DATE Friday, December 19, 2008

IN 1988, I attended the Christmas Eve midnight Eucharist at New York’s Trinity
Church. The church was packed, the prayers and preaching profound, the music
glorious. A dark shadow surrounded us, though: three days earlier, Pan Am flight
#103 had exploded over Lockerbie, Scotland. 259 travelers and 11 on the ground
were wiped out by a terrorists’ bomb, and hundreds of bereaved family members
would have an agonizing Christmas. We prayed for those lost, for the families, for
peace and an end to violence, but in the face of such catastrophe, it was hard to
imagine healing, even from God.

At the end of the service, though, something happened. The lights were dimmed to
almost total darkness. We sang Silent Night, and as we reached the line “Radiant
beams from thy holy face,” a light came on, illuminating a stained glass portrait
of Christ. The light cut through the darkness of the night, reminding us that
God’s light will always shine through the blackest times. We had encountered an
unimaginable act of iniquity, but as Scripture promises, we were given the blessed
hope of the glory of our great God and Savior. The radiant beams of Jesus Christ
will be with us always.

PRAYER Brilliant God, your gleaming light illuminates our hearts and minds,
restoring our hope even in the harshest times. May your light continue
to shine for us and through us, until we can bathe in the light of the
newborn Sun of God. Amen.

For the grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation to all, training us to
renounce impiety and worldly passions, and in the present age to live lives that
are self-controlled, upright, and godly, while we wait for the blessed hope and the
manifestation of the glory of our great God and Saviour, Jesus Christ. He it is
who gave himself for us that he might redeem us from all iniquity and purify
for himself a people of his own who are zealous for good deeds.
Titus 2:11-14 Elizabeth Dickey, student

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