In the Glow of Presence

The light on the communion table was always on in the sanctuary of my home church, illuminating the bas relief of the last supper set into the front. It became a kind of spiritual practice of mine, home from college for one kind of break or another, to borrow my Dad's keys, let myself into the darkened sanctuary, and settle into a back pew. Perhaps I prayed; perhaps I was simply quiet, absorbing the stillness into an otherwise frenetic life. I no longer remember. Perhaps I simply sat in the empty room, the silence interrupted by the creaks and groans of the big room settling into its own comfortable repose, the darkness pierced only by the muted glow of that table centered in the chancel. I never climbed the steps into the balcony. I did not want to look down from above it all. I preferred to look up to it, and its iconic scene. From my position in the back of the room, the subtleties of the details were blurred. But I knew the story, and could flesh out the characters in my mind - their animated conversation, some leaning in and some turning away. And Jesus at the center of the table with the bread and the cup. I don't recall how long I would stay - minutes perhaps; not likely an hour. But in those however-many-minutes I sat there I was transfixed by the capacious room, the edgy silence, the encompassing darkness, the gentle light at the forefront of it all that the darkness could not overcome; the presence. Eventually, I would whisper a grateful "amen", take my leave, turning the key behind me.

Over the weekend we dressed the house for the holidays. Nutcrackers stand guard here and there, a pair of iron reindeer made by a friend look down at us from atop the hutch. Advent candles anchor the table, while the tree, adorned with lights and the bric a brac accumulated over the years, anchors the room. Morning and evening I press the switch to illuminate the tree - the tiny twinkles imitating the stars yet visible through the glass behind.

But this year we also added something new. In truth, it's something fairly old - a nativity scene made by Lori's parents years and years ago, with its ceramic figures and wooden stable. We assembled the scene on the table in the sunroom, on the opposite side of the great room from the sofa and the fireplace where I routinely begin and end my days. And there, its soft light gently illuminating the scene, answers the twinkles of the tree like an antiphon of faith. I used to be a stickler for "accuracy", in such matters, withholding the wise men from the weeks of Advent, finally introducing them on January 6th - the day of the Epiphany. But I no longer carry that burden. Our scene is as crowded as Jerusalem was in that account narrated in the gospel of Luke that left no room in the inn. We have sheep and cows, shepherds and magi, camels, Mary and Joseph, all silently reverencing the mangered baby; all having come to "see this thing that God has done." And an angel.

And mystically, in the quiet of the early morning darkness and again in the settled dark of the evening, the sofa across the way becomes a pew in the back, a beckoning glow across the way centers my gaze. A nativity, or perhaps a Passover table. The sermon is the same:
    • Presence;
        • Emmanuel;
            • The Reign of God is among you;
                • "Don't be afraid;
                    • "This is my body..."
                        • "Take, eat and drink."
                           • "Good news of great joy for all people."
                                • "The Word became flesh and lived among us."

And in the gentle light, viewed from the far side of the room, we have seen his glory.
Amen.