AWAKE, O SLEEPER…

 
 We’re surely familiar with the saying, “If you can see light at the end of the tunnel, remember:  you’re still in the tunnel.”  It’s true, but it beats not seeing any light at all!
 
          We all long for the light (except, perhaps, when the alarm clock blasts far too loudly, far too early in the morning, to suit us!).  Still, when we do wake up and see nothing but overcast skies (and the threat of bad weather) we’re certainly not very cheerful.  But blue skies and the sun creeping over the eastern horizon does bring a smile—a promise that today will be a beautiful day.
 
          We are all finally children of the light, and we need that promise.  I remember as a student at Notre Dame, we would be pounded in winter by heavy snowstorms, but then the next morning’s sunshine would get guys (yes, back then it was a male-only campus) in most dorms to be setting their stereos in their windows to blast out the Beatles’ “Here Comes the Sun.”  
 
          I remember, as a student, walking to Sacred Heart church on Sunday morning (I would be either a Lector or a Thurifer at the 10:45 “High Mass”).  It would have snowed over Saturday night, and most guys were still sleeping off their Saturday night frolics.  The snow had fallen, it was (until my footsteps) unbroken, and with the sun shining on it, it was beyond brilliant—really, almost blinding.  But it was also joyful.
 
          When we hear the call from Ephesians today, we instinctively want to respond because we all long for the light.  And we are in church today because we want to believe the promise that we will find that light in Christ—He is risen, so we will also rise in Him.  We want to waken, to rise, to see the light.
 
          “Do you see the light??!!”  Jake and Elwood did (from The Blues Brothers, surely the best musical comedy movie of all time!), and they saved the orphanage (and “the Penguin”) in the process.  They saw the light, and so there were “…on a mission—from God.”  What is our reaction when we recognize the light (actually, the Light)?  Do we realize that we are also “…on a mission—from God”?  We never rise just for ourselves; we rise so that others can rise with us.  
 
          “I want to live as a child of the light; I want to follow Jesus.”  This is the opening line of a hymn that, sadly, is not in our hymnal, but which touches my own heart.  I want the light; I want to follow Jesus (effectively, not just conventionally).  
 
          Tunnels are depressing—they close in, create claustrophobic feelings, become dark so quickly our eyes need time to adjust.   But there is light at the end, and Jesus is our Light.  Let’s celebrate His Light and do all we can to share that Light with others.