“If Jesus were to come back today, the first thing we would do is crucify him again.”

What is it about Jesus that scares us? Are we concerned about the whole change process? What will that mean for me and for my life? I can’t have it all. I can’t have my way all the time.

You mean I might become different? I might become close to my next-door neighbor with whom I never thought that I would befriend.

We are all vulnerable and we are scared to death about it. Katherine Hepburn was right:

“You cannot have it all.”

You must make choices. You must set priorities. Yes, as Bob Seger would say, you have to determine. “What to leave in, what to leave out?”

Metanoia, the process of turning around and going a different way, is a never-ending process. The changes we make in our 20’s will not be the changes we make in our 80’s.

The coming of the birth of Jesus reminds us again that our birth and rebirth process is going forward again and again. We are called as believers in Jesus to the one “who makes all things new.”

We also know that our spiritual life, our life of faith in God will bring the unexpected, like an eight-inch snowstorm to cause us to pause, to consider and wonder where God may be leading us next.

May this Advent season reveal the light shining on us living in darkness and in the shadow of death, and to guide our feet into the path of peace. (Luke 1:79)

May it be so now and always.

In Jesus’ Name. Amen, Shalom, Salaam, Blessed Be.

Rev. Peter E. Bauer is a United Church of Christ minister. He has been a regular contributor to the Huffington Post and Medium.Com. He currently serves as the Intentional Interim Minister of Touchstone Community Church (United Church of Christ ) in Boerne.