Pondering Poinsettias and Highlighting Highlights!

Pause For Thought from Rev Dr Terry Biddington, co-ordinating chaplain at the Manchester Unis

Diwali, Eid, Hanukkah, Yule, and Christmas. They’re all festivals of light and times of celebration, fun, hope, and inspiration. ‘Let your light so shine before others, that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father in heaven,’ says Matthew’s gospel.

Now, if you’re like me, you may need a reminder of the back story. Jesus had just finished telling the crowd that they were salt of the earth and the light of the world. It was a powerful message and a dangerous one. For in telling ordinary workers, labourers, farmers, and the unemployed that they were special, that they gave life its authenticity and flavour, and were to be set up as examples for the world, was (and always has been) political dynamite. It certainly won Jesus no friends amongst the powerful elites of his day: those most keen to keep their vested interests well out of the light of public scrutiny. And perhaps it’s not difficult to find resonance here with our own times.

But the real problem that many of us have today is not necessarily that we’re unwilling to listen to the Jesus story: but that we can’t for one minute imagine that any of it might be relevant to us or speak to our own lives. It can be hard to get our heads around the idea that –ordinary people that we are– we might be encouraged to think of ourselves as able to make a difference. That we might be the light of the world!

Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us.'

So this year, as I decorate the tree, walk around the bright lights of the shops, watch the dazzling fireworks, or stare wistfully at the stars above, I will try to find a moment to imagine that we’re all born to shine, all meant to show the glory of God that is within us, or else the glorious possibilities for human life, and that all of us called to let this light shine out in the world.

Who knows – it may just give permission to others to do the same. And wouldn’t that be a sight to be seen!