“The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light: those who dwell in the land of deep darkness on them a light will shine.” These words from Isaiah can be comprehended in several ways, but since we are standing here between Palm Sunday and Easter Sunday, we understand the light to be Jesus. He is the light that gets rid of the darkness of Good Friday. We are between the Victory March on Palm Sunday and the Resurrection on Easter.
The Resurrection, which followed the crucifixion , destroyed the darkness forever.
When I was a child growing up in the 1940’s, the church I attended with my parents, my brother, my maternal grandparents, and aunts and uncles, was Trinity Lutheran Church which was built or rebuilt on a hill on the cemetery side of State Highway 21 in OLD Dime Box (three miles from NEW Dime Box). At that time in the Community’s history, only about three structures in addition to private residences were located there other than the Church.
Approaching from either direction, you could see the church clearly even though the hill was a small hill. When I left home to make my own way in the world, I remembered my church in the words of Matthew 5:15, “You are the light of the world, — it is impossible to hide a town built on top of the hill. People do not light a lamp and hide it under a basket.”
I remembered that passage whenever I was homesick for my church, the longer being away, the greater the homesickness.
I remembered every Christmas season we would put up our life-size nativity scene made of wood, near the Highway. I think I remember it once or twice being a “live” Nativity Scene. But always lighted with a bright Bethlehem Star.
Highway 21 was usually a very busy Highway, so I wondered how many cars would drive by and see our Nativity Scene. Hundreds? Thousands?
I remember sometimes during the Lenten-Easter Season, we would put up wooden crosses dressed in purple robes during Lent, red on Palm Sunday, and white on Easter. A spotlight on them would make the crosses seem to glow.
How many cars drove by on Highway 21 and saw that?
You can’t help but think of Matthew 5:15, “You are the light of the world . . . You do not hide your light under a basket.”
Many of us will celebrate the light that took away the darkness forever on Easter Sunday.
Ray Spitzenberger is a retired WCJC teacher, a retired LCMS pastor, and author of three books, It Must Be the Noodles, Open Prairies, and Tanka Schoen.