Daily Lesson for January 6, 2015

Today's Daily Lesson comes from Psalm 49 verses 6 and 7:


6  He says:
“It is too light a thing that you should be my servant
to raise up the tribes of Jacob
and to bring back the preserved of Israel;
I will make you as a light for the nations,
that my salvation may reach to the end of the earth.”
7 Thus says the Lord,
the Redeemer of Israel and his Holy One,
to one deeply despised, abhorred by the nation,
the servant of rulers:
Kings shall see and arise;
princes, and they shall prostrate themselves;
because of the Lord, who is faithful,
the Holy One of Israel, who has chosen you.”

Today is the Feast of Epiphany -- the day we remember the star's appearance to the three Kings in the East and their long journey to the town of Bethlehem.  It is a day for remembering that we ourselves are called to be -- as the Apostle Paul put it -- "as lights shining in the universe."

"You are the light of the world," Jesus said. On one hand that sounds so ridiculous.  The light of the world?  But I am so dim, the light in me so small. As Gregory of Nazianzus said, I am but "a lamp up against the sun", a smoldering wick beneath a dark and dense night's sky.

And yet, the smoldering wick pushes back the night's darkness. It's not much; but it is enough.  This defiant wick in me is enough to drive the dark away.

After being off the air for several days in the wake of 9-11, The David Letterman Show came back on on September 17, 2001 with musical guests Odetta and the Harlem Boys' Choir. Odetta and the children sang, "This Little Light of Mine".

Amidst all the darkness around me today, I'm going to choose to let the defiant little light given to me shine.  And I'm gonna let it shine, let it shine, let it shine.

Maybe my light won't drive all the darkness away, but I'm going to trust that it will make the difference where it needs to . . .