"Light, our Mother, Christ"
Today is the first day of the Christian new year. We call this season “Advent” meaning arrival or appearance—for Christians, the arrival of Jesus the Christ. A key theme in the season of Advent is light and darkness (light piercing the darkness, light gradually dispelling the darkness). If we were to think of it in terms of our sense of touch, we might talk about Advent as heat slowly warming the cold (the sun melting the first frost, a blanket wrapped around your shoulders when you feel a chill).
Themes of light and darkness appear throughout the bible. Light and darkness is one of the most commented on themes by Christian writers across the centuries. Julian of Norwich is one such writer who wrote extensively on light and darkness. I’d like to talk a little about her life and writing today.
Julian, or, Juliana as she is sometimes remembered, lived in the 15th century in England. She was known as an “anchoress” which was the term used in the Middle Ages to describe someone who because of a religious calling withdrew from secular society. An anchoress typically lived in an enclosed cell that was attached (anchored) to a church. The life purpose of an anchoress was to pray and to take part in the Eucharist. (If you can imagine our own St Clement’s church, where my office is placed next to the chapel, this is like where an anchoress’ cell might have been placed in relation to a church in the Middle Ages. Though if you start to notice me disappearing for months on end into my office, please do not assume I have taken vows to become a hermit and please do come and get me!).
When Julian took her vows, she asked the bishop to enclose her in this cell attached to what is now named St Julian’s Church in Norwich. The official term for the enclosed cell is an “anchor-hold” named after the grip of a ship’s anchor. Just as an anchor would grab hold of the sea floor, so also would an anchoress’ cell grip the church. Julian’s anchor-hold, Julian’s cell had “a window looking into the church that allowed [her] to attend Mass in the sanctuary and another window so she could counsel and pray over people who came to her on the street.” I thought this was an interesting image given the prominence of our own anchor at St Clement’s.
As I mentioned, Julian wrote extensively on Christian spirituality during her life. One of her most celebrated writings is a book called Revelations of Divine Love. It’s in this book that we find the following reflection on light and darkness: “Our faith is a light, coming in nature from our endless day, which is our Father, God; in which light our Mother, Christ, and our good Lord the Holy Spirit lead us in this passing life.”
“Our faith is a light . . . Light, our Mother, Christ.” Christ as Mother is an image we maybe don’t spend enough time on in the church. I wonder if Julian was thinking of when Jesus compares himself in Matthew chapter 23 and Luke chapter 13 to a mother hen, gathering her chicks? I wonder if Julian was thinking of when in John’s gospel Jesus is called the Word of God, meaning the wisdom of God which is personified throughout the bible as a woman—a lady, even?
When I think of “Light, our Mother, Christ” I’m reminded of a mother carrying a baby in utero, in that dark procreative space that is the womb. I imagine all of the things that a body does when carrying a child to nourish and care for budding life: how hormonal changes cause ligaments to loosen, hips and pelvic bones to shift and widen, so that the uterus can expand. All of these changes the body’s way of tending to and making space for the womb to do its good work. There’s something for us in that imagery when we think of tending to the dark, womb-like spaces in our own lives.
Last week in bible study, our guest teacher Jenny Read-Heimerdinger was telling us how, when we read in the bible that Jesus was “sitting down with his disciples,” that this is a substitute phrase for “teaching”. For Jesus to sit down was for Jesus to teach. Maybe this sounds silly, but with the image of Julian’s “Mother Christ” rolling around in my head this week, I couldn’t help when preparing this sermon seeing a pregnant Jesus, sitting down to rest his aching feet as he taught his disciples. In the gospel reading today, Jesus is “sitting down” on the Mount of Olives, teaching the crowds about some difficult times ahead. I see him withdrawing from the crowds to take a moment for himself when his disciples pull him aside and say, “Can you tell us when all of this is going to happen?”
Like a hen gathering her chicks, like an anchoress offering prayer from her anchor-hold window, Jesus brings his disciples in close and offers some words of wisdom. No one knows when exactly dark times will enter our lives, nor what exactly we will do to survive them. But there are some things we can do as we wait. We can keep watch. We can tend to and be curious about the darkness—about the unknown—even as we fear it. We can sit expectantly in the darkness, holding it like a mother resting her hands around her pregnant belly. In so doing, we become a kind of light amidst that darkness. We welcome the possibility that darkness might be present in our lives to do necessary, procreative work. We do not abandon the darkness, because we are not abandoned to it, for our faith is a light and Light is our Mother, Christ. Amen.
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