Put yourself in the month...
Illustration
Object:
Put yourself in the month of June. Muggy June, hot June, outside in the evening at ten or eleven, when the stars are bright drops in the sky and only floodlights make the yard recognizable. The lights are on in the kitchen. Now take a look at that kitchen window screen. It's crawling with insects: shiny, smooth June bugs, mosquitoes, powdered moths, midges, all of them drawn to the glow of electric lighting. Turn off the light and these six-legged beggars disappear in the night. Turn it back on and within minutes the screen will be bustling again. Jesus is that electric light, and we are those insects: shiny, smooth, stinging, powdered, buzzing -- or, in the words of a children's song, "red and yellow, black and white." Turn off the beacon that is Jesus or blind our eyes to the light, and we are lost in the black forest of the world. The pinpricks of starlight overhead are not enough, though we think they may be at first. In Isaiah's text, the floodlight has turned on. We don't care who is beside us as we make our way toward the light; we only strive to feel its warmth. Red or yellow, black or white: Come and warm yourselves as well.
