Christmastide Devotionals

The Eleventh Day of January 4, 2021 “Sure On This Shining Night"

I first heard this song at a Lessons & Carols service here at UPC around five years ago. That same year, about a week or so later, my daughter was born at 6:14 am on . Looking back, I remember the delivery room in the hospital being so very dark in those frightening and exhausting overnight hours during labor. When the time came for the baby to be born, the hospital room was suddenly flooded with the blinding lights of the high-powered overhead lights they use during medical procedures. People were everywhere, nurses and doctors, passing trays of jangling equipment and poking machines that beeped and whirred. The rush of activity, of emotion, of sound and lights overwhelmed the moment – all darkness, all silence, all mystery, all intimacy – banished in service of a safe and healthy delivery. Thanks be to God.

And then it was over. All the people left. The machines were rolled out. The overhead lights were turned off. In the dark and silence, I stood in front of the hospital room’s only window and held our newborn baby girl in my arms. And as I held this beautiful new baby, I heard again the music of Sure On This Shining Night. “I weep for wonder wandering far alone.” “Hearts all healed.” As the song wove itself, unbidden yet welcome, into the fabric of that moment, I looked up from my daughter’s sleeping face, out the cold hospital window, just in time to see the faintest trace of orange sunlight seep onto the bare winter horizon. After the long night in darkness, after the blinding rush of light and sound and people, after those things came this brief moment, this gift, this play of orange sunlight rising ever so gently amidst the still shining stars in an inky- blue winter sky.

The profound experience of light and music and life in that moment is nearly impossible for me to capture in words, but its beauty remains a vivid memory close to my heart. This gentle play of sunlight breaking through the dark night still shining with stars reminds me of these Christmastide days. Together we draw out of the darkness of , through the rush of light and sound and people on Christmas, then back into darkness – a darkness not quite as frightening as before, where the gentle and holy light of begins to rise amidst the sparkling darkness – that gentle and holy darkness. In these waning days of Christmastide, in a darkness forever changed, we hold this in our arms and look toward the horizon. We see the dawning light of his ministry and the coming salvation of the world. We see the rising of his glory and the illumination of the wisdom, justice, and love he brings. We see the manifestation of the Word of God made flesh, dwelling among us, full of grace and truth. And all that will come soon enough. But give me just a few more minutes in this gentle darkness of this shining night, with this baby in my arms, so I can know, perhaps for the first time, what a “heart all whole” feels like.

UNIVERSITY PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH • 2203 San Antonio Street • Austin, Texas 78705-5298

Prayer O Star-Abiding One, gather the lights of heaven and earth to celebrate the dawn of your Son, Christ. Gather the colors and textures of the darkness around us that we might find rest and comfort in these days. And when the time comes, open our eyes to his glory and to the wisdom of your Spirit, that our hearts and minds may find illumination as we seek to be your faithful disciples. Amen.

John Leedy Associate Pastor

Listen: "Sure On This Shining Light"