Light in the Window - February 10, 2024

On the island of St. John’s, a short hike takes you to Peace Hill, and the ruins of a sugar mill established in 1718 by the Danish West India and Guinea Company. This was once a plantation powered by the labor and suffering of enslaved West Africans. Colonel Julius Wadsworth, a strong advocate for world peace, purchased the land in an attempt to bring the idea of peace somewhere where peace was once hopeless. He also had a statue of Christ built next to the ruins of the windmill in 1953, dedicated to the hope for “Inner and Outer Peace”. It had faint echoes of the Christ the Redeemer statue in Rio de Janeiro, and was large enough to be used as a navigational tool in its time. In 1975, the Colonel donated the land to the Virgin Islands National Park, and they still maintain it today. 

The statue of “The Christ of the Caribbean” fell in 1995 with Hurricane Marilyn and the National Park service has decided not to rebuild it. Today, people of all religious traditions enjoy this hill dedicated to world peace, even as it opens a window revealing a history of injustice and suffering in an otherwise beautiful place.

This Sunday we will hear the story of another mountaintop, where the glory of God was revealed in a moment we call transfiguration. Students from Cleveland School of the Arts will join us in worship. Perhaps we will catch glimpses of God’s joyful and inclusive kin-dom. 

Meanwhile we still live in a world of both beauty and suffering, as reflected in this week’s prayer from the website www.worldinprayer.org. May we have the courage to be like Jesus. To see where and what love is asking of us.

Peace,

Pastor Jessie

[email protected]

God of Love,

As we turn from the light of Epiphany towards the shadowland of Lent, may we, your beloved, take comfort in the profound story of Love Come Down. Comfort in a Jesus who left the mountaintop of Transfiguration and came down into the low places of suffering and pain, power and violence, came walking with footsteps of Love. And walks here among us still…

For the places in the world where extreme violence is a daily burden:

In Gaza and Israel as a cease-fire was just rejected. May the path to lasting peace be opened.

In Ukraine, where Russia has increased airstrikes in the last few days. May the path to lasting peace be opened.

For Pakistan where a bomb blast has killed dozens a day before voting that is marred by violence and claims of rigging.

For global threads of connection as the United States votes on a bill giving aid to places of war.

For Sudan where an internet outage comes on top of a 10-month civil war which has forced nine million from their homes.

May everyone feel the peace of Love Come Down even in places of no peace.

For our groaning earth and for us as we groan along with:

In the United States where heavy rains and landslides devastated parts of Southern California.

In Chile where deadly forest fires have destroyed acres along the coastal region and have left hundreds of people still missing.

A pod of a dozen killer whales trapped by drift ice off Japan’s northern island.

For the Amazon rainforest, the “lungs of the planet,” in Brazil that is experiencing its worst drought in half a century.

May those grieving and rebuilding and working for climate justice feel the comfort of Love Come Down.

May we have the courage to be like Jesus. To see where and what love is asking of us.

Courageous love like Lowija O’Donoghue, one of Australia’s most revered Aboriginal leaders who died at age 91 this week after a life spent advocating for the health and rights of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people.

To be emboldened by Love Come Down to let Love flow through us filling every barren place with Love.

In the name of Jesus Christ, the greatest Love, we pray.

Amen.

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