Light in the Wilderness
December 2, 2018
The Annunciation, Sandro Botticelli; 1489
THE fish is made for the sea and the hawk is made for the open sky. But the human soul is made for eternity. We were made to swim in changelessness, to soar above the little things.
And yet here we are. In the wilderness of time. Can we put our feet nowhere and stay? We look inside and see chasms of bewildering nothingness.
When a small child goes to a rocky beach, he has an instinctive urge to pick up a pebble and throw it in the water. He likes to toss things around. But he is fascinated by the ‘plunk’ of the little stone in the water. It is the sound of depths. We throw ourselves into life. As we do, we hear mysterious depths. They are within ourselves. An ocean within. Or an infinite sky. We only feel truly ourselves when we are soaring in it.
If this vastness is truly nothing, or an impersonal infinitude, then all is meaningless. If it is something, then everything is possible.
The founder of only one religion said that everything is possible — on the condition that we love Him.
How odd. Moses didn’t command people to love him. Muhammad didn’t say his followers must love him. Neither did Confucius or Martin Luther. But Jesus said we must love Him. Only an egomaniac — or God — would demand that sort of devotion.
Infinitude and finitude — can we fathom these contradictions within ourselves? We resolve them by loving the Man who was God. In adoration, the conflict vanishes.
In the beginning was the Word: and the Word was with God: and the Word was God. The same was in the beginning with God. All things were made by him: and without him was made nothing that was made. In him was life: and the life was the light of men. And the light shineth in darkness: and the darkness did not comprehend it. John 1:1-5
Advent, the season in which we light candles in the wilderness of this frantic, restless world, more frantic and restless than ever, begins today.
These candles seem so modest, but they are the expression of exalted aspirations. They are pebbles tossed into a bottomless sea. We light our own hardened hearts. We make room for the divine babe. We prepare them anew for that wonderful truth.
In one moment of history, all human longing was answered. And the depths, they were beautiful.
