“Longing for light, we wait in darkness” goes the hymn. Well, we do. The light is coming, we know, the mornings a little earlier and the dark a little later, but then there’s the record-breaking rain and the cloud. The sun is there, but when shall we see it?

“And God said, ‘Let there be light’. And there was light.” Light brings life: life for the earth, for the grass and plants and trees, life for the birds and the animals, life for human beings – the light of life the Bible calls it. For us it’s light to see by and walk by and do things by, the light to understand and judge and make good decisions, light to live our lives by the light of God, who is light, says St John, and on him there is no darkness at all.

We’ve begun listening each Sunday to the Sermon on the Mount – one more time next Sunday before Lent begins. Jesus is the new Moses and more than Moses. He is speaking from a mountain, says St Matthew, underlining the point about Moses. We can think of the people of Israel gathered at the foot of Mt Sinai, but St Matthew’s hints that Jesus is the true mountain, the Son of God. Last Sunday, from the mountain of his divinity, the Lord downloaded eight ways for sharing God’s beatitude, his happiness. He was offering that joy to us. Today, he says, “you are light of the world”. He is “light from light” and the light of the world himself, and from him the glory (radiance) of God comes cascading down. He is bringing it close to us, for us to absorb, be lit by and reflect on. More than words are happening here. The glory of God can shine in us! Like creation at the beginning, we can step out of darkness into light. Like the people of Israel, leaving the idolatries of Egypt and receiving the light of the Law, we can pass from darkness to light. Today the Lord is sharing his light, his glory with us: “you are light of the world.” “Let there be light”, he says, and there is. “For God to say is to do”, says St Thomas.

So, says St Paul, and St John and St Luke, we become sons / children of light. In another place, St Paul speaks of Christians living in a dark time, but “shining as lights in the world” (Phil 2:15).

Let’s go back to nature: to darkness, clouds and rain. They can teach us a lot. It’s because of the tilt in the earth’s axis as it orbits the sun that we have more light in summer, less in winter. We may recall this from school! Since the winter solstice, the northern hemisphere of our planet is slowly, unstoppably turning its face more and more to the sun. I think we should imitate it. We might ask, what’s the tilt, the angle, of my life? Is it just towards me, or towards others and the Lord? When we’re baptised, we surrender to the draw of the divine sun, we’re turned from darkness to light. But still we need to subscribe, to sign up, to renew our rejection of the dark and endorse our longing for light, for “all that is good and right and true” (Eph 5:9), for Christ. This is the grace of Lent and of Confession. This is the Easter Vigil.

Then clouds: sadness and anger especially. “The prayer of the humble pierces the clouds”, though, says Sirach (35:17). And when do we rain? When we complain, moan about each other. Drip, drip, drip: grievances, grudges, irritations. Let’s try to speak well of each other.  In all of this, I feel Lent coming on, and Easter. In one of his letters, St Paul quotes an ancient Christian hymn: “Awake, O sleeper, and rise from the dead, and Christ will shine on you” (Eph 5:14).

“You are the light of the world”, says the Lord. You, my disciples, my brothers and sisters, you my Church, each and all of you. How can we – together in Christ – shine with Christ? How can our faith speak?  How can our light break forth like the dawn? By kindness first. There’s so much aggression around. What is kindness? Recognising we are “one kind”, humankind. “Is it not to share your bread with the hungry and bring the homeless poor into your house; when you see the naked, to cover him, and not to hide yourself from your own flesh?” This is a first sketch from Isaiah of the works of mercy. Kindness seems a little thing, a weak thing, not a world-changing thing. But it can change hearts, it can change the atmosphere. It’s simple and close. Every act of kindness is a ray of the glory of God, even a cup of cold water. The Greek words for Christ and for kind are only one letter different. Christos for Christ, chrestos for kind. Christ shines in kindness. And the second thing, surely: hope. Our world is so closed in on itself, so short of “horizon”. The desire for assisted dying is really a death of hope. Hope is reframing our lives with a horizon of a God who’s on our side, a Christ who has died and risen for us, a Holy Spirit who can make the impossible possible; a horizon of grace. Kindness and hope: weak and strong, doable daily in any and every setting.

Lord Jesus, may this light, your light, shine through us!

St Mary’s Cathedral, Aberdeen, 8 February 2026