Celebrating the Lights: An Interfaith Christmas Reflection

The reflection below was a part of Christ / Covid / Christmas – an online event sponsored by Church Anew, featuring Bishop Michael Curry, Diana Butler Bass and others. You can watch the entire program here.

During this holy time of preparation for the light of God to shine in our world and in our spirits, I invite you to remember that you, that me, that none of us are born to be a child of God alone. During this advent, we do not wait in our isolated buildings, in our private spaces, in our individual souls. For our very own Jesus, Mary, Joseph, the shepherds, the innkeeper, the thousands of sojourners – none of them were children of God, alone. Jesus, born in Bethlehem, surrounded by people from every walk of life, of every tribe, of every faith, was not the child of God, alone. Rather, what made Jesus the Christ is that he saw children of God wherever he looked. Jesus, the anointed one, could see each person with the innate spark of the Divine. Jesus, the great light born into the world, did not come to outshine, did not come to the blind, was not born to extinguish other lights, but rather Jesus gave us the vision to see the Great Light of the Divine in ourselves and each other and to shine together.

In our time of the pandemic, strife, division, denigration, and even hatred between people, we Christians must not succumb to the sin of using Jesus as a pawn in a competition, we must not weaponize our savior, or use our faith to vanquish. Instead, as we raise lights on Christmas Eve, let them be an invitation to expand our Spirits and join with other lights to illuminate a world that is tormented by the shadows of fear and despair. May those of us who seek to follow the way of Jesus, keep our eyes opened wide to the wondrous ways that God’s light shines through the sacred fires coming from our neighbors’ Spiritual homes.

This Advent, this Christmas, look up! Look around. Look just down the street, at how our Jewish neighbors are lighting candles too, in observance of Hanukkah, our Hindu neighbors are lighting the Diwali candles, and our Muslim neighbors have lights up to celebrate Eid. Our Pagan friends are celebrating the returning of the light with Solstice, and our Humanist friends raise the light of reason.