Arise, shine; for your light has come,
    and the glory of the Lord has risen upon you.
For darkness shall cover the earth,
    and thick darkness the peoples;
but the Lord will arise upon you,
    and his glory will appear over you.
Nations shall come to your light,
    and kings to the brightness of your dawn.

– Isaiah 60:1-3

Oh, what a crazy week! (And we thought the turmoil might be behind us—at last.) As I started writing this on Wednesday, Washington, D.C., fell into chaos and the Georgia Senate election was pushed off the stage. Who would have guessed?

The past few years, and especially the past few months, have provided us with plenty of “who would have guessed?” moments. We are still here, but the shocking events at the U.S. Capitol revealed the fault lines in our democracy as never before—racial, economic, political, religious. Like you, I was stunned to watch rioters savage our most sacred American institutions.  It was especially painful to watch because only a few months ago protests by people of color were met with severe police responses and these D.C. rioters were not (I saw a video of one Capitol invader taking a selfie with a capitol police officer). And they were egged on by our president. His daughter called them “patriots.”

I have no idea how this will play out. Legislators of all persuasions are interpreting it through their own lenses. The disorderly power move of the mob outside the Capitol mirrored the more orderly power struggle going on inside. I have little confidence that we will pull together anytime soon. At a minimum, it will take time and cooler heads than what we have seen in Congress.

In response to my sermon last Sunday, Pastor Dick Carlson sent me an encouraging email along with commentary. As always, Pastor Dick was insightful and gracious. He said:

"The texts during Advent and Christmas are so radical - of God’s intrusion, interruption, into the world veiled in the flesh of Jesus, bringing about a newness of an alternative reality to live Life. The Church has the mission to make this known and you in your work at RLC are doing just this with who you are.

The twelfth day of Christmas is tomorrow and then Epiphany - the Story goes on … and oh how we need this Story to be led into God’s future."

As Christians we have been given a new reality in which to live and through which we see the world. As Pastor Dick says, Jesus gave us an alternate reality— rooted not in power but in servanthood, not in racial or economic differences but in equality and generosity. 

We are now in the season of Epiphany, the festival of light shining through Christ. Epiphany  promises us that even though “darkness shall cover the earth… the Lord will arise upon you and his glory will appear over you.” (v.2) We grieve what has happened to America, but knowing this Epiphany promise inspires us to work for a better future. As followers of Christ we know how it will come about. St. Paul tells us—through the fruits of the Spirit:

love, joy, peace, patience,
kindness, generosity, faithfulness, 
gentleness, and self-control. 

Our challenge now is to live out those fruits in our actions.

– Rolf Olson, Visitation Pastor

Prayer

Embracing God, we shudder at events that take our breath away. This week was full of them. We pray for our country, for our leaders, for ourselves. In Jesus you joined our journey, you invited us to live in your eternal reality. We pray that this reality may be full now. Even though we don’t know what the future holds, we know that you hold the future. In the confidence that this is true, we pray.  Amen.