Dash of Thought December 2024

My wife and I like to walk to Lake Greifensee, which is just a quarter of an hour's walk from our apartment. On the first day of Advent, we enjoyed another wonderful late fall day there: a deep blue sky and gloriously sunny. The shining lake reflected the sun and made the surroundings glow brightly. However, this is not always the case. On some days, thick clouds cover the sky. Then the lake looks dark and dreary. Or wisps of cloud drift by. When a hole in the clouds opens up, the sun makes the water shine for a few brief moments.
"Arise, shine, for your light has come!", the prophet Isaiah urges his listeners (Isaiah 60:1). Jesus Christ is our light, the light for the world that has come - and we reflect this light through our lives in the same way that the water of Lake Greifensee reflects the sunlight. We reflect it. We are not the light ourselves, neither as individuals nor as a congregation or church. Jesus Christ is the light. We reflect the light. However, just as over Lake Greifensee, clouds sometimes obscure the light in our lives and in the life of the church, sometimes individual wispy clouds, sometimes a thick blanket - hopelessness, discord, small faith, guilt, fear... It makes us sad to realize when we are not light, when others do not recognize the light of Christ in us.
Both are true: "Your light has come, and the glory of the Lord has risen upon you." Jesus Christ, the light, is here! But the clouds are also there, still there. We are eagerly waiting for the light of Jesus Christ to sweep the clouds away for good, like a strong wind does. Nevertheless, it is already true now: The light has come, it is here. That is why we can stand up in the light of Jesus Christ, stand up again and again, and "become light", reflect the light into the world, and thus make a part of the world shine - in the hopeful expectation of the coming cloudless sky and the unobscured light.
 
In hopeful expectation,
Bishop Stefan Zürcher
 
 
Photo: Lake Greifensee on December 1, 2024 (private)