At church today we were celebrating the beginning of Advent. Pastor had the kids come up for the children’s sermon and she talked a bit about the meaning of the new season and why the church had different colours and some different decorations.
She showed everyone the Advent log that was at the side of the altar, and told us all that when the acolyte lit the first candle on the log we were going to sing a hymn about the Light of God.
Well, no sooner was the candle lit and the congregation singing about God’s Light than the dim church was lit up by a brilliant ray of sunshine blasting through the stain glass windows up top. Jacob and I looked at each other and ohhhed and ahhhed and I thought maybe it was just us who noticed that God in fact was making sure we knew that He was shining light in. I asked the kids during Children’s Chapel and every one of them had noticed the same thing. Their responses went from “cool” to “creepy” but they all noticed how our church was brightened when we were singing about letting the Light in.
I thought it was a pretty cool reminder of how brilliance, light and love can be found everywhere. Sometimes you have to look a little harder to find it, and sometimes (like today) it’s put right out there in the open, in the literalist of ways for you to find.