Being part of a spiritual community brings with it so very many blessings. Having relocated to Franklin, Tennessee to be part of the GRACEPOINTE Community, we get to experience the most incredible music and worship on a weekly basis. Our annual Christmas concert is curated by our Associate Pastor, Melissa Greene. She is so gifted in leading a community of people into a deeper Presence, and to see the light in each other. I was asked to write and perform two spoken word pieces for the concert. What an honor to be asked. I struggled for days how best to give voice to the unfathomable truths the Christmas season brings. Beholding the One born to illuminate our paths. Here is the journey I wrote about. The light is here, and now that we know it and behold it, how can our light continually change the world!

BEHOLD THE LIGHT

Reading 1:

Bethlehem, “yet in thy dark streets shining, the everlasting Light”.

In the midst of darkness the light still shines, unquenchable, sometimes a flicker, other times a roaring flame. In the sometimes shadow places of our lives, let us draw near the One born to illuminate our paths.

Come with us, let us join as one as we behold the light. More than simply seeing, beholding beckons us to gaze at and linger with this light. Like the stars suspended in a moonlight sky, shining brightly to signal the birth of Jesus, let us slow our pace and see his life. For his life is truly worth beholding. The humble beginning in a manger, his precocious hunger and thirst for truth, his life the example for all of us to follow, selfless and loving. His table welcomes all. Can we live a lesser life? Let us not grow weary as we seek daily to shine our light and give hope to everyone.

Beholding calls attention to the light, making vision possible, providing clarity to know the truth that “we are not the mistakes we’ve made or the things that caused us pain”.  Beholding illuminates the Divine presence  bathing us in steady light and love, the love of God in Christ filling us. Behold the light that guides our souls, Emmanuel, God with us.

I am light, you are light, we are the light.

Reading 2:

We must find a way to continue beholding the light in each other, “the light we were born to follow, because THIS light never fails”. We see the Christ child but let us leave our childish ways behind. We should not be defined by our doctrine but by the actions our beliefs call us to. Let us live lives of authenticity, truth, and honesty. Can we live a lesser life?

Our light can be lived out daily in this world with its shadows, making wrongs right, bringing healing to all being.  Our light illuminates the path for all who walk beside us seeking beauty, truth, and goodness, and for those too weak to journey.  Being a light bears the responsibility and joy of shining brightly and signaling each person’s inherent worth, value, and belovedness as a child of God.

Not so different than 2,000 years ago and that little town of Bethlehem, where darkness and light mingled, we have only to look as far as our own streets and towns, and perhaps our own hearts.  Beholding our own light, may it help us to recognize the good light in others, and compel us to find unity with one another. The light in a dark sky, the Divine light in our hearts the compass of our lives. The light is our path, the way. Our lives should bear the image and likeness of God.  The image is given to all, but as we live into the light, and into our belovedness, the likeness becomes evident.

So let us rise up, let us fix our gaze, let us live lives of peace and joy, and let us trust and follow the light that never fails!