A Broken Bulb

My daughter participated in a Christmas sweater contest at her college.
She was prepared.
After Thanksgiving break, she went back to school with THE sweater.
It was a sweater vest she made back in high school for a crazy Christmas sweater day.

The sweater has felt appliques of Santa, snowmen, Christmas wreaths, and candy canes.
All the appliques were painstakingly applied.
The sweater buttons in the front.
It is fabulously, over the top, Christmas-ready.

For this contest at college, she added one final detail.
Christmas lights.
A strand of battery powered white Christmas lights.
She sent me a picture of her standing in her dorm hallway with her illuminated sweater.

She wore a winter hat with long strings down each side.
I laughed at how perfectly mismatched she was.
It was fun and festive.
I saw her in many pictures with the strand of lights around her.

Christmas lights!
I hope for her sake, the lights stayed on.
Christmas lights tend to go out at the most inopportune time.
One bulb going out on a strand can cause the whole strand to fail.

Once lights are on your house, or on your tree, it is impossible to find the bad bulb.
If you happen to find it, there are always the replacement bulbs that you can use.
They often fail as well.
The problem is often with the strand itself.

I watch my husband and sons when they begin to put up the Christmas lights.
They each take a strand, even when it is still in a bunch, and plug it in the nearest outlet.
If they light, the strand will be used.
If they fail to light, my husband replaces them with another strand.

When the lights are placed on the bushes out front, I always walk to the curb to see them.
There is something about standing off in the distance and seeing my decorated house.
The glow from the candles in the window seems to beckon.
The house just seems to shimmer with the glow of Christmas.

How frustrating when I look at my house as I drive away, and one strand is unlit.
It is always the one strand directly in the middle, never off to the side hiding incognito.
To search and find the unlit bulb is impossible among all the branches.
I usually remove the strand, finding where it is connected to others, and replace it.

One faulty bulb causes all these problems and affects everything else.

But in fact God has arranged the parts in the body, every one of them, just as He wanted them to be. If they were all one part, where would the body be? As it is, there are many parts, but one body. The eye cannot say to the hand, “I don’t need you!” And the head cannot say to the feet, “I don’t need you!” On the contrary, those parts of the body that seem to be weaker are indispensable, and the parts that we think are less honorable we treat with special honor. And the parts that are unpresentable are treated with special modesty, while our presentable parts need no special treatment. But God has combined the members of the body and has given greater honor to the parts that lacked it, so there should be no division in the body, but that its parts should have equal concern for each other. If one part suffers, every part suffers with it; if one part is honored, every part rejoices with it. Now you are the body of Christ, and each one of you is a part of it. (1 Corinthians 12:18-27)

If one part suffers, every part suffers with it.
If one bulb goes out, it affects the whole strand.
We need each other.
We all affect each other whether we realize it or not.

The homeless man on the street, the widow, and the orphan are a part of the Body.
The prodigal, the incorrigible, the forlorn are a part of the Body.
If their light dims or goes out all together, it matters greatly to the health of the Body.
One light going out makes a huge difference.

Unlike our Christmas lights, we do not replace the broken among us.
We do not throw them away and somehow get another.
We must take the time to painstakingly find them and minister to them.
Helping them to shine affects the whole strand of us who are in the Body of Christ.

Rejoice with those who rejoice; mourn with those who mourn. Live in harmony with one another. (Romans 12:15,16)

We are God’s Christmas lights.
We live together in community.
If one of us has a problem, it affects all of us.
We cannot stand on the sidelines and think it is someone else’s problem.

We share burdens and sorrow, along with our joy.
Let us take the time this Christmas season to find the lights that are dim or completely out.
Let us do what we can to enable them to shine again.
For their own well-being and for ours as well, they need to shine.

The health of the communal strand depends on it.