by Pastor Sherrie Lowly

The gift of God in the flesh, incarnation, is a powerful gift. It is the power of God to make us children of God, the power of God to transform our flesh into the Word. We’re unwrapping this gift, layer by layer, in our January series. I look forward to hearing what has happened in the two weeks that I’ve been traveling. What have you found? This kind of transformation does not happen in isolation. It needs community to witness, to hold accountable, and to provide the sandpaper to keep us humble.

January and February are difficult months for some of us; the darkness and the cold keep our spirits low. I’ve begun to read Paula Huston’s book, “By Way of Grace: Moving From Faithfulness to Holiness.” In it she quotes Josef Pieper on the darkness that surrounds that “bright realm of free human action, dominated by knowledge.” This bright realm Huston and others define as the virtue of prudence-the virtue that enables us to see the reality of good and evil, holds us to the truth and ensures that our decisions will be motivated by loving wisdom. Prudence “is bordered on all sides by darkness,” writes Pieper, “by the darkness of nature’s part within ourselves and by the deeper, impenetrable darkness of the immediate divine governance of our volition and our actions.” (Pieper, “Four Cardinal Virtues.”) Although Scriptures say that this latter darkness is not darkness at all but really “unapproachable light” (I Timothy 6:16), to us, as we struggle to come closer to God and be transformed, it can seem like total obscurity. Where is the gift of God? Where is the light come to shine in our darkness? How can I unwrap this darkness to find the gift of freedom God grants to be who I am meant to be?

When Tim and I were in Lisbon, Portugal we met friends who inevitably asked us our impressions of Lisbon. Did we affirm the travel guide’s and tourist’s thought that the light in Lisbon is amazing, different, and unique? Tim and I did not say it to them, but alone we questioned that we just did not see it. Were we blind from our wonderful Chicago lakeside light on the days when the sky is clear and the sun is bright? Were we keeping our eyes too low, entranced by the beautiful mosaic stonework of the Lisbon sidewalks?

I pray that in these winter months as we gather for worship, small groups, and other meetings and events, that our eyes will be opened to the gift of light and our lives will continue to be transformed by it’s glow. Do not let the darkness overcome you. Ask me or someone else for help and prayer and do not neglect your need for community.