[The how of all that follows here is outlined in the preceding parts of the homily, in the audio recording. What follows is the conclusion of the matter:]

All things are exposed or made manifest by the light, for whatever makes manifest is light. That’s what the light does.

It shows things for what they truly are. It makes manifest the reality. Sometimes it’s an ugly reality, and people dislike the light being shined on it. But that’s okay. We still have to do it.

Because it’s not something that we can even really control. It’s something that we simply are. We are light.

And as we live as children of the light, we illumine the world around us, we help people to see it for what it truly is. Something broken, something leading only to death and destruction.

Therefore it says, “Awake, you who sleep, arise from the dead, and Christ will give you light.”

And I kind of love Father Lawrence’s theory here. There’s no Old Testament verse that actually says, “Awake, you who sleep. arise from the dead and Christ will give you life.” But it’s quite possible that this was, in fact, a hymn of the church, possibly even a baptismal hymn of the church. Because that’s precisely the sort of thing that we understand baptism to do.

It wakes us up. And as we wake up from this slumber that we are in and rise from the dead, it is Christ who gives us light. The light of the way of life that saves us from this way of death. The light of this new humanity that we are to put on, even as we shuck off the old humanity that is trending towards death.

And so this is the way that the world will be saved through us. Not by any great work, not by any great conquest, but by simply being who Christ has called us to be, by living as children of the light, putting on this new man. And as we do so, we are awakening from sleep.

And this then is the true awakening. Whether you’re awake or woke. As Christians, you are awake to Christ in God.

You are awake to the truth of the love of God. And that this love, as it has been poured out in our lives, is that which we have to live out in the world, loving those around us, bringing them by that love, by that light into awareness of the brokenness that they are struggling with, and leading them, by our love, into the only place which is illumined.

But then spreading that light throughout the world, as it has already been spread, from generation to generation, illumining the darkness, and showing the mercy, the love of God that he has so richly poured out upon us, to all those around us, that we and they might be to his glory: the glory of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.

Scripture readings referenced:

* Ephesians 4:17-5:21

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