Readings: Genesis 1:1-5, Hebrews 12:2 and John 12:44-48

The beginning of Genesis chapter one is one of those times when our imagination meets with a reverent awe and wonder. As in the darkness of night we can gaze up at a sea of stars and feel so small and vulnerable against the unimaginable expanse and forces of the universe beyond. Creation, nature, in all its richness and diversity, breadth and depth can inspire that sense of the spiritual, and the religious – that unfathomable and numinous beauty of life and love stirring within us.

Both fear and wonder shape the pilgrim journey through life, it is the common ground between us. Fear is born of what is beyond our sight, beyond ourselves, like the future, mysterious, uncertain and dark. The future is a kind of absence to us, a darkness that we cannot see. It lies beyond our human boundaries of what is known and present. Absence is not something we can absorb, it has to be filled with love, like a seed that is planted in the now and grows into the beyond. God is love, and in Him there is no darkness. Only in Him, can we safely go beyond reason and dwell in the assurance of our faith.

The first act of creation was that of place, of heaven and earth, places to dwell, places to be. But the earth was dark and without form, where the laws of nature were not yet and order was to come. And God said, ‘Let there be light’, and there was light, created in His image, for God is light, and we are children of the light. His light is life, for it sustained the plants created before the sun, so that in the Garden of Eden mankind was given His life and love as food in every seed-bearing plant on the face of the earth and every tree that has fruit with seed in it.

After the great flood God also gave us the animals and declared all foods to be clean, as the memory of sin had been washed away in all flesh. And now, in the Eucharist we do not drink the life of an animal, but we eat and drink the transcendent life and Spirit of God – his flesh the memory of His life that was then, and is now, and His Spirit that ignites the fire which cleanses our hearts and lights our way.

Jesus comes to us as the light, the dawn of a new day, and as the food we depend on to be fruitful and multiply. Jesus journeyed with us bound to time as a single point of encounter, a singularity – alone in kind, being fully God whilst being fully connected to us as all in all. Jesus is the unity of all nature and all transcendence, like the brightest star giving out light in every direction whilst infinitely renewed as the Father.

Our Father who art in heaven, is one. Jesus tells us, “The one who looks at me is seeing the one who sent me”. He comes so that what was dark in our exile is now light, that which was unseen is now seen – that He is the image of God, and the God of our seeing. With His life, He has painted an image of love with words and presence to fix the mind on an image of light rather than darkness.

The darkness was separated from the light, so that the empty space allows us to turn toward or away from Him our God, so that evil is not created but chosen, and that our love also a choice is true.

If we fix our eyes on Jesus our whole bodies are filled with light, and darkness is no more. Boundaries disappear, all is light – we see no beginning, we see no end only the continuity of all things. This internal reality of the soul and Spirit – it changes our seeing, so that fragmentation of all created things is only an appearance to mind. In the light our minds are transformed, we begin to see our interconnectedness, our interdependence. We begin to see beauty in diversity because we recognise the majesty of our Creator in the patient work of His hands – we see His thread running through all things, we see the value and worth intrinsic to being, not earned, but loved. Beauty is found in love, and God loves all that He made, so that He came to us as the Son, not to judge, but to save in uniting us to Himself. Truth will be the judge when death comes.  

It is no wonder death and darkness live together in the imagination as our eyes close to sleep, all we experience is the dark – and death is the eternal sleep. But death in Christ is a healing and healing is light which is His touch of love and life, where every tear is wiped away.

“Come to me all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls.” (Matthew 11:28-30).

Jesus has carried the memory of what was in the world across to heaven, the place beyond our seeing, so that when we begin the final journey of death to life, we no longer need to fear what will be for we know who is there to greet us. He has carried our knowing to heaven so that our fear, our darkness is filled in with His light.

He is our beginning and our end.

So let us fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfector of our faith, and ‘the sun will rise with healing in its rays’. (Malachi 4:2). But as His light shines into the darkness of our minds we do not always understand or perceive it to be Him (John 1:5). We see this when the Lord calls out to Samuel, he did not recognise or understand it to be God, instead he got up and ran to Eli thinking it was him. (1 Samuel 3:4-10). We may hear the call but run to every other place instead of Jesus to find the answer. That sense of eternity and the call of God is in every human heart, and the light of God is in the baptised who may or may not go to Church.

So how do we find Him, and where do we see Him? It is a question I ask frequently, where is God in this? Perhaps we look to one another as we were created in the image of God – though we are not God, each one of us is more precious than any jewel, the soul of every human being is the sweet breath of God, and His fire is in the eyes of the baptised. Our love, lived within the stories of our lives help point the way to Him. A delicate weave of encounters between heaven and earth because God guides each one of us who turns to Him. Encounters, face to face, looking into the eyes of another create the bonds of trust, and relationship – we are not creatures of the abstract, but of the tangible, and visible. Encounters are the place of meeting, and meaning is constructed through dialogue, and exchange. St Francis encountered God in prayer before a cross.  By turning our attention to God in music, or in silence and prayer – in meditation of scripture or art, and in the love we share, we can touch the light of heaven. If we enter a church and are not encountering the actual presence of God then are we not leaving ourselves to be spiritual alone in nature under the stars?

God is in His church waiting for us to find Him, and His church is His community of being on earth as it is in heaven. Our God, Jesus, who became that single point of encounter, a living sacrament before our eyes, wants to be a part of our everyday, our daily pilgrimage through life in all its struggles. If we walk into a church and are not overwhelmed by the meditation of Jesus hanging on the cross; by the blood of His sacrifice, or submerged in His love – then we must ask ourselves why? Because the cross cries out to us ‘Come as you are – look at me, see me, I am with you’.

The throne of God in heaven is filled with many colours, and He remembers us every time we see a rainbow. So let the modern-day puritans eat bread and water at home, but feast in the house of our Lord – the creator of diversity, so that we walk by faith and unity in Him, not by the sight of our own seeing, but by the colourful light of our God in heaven.

Let each of us, a little fragment of being – a little part of a whole, be cemented together with gold – the golden light of the morning star that is Jesus Christ, our Lord and our God.

Amen.