“Arise, shine; for your light has come, and the glory of the LORD has risen upon you. For darkness shall cover the earth, and thick darkness the peoples; but the LORD will arise upon you, and his glory will appear over you.” (Isaiah 60:1-2, NRSV)
Happy birthday, 2019! New Years is a time of celebration, of beginning, and of resolution. It’s a time to look back at all that occurred in 2018 and a time to look forward to what might come in 2019. For many of us, the New Year is a time to set intentions. But, after who or what do we model our intentions? It just so happens that holy texts and religious calendars are great places from which to derive inspiration. This Sunday (6 January) marks the beginning of Epiphany, the season in Christianity which tells the story of Jesus’s life and ministry in order to exemplify his Divinity. We’re introduced to Epiphany with the above verses from Isaiah in which we read that “the glory of the LORD had risen.” Specifically, we’re told that God’s glory “has risen upon you” – upon us – covering us in glory (Isaiah 60:1). Thus, we can look to the glory of the LORD as the lens through which we consider our resolutions for 2019. What, then, would this look like? Using God’s indiscriminate and abundant glory as our framework means modeling our lives after Christ’s life. It means striving to see the Divine in others, just as we come to know Christ’s Divinity in Epiphany. Because God came to our world through Christ, we all were and are forevermore exposed to the Divine. Christ brought Light to the world, making us “arise, shine” (60:1). All of creation receives this Light; receives God’s glory. As stewards of God’s Love and as stewards of creation, we have a responsibility to be the light that Christ brought to our world. Witnessing the Light of Christ’s Divinity and shifting our mindset to see the Divine in others is the best resolution we could set. Once we do, we “shall see and be radiant; [our] heart shall thrill and rejoice, because the abundance of the sea shall be brought to [us], the wealth of the nations shall come to [us]” (Isaiah 60:5). |