Lamplighters

A shoeshine boy was plying his trade at North Station next to the Boston Garden.  A silver medal danced at his neck as he slapped his shine cloth, again and again, across a man’s shoes. “Sonny” said the man curiously, “what’s the hardware around your neck?” The boy replied, “It’s a medal of the mother of Jesus.” “Why her medal?” the man asked.  “She’s no different from your mother.” “Could be,” said the boy, “but there’s a real big difference between her son and me.”

The boy was right. There is a big difference between Jesus and us.  Then again, don’t we all try to shrink that difference especially at this time of the year when we prepare for the incarnation – the Word, Jesus, becoming flesh and one of us.
 
And about that man getting his shoes shined. Was he right?  Was Mary no different from our mothers?  Our Gospel reading seems to say she was different.  After all, none of our mothers had a long conversation with the Angel Gabriel about their pregnancies, although… every one of them did find favor with God.  A child in the womb certainly suggests that.

Actually, all of us find favor with God – woman and man alike – when we say “yes” to having Christ conceived within us through our simple acts of kindness, charity, love, and forgiveness.   Christ’s incarnation occurs all the time through us – by what we say and do – and when like Mary, we act as handmaids and servants for the Lord.

Helping us understand is our Advent Wreath that gives us wonderful symbols of Christ’s incarnation through us – his Body.  Today’s lighting of the 4th candle representing peace is especially symbolic.  Remember, the first candle was for hope.  The second was for love and the third for joy.  But, today’s candle is supposed to give us the light we need to vanquish the dark by making us instruments of Christ’s peace.

A famous prayer, attributed to St. Francis of Assisi, helps us understand what it means to be his “instrument.”  We’ve all heard versions of this prayer at one time or another.  It begins with a request of God and ends with what we can take away as a Christmas message given to us just 5 days before the day we celebrate as Jesus’ birthday.

“Lord, make me an instrument of your peace (4th candle); where there is hatred, let me sow love (2nd candle); where there is injury, pardon; where there is doubt, faith; where there is despair, hope (1st candle); where there is darkness, light (all the candles especially the Christ candle); and where there is sadness, joy (3rd candle).”

The prayer goes on to say: “Grant that I may not so much seek to be consoled, as to console; to be understood, as to understand, to be loved, as to love.”

Now, here’s that Christmas message: “For it is in giving that we receive, it is in pardoning that we are pardoned, and it is in dying [to ourselves] that we are born to eternal life.”

This prayer can be tied to Mary because in today’s Gospel, she was called an instrument of God’s peace when she said “yes,” to the Angel Gabriel.

I end with a story.  Many years ago, while traveling in England near Wales, a deacon did a parish ministry of service in a rather dark, grim, and poor village, made nearly all of slate mined in the hills above the town.  At night he would sit in a cozy house by a fire, drinking ale and watching the sky darken with the shadows coming on.  The house was high in the hills above the town. 

First there would be one light. Then minutes would pass and another light, then another.  A trail of light wound its way below him, around him, and in and out.  He watched wondering what it was and how it was created. 

His host smiled and said, “Ah, you’ve noticed. We are still poor and a bit backward here. That is a lamplighter, walking through town, lighting the gas lamps.”  Then he said, “There is a saying that I always recall when I catch sight of the lamps being lit below in the town: ‘You always know you have been in presence of a Christian by the trail of light they leave behind.”

This Christmas, let’s leave behind us our own trails of light and not just the lights of our Christmas trees or around our houses.  Let’s remember that Mary was a Jewish lamplighter.  She gave us the light of the man we call “Christ.”

Let’s all be lamplighters giving Christ’s light to all around us, especially to family and friends and those still in darkness despite it being Christmas.  These are the ones who still suffer from sadness, loneliness, and fear.  They are like unlit candles.  Let’s touch our flames to their wicks and make them alight.

Deacon David Pierce