Interfering With Satellites

First Week of Advent

Luke 21:25-28, 34-36

“…people will see the Chosen One coming on a cloud with great power and glory. When these things begin to happen, stand up straight and raise your heads, because your ransom is near at hand.”

When I had my business, our winter activity was to install Christmas lights on customers’ homes. It was a good business, but it was crazy. We’d start putting lights the week before Halloween (yup, you read that right) and go hard until Thanksgiving. Everybody wanted to turn on their lights on Thanksgiving Day. If I could have found three more crews, I could have sold and installed that many more jobs. We would still install jobs right up until Christmas, but they would be smaller jobs. The crazy thing is that almost everyone turned OFF the lights Christmas night. But that's a story for a different time.

When we first began the service, we used our house as a training site. So just about every light we could install, we did. To say that our house was the brightest on the block would be an understatement. We got a call from NASA asking us to tone it down because it was interfering with their satellites.  With her hands on her hips, she sternly informed me that “next year” we would not have so many lights. I was to find some other poor soul to use as a training site. I still put up some lights, but, in comparison, it’s pretty lame.

And yet, each year, we would take our kids out for a ride to look at the lights our service put up and all the others as well. There is just something magical about seeing an otherwise dark and dreary street. It really does put a smile on our faces. Bright and colorful lights can do that. While our attention is focused on doing all the things we have to do to get ready for Christmas, we can pause to enjoy all the lights every once in a while. That’s Advent.

Jesus tells his followers to look for signs of his return. He does not say when that will be, but to just patiently wait. Ah, but not just patiently wait, but to be on guard. We are not to get lazy or distracted lest we are caught off guard by the return of God’s Chosen one. Sitting around on the couch all day is not waiting for the Lord. Complaining about politics or religion is not waiting for the Lord. Ignoring the plight of the marginalized in our world is not waiting for the Lord.

God shows me that there is still a lot of darkness in this world and that I am to be God’s light in that darkness. I cannot get complacent thinking that with all the evil and darkness that exists that I cannot do anything about it. I try to remember that if a room is dark, and I walk in with one small candle, the entire room will be illuminated. From just one small candle. That’s Advent.

God’s light is in me. It always has been. I did not always know that, but it’s true, nonetheless. Now that I am aware of that light and the power of that light, I find that I cannot help but want to share it. I want to shed that light on the injustice and violence, racism and prejudice, intolerance and hatred, hunger and loneliness that exists in this land. I can’t and won’t be able to solve it all by myself. But, you see, that's why I talk about it. Perhaps someone else will join me and share their light. Then another, and maybe even a few more. Pretty soon, we are interfering with satellites. That's Advent.

Every Day.

© 2024 by Timothy J. Doppel

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