When the lights go out
Does anyone else have scary cupboards in their house? Not in the Halloween sense but in the “I treat this cupboard as if it were a black hole” sense. Plastic bags breed in my understairs cupboard, jostling for space with wellies, umbrellas, screenwash, bottles, tool-kit, random keys and general detritus. I could go on and on but risk boring you. Today, I braved the chaos to retrieve the coolbox to take to Johnny’s wedding this week (not literally to the wedding but to the Airbnb). It was lodged near the back and it was quite an operation to get it out.
Half an hour later, I am back at my laptop to find that there is no internet. I discover that the entire house is in blackout. I check my fusebox – all is well. My neighbours don’t have a powercut so I am perplexed until my trusty neighbour, Swifty the plumber, comes in and shows me that my shenanigans with the cupboard knocked the mains switch which was hidden in the corner.
It was a little preview of life without power. I lost my connection with the world. Everything went dark.
I have been thinking all week about how the Christian life is a connected life. If we disconnect from the power and love of God, everything goes dark. It is God who keeps our lamps burning.
Our society is ever more fragmented and disconnected. Not for nothing are we the age of the selfie. The I in identity fills our online discussions and too many are lonely.
The truly Christian life is a connected life. Never alone. Always drawing from the love of the Father, always propelled by that love to care for others. That’s why churches are planning to create bright warm spaces at a time many are scared of a life without power, of losing light and heat because of the cost. God keeps our lamp burning so that we can light up a dark world.
Honestly, it's the best thing when I see people connect with God. I can still see the joy that lit up the face of one lady who told me last week that she had met with Christ. Then I prayed with someone who escaped Iran only days before; she wept with me, deeply grateful that she has found a church family here - a place to connect. The Christian life is a connected life.
As we hear about the heating crisis and the news tells us about the spiralling cost of our power, here is a reminder that the bright light of God’s revelation and the warmth of God’s love also comes at a cost – but this cost is borne by God himself. Christ was cut off so that we would never be. Now God offers himself as an infinite source of love and light in our lives.
You, LORD, keep my lamp burning; my God turns my darkness into light. Psalm 18:28
