Darkness and Light

Today we had the Annual Service of our local Hospice at Home.

It is a service full of deep emotion. 

[Extracts]
It is fundamental to the human experience that Light and Darkness go together even though they seem to be mutually exclusive.  Good and Evil, Rejoicing and Mourning.  In almost every book and film and sporting event these appear together in some way.

Light and Darkness. Today is so much about this as we reflect on our story and the story of others.  Stories that had dark times.  People looking into our stories from the outside – at least those parts of the story that bring us here today - thought it was one long dark time.  But it was not.  There were lights along the way.

People looking in from the outside to the work of hospice care probably often think it is a very dark area of service. There is no point in pretending that hospice work resembles a character at a Disney Theme Park where every day is light and bright.  It works with a backdrop that is often darker than we would choose if we could choose.  But with that backdrop hospice nursing helps people to paint in the beautiful colours of love a light in the darkness.

The essence of Christmas is similar here in Northern Europe - little lights against the backdrop of darkness.  This was the model that was deemed wholly appropriate to represent the real story of God’s love coming to us in Jesus of Nazareth.

In him was life, and that life was the light of all mankind.  The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.

The exceptional quality of this Gospel light is that it can offer something that no other organisation, way of thinking or kind friend can offer . . .  What is the true story?  Does it all end in darkness or does it all end in light?

All the evidence, sadly, points toward it ending in darkness: the edges of the universe, the end of the sun, the experience of life.

And that is what makes Christmas, and the advent of a Saviour, Good News for us all.  Soon after his birth the baby Jesus was presented in the Temple at Jerusalem to a man who was at the end of his life.  The man’s name was Simeon.   Having held the baby he said,

Lord, now you let your servant depart in peace; Your word has been fulfilled.  My eyes have seen the salvation You have prepared in the sight of every people, a light to reveal you to the nations and the glory of your people, Israel

 The end of the Gospel story is Light . . .

 

 

Eternal God, source of all light and life . . .Further from us you could not be, yet nearer to us you could not have come.  Thank you that light has come into the world, and love, and hope.  As we reflect and remember may we grasp more firmly the Advent of hope and the brightness of future glory . . .Through the love you have shown to us in Christ that is stronger than death 

 

. . . We thank you for the wonderful work the [Hospice staff] do and the special blessings that so many continue to receive from them. We give thanks for their patience, their empathy, their kindness and for the giving of themselves to ease the pain, the fear and the uncertainty of others.

Lord, help them to love their work and to feel that they are really doing your work . . . Grant them sympathy with the frightened and nervous; to never neglect those who are quiet and uncomplaining and to have a steady nerve when difficult things have to be done and tough decisions made.  Give them efficiency; but make them kind. Make them firm; but always understanding too. Bless them with gentleness in their hands and sympathy in their hearts.

In the name of Jesus, the Saviour of the World, Amen

Chaplains

The end of life is difficult when it comes slowly, but what better place to live out those last days that the coast of Florida? Be prepared, though, that should you end up in one particular hospice you may find the chaplains have a limited spiritual input, limited by sometimes not being allowed to include God in what they say!

I've spent time (alright, I confess, had meals) with two very interesting chaplains on my Sabbatical and both of them also work with limitations, though not the ridiculous one from Boca Raton.

The first was a chaplain in the British Army for 22 years. These days he's a local vicar and, needless to say, the services in his church always start (and finish) exactly on time! He told me how, as he went further into his chaplaincy, he could always spot a newly-appointed chaplain. He would be the one who carried books or Bibles, mini communion sets and other religious encumbrances.

"When you've been a chaplain a while," he said to me over lunch, "you understand that all you have and all you can carry is you and your faith."

The second chaplain is blog-sensitive because he is working in a medical facility in a fiercely Islamic country where any proselytising would get him on the next plane and the convert possibly into the next life. Yet despite that apparent limitation he was hugely excited about his work and his witness.

"There's a lot that I cannot say and some things I cannot do, but there are a lot more people watching who I am than would ever happen in a parish."

Chaplaincy is perhaps a reminder to believers that wherever we are we can bear a witness to God. Except, possibly and ironically, in a dying corner of Florida in the land to which the Pilgrim Fathers fled to secure religious freedom . . .