O house of Jacob,
come, let us walk
in the light of the Lord! (Isaiah 2:5)
Maybe you know the old joke. There's a drunk guy standing outside a little ways down the block from a local bar underneath a streetlight, and he starts crouching down and looking around at the ground frantically, like he's searching for something. After a long enough time, an observer passing by asks him what he's doing, and the drunk says, "I'm looking for my keys; they must have fallen out of my pocket." The passerby asks, "Do you know for sure that they fell out over here?" And the drunk says, "No, they fell out of my pocket down the block back by the bar, but it's too dark to see them over there. The light is much here under the streetlight." Insert rimshot on the drums.
Okay, it's a pathetic joke, but there is something oddly real about the conundrum. What if you're in the dark, trying to find your way without stumbling, and the light you would need to illuminate the ground beneath your feet is fixed and far away? We are used to carrying little portable lights with us wherever we go nowadays, at least with our phones that have built-in flash lights. But even before smartphones, we have all lived at a point in history where inventions like flashlights have been around, and before that, there were lanterns, and I suppose before that people had oil lamps and candles. We invented these things, even going back to distant ancestors who made their bonfires portable by turning them into travel-size torches they could carry with them, so that we could carry the light with us. Without those kinds of light sources, whether ancient or modern, we would be left in the pitiable spot of the guy from the joke, looking beneath the streetlight for lost keys even though he knows they are somewhere further back down the block, because the light is fixed in one place.
Maybe that's worth keeping in mind as we consider these words, which many of us heard in worship this past Sunday, about walking "in the light of the Lord." What, precisely, does the prophet Isaiah have in mind with that image? What's the point of this particular metaphor, and what would it mean to walk "in the light of the Lord," practically speaking? And is this kind of light set in place like a streetlight, or is it portable? Does the light of God require us to come to it, or does the light of God go with us?
Ah, that's the question, isn't it? Maybe the whole Christian faith really hangs on that question: is ours a faith that depends on us going out of the dark and into some central illuminated place in order to have access to "the light of the Lord," or does God's light come to find us where we are, no matter how chilly the December wind or how dark and starless the clouded sky above us might be? Does God require us to go somewhere else to be where the light is, or does the light come to us, and then go with us?
It seems to me that the witness of the Scriptures over and over is the latter: ours is a God who doesn't wait to be discovered up in some sunny celestial spot for us, but comes to us in "this benighted sphere" as the old hymn puts it, and brings the light to where we are. This God of ours comes to us as we are, even when are intoxicated, inebriated, and looking for our lost keys in the wrong place, and then accompanies us all the way home. The Light of God goes with us, in other words.
In a way, that's really what the good news of the Incarnation--the coming of God in human flesh in Jesus--is all about. The Gospel's declaration is not that God has set up a streetlight in the universe, and if you can grope your way in the dark to reach it, you can bask in its radiance there. Rather, the Good News is that God has come to meet us precisely where we are, befuddled and benighted, and shares both our own humanity and our journey as the Light we travel by.
Whatever else this season brings, and whatever other things have been piled onto your calendar and to-do list, don't forget that promise. God isn't waiting for you to come to the light first; God brings the light to where we are, and accompanies us all the way home.
O God, our Light, meet us where we are today, as we are, and be the lamp for our feet.
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