Today is the 3rd Sunday of Advent, and today, December 13th, is also Saint Lucy’s day. The Feast of St. Lucy is not a major feast day, so it does not take precedence over a regular Sunday service. This is not like Mary Sunday where we get special Mary readings and Mary prayers. It is not like All Saints Sunday with special All Saints readings and All Saints prayers. And even though today is not technically a major feast day, for some people it is pretty major. It is definitely an important feast day for them. If that is the case for you, you probably have some kind of connection to either parts of Italy or Scandinavia, because that is where Lucy is most often celebrated. This is my own story, my own heritage. I have some Scandinavian heritage, so we grew up celebrating St. Lucy’s Day, and we celebrate it in my own house with wonderful Scandinavian traditions of the wreath with the candles, saffron buns, and other traditions.
The way I tend to think about it is that there are two Lucys. There is the Lucy of history and there is a Lucy of legend. The Lucy of history is the Lucy of Italy. It is a true story about a young woman who was a martyr for the faith. I’m not going to tell you that story because it is way too gruesome. You can find it on your own if you want to.
The other Lucy is the Lucy of legend, and that is the Lucy of Scandinavia, the stories that I grew up with. I have to go on a little side journey here for just a minute. Under the old calendar, the old Julian calendar before our modern Gregorian calendar, it wasn’t calibrated quite right. You would not notice this in your lifetime, but over centuries the solstice was drifting. Eventually the winter solstice had moved all the way up to December 13th, the Feast of St. Lucy. In Nordic countries, where it gets dark for almost the entire day at that time of year, the winter solstice is an important moment because it signifies the ushering in of the light, of the sun returning. It was a significant moment. And this was also the Feast Day for Lucy, and Lucy’s name means light. On this day where everything is going to turn and light is going to begin to come back, it is a Feast Day of one whose name means light. You can see why this became so important to them. What a great day to have a feast to celebrate and bring some light into the darkness.
All kinds of legends grew up around Lucy, and I’ll tell you one of them because it is not gruesome. In Sweden there was a famine, the people were running out of food. It was nearing December 13th, the Feast of St. Lucy, and they were not sure how they were going to feed themselves through the winter. It was looking likely they would starve to death. On the Feast of St. Lucy, they looked out in the distance and saw a light coming towards them. As it got closer, they could see it was a young woman with candles in a wreath on her head, and she was carrying food. She gave that food to the villagers, which allowed them to survive that winter.
The Lucy of history and the Lucy of legend have a connection in their name, but also their stories. They are different, the gruesome story of historical Lucy and the mythic story of St. Lucy, but both are connected to the name meaning light. Even in the gruesome details there is the connection to light because she cannot see. She cannot see the light, but yet she can still see the light of Christ. In the Lucy of legend, she is coming through the darkness, bearing light in the candles, and also metaphorically with the food she is bringing to help the people survive. The darkness was not only the time of year, but also the darkness in their lives and the struggles they were facing. Both the Lucy of history and the Lucy of legend are about light.
The light in each of them is not their own light. It is the light of Christ. In the Lucy of history and her martyrdom, she is willing to bear witness to that light of Christ in her life. She is willing to be stronger than all the darkness and all the suffering and challenges they tried to throw her way. She holds on and sees the light of Christ that guides her. The Lucy of legend is bringing light to people, she is feeding people. Jesus, who taught us to love our neighbor. Jesus, who taught us to feed the hungry and bring drink to those who are thirsty. She is bringing that kind of light. It is not her own light that is important. She is pointing to the greater light, the light of Christ in this world. And we commemorate her because she so profoundly did that.
In our Gospel reading today, we hear about a light. Right before the Gospel reading, we hear that Jesus is the light of the world, the light that came into the world, the light that is so powerful that the darkness cannot overcome it. In the Gospel we hear about John the Baptist. It says that he was not the light, but he bore witness to the light. Lucy was not the light, but she bore witness to the light.
It is the same thing for us, for you and me. We are not the light, but we bear witness to the light. We help reflect the light of Christ in this world. The story of John the Baptist goes on to say that he had his own followers, he was baptizing, and he was able to point to Jesus and say that He is the one, He is the Lamb of God. John bore witness to the light. He directed his followers to Jesus. Lucy of history bore witness to the light through her profound courage in facing her martyrdom. The Lucy of legend bore witness through acts of charity. She reflected that light in this world.
That is what you and I are doing, as followers of Jesus like John and like Lucy. We are reflecting that light, we are bearing witness to that light. In the middle of this world that is so full of darkness, literally as we approach the solstice, but also in the metaphorical sense of the darkness that we face in this world. The darkness is so strong right now in the middle of a pandemic. Public health officials are warning us that it is going to get worse as numbers keep rising. More than 3,000 people a day are dying from Covid 19. There is also the darkness from the wake of the pandemic. We have the physical danger of the virus itself, but also the economic challenges we are facing, the psychological and emotional and spiritual challenges we are facing from the isolation and lack of physical contact. These are dangerous times. These are dangerous situations for us. There is darkness. And yet like John the Baptist and like Lucy, we are in the middle of this darkness and we are meant to reflect light into it, to help bear witness to the light of Christ that the darkness cannot overcome.
There are many ways we can do that, and our Saturday Breakfast is doing that very thing by bringing food to people who are hungry, and through the collection of cold weather gear to help keep people warm on these very cold days and nights. We are helping bear witness to the light by reflecting the light of Christ back into this world.
There are other ways to do it, too. Right now, a lot of people are feeling loneliness. They are feeling the pain of isolation. What they need is for someone to reach out to them by a letter, a phone call. Simple things like that can lift the day. It has with me. I have received some letters, I have received some phone calls over the last few months, and they lift my day.
My friends in Christ, that is our task. Not to be the light ourselves, but to reflect that light of God, that light of Christ in this world. To reflect that to other people so they do not stumble in the darkness, but make their way through it. I encourage you to find ways this week to help reflect that light and brighten somebody’s day.
AMEN
