“Because of our God’s deep compassion, the dawn from heaven will break upon us, to give light to those who are sitting in darkness and in the shadow of death, to guide us on the path of peace.” Luke 1: 78-79
Zechariah speaks, for the first time after being rendered mute for his unbelief over his aging wife’s pregnancy, he doesn’t speak again until this prophecy following the naming of his son, John. The last two verses of his prophecy hung with me throughout the recent holiday season. I read them almost daily – they became my Advent, Christmas devotion. For whatever reason, they spoke what I needed to hear. They still do as we are in Epiphany.
I think they hung with me due to their deep promise of God’s presence. The darkness of the world likes to grab our attention and Zechariah reminded me of God’s deep compassion and presence as our guide in all parts of life. Such words inspire resilience in life.
A recent post from The Center for Action and Contemplation talked about resilience in this way.:
“Episcopal priest and researcher Alice Updike Scannell (1938-2019) identified radical resilience as the ability to endure, grow, and thrive through adversity: ‘We usually think of resilience as the ability to recover from an adverse experience and pick up our lives where we left off. It is that too…But there are times when adversity permanently changes our reality and we can’t go back to the way things were…
Resilience then becomes the work of coming through the adversity so that, at least on most days, we see our life is still worth living. With this kind of resilience, we come through the adversity knowing that we’re still ourselves, even though things are very different for us now. I call this radical resilience.”[1]
We hear stories of tremendous suffering. We know people who have had to endure more than their fair share. The dawning light of God’s compassion shines upon all in the birth of Christ. Through faith we can find a resilience to live hopefully each and every day.
Shalom,
Rev. Wendy
[1] Alice Updike Scannell, Building Resilience: When there’s No Going Back to the Way Things Were (new York: Church Publishing, 2017, 2020)