Waves, Particles, Absorb, Amplify, Shine! (Sermon preached 31 December 2023)

Some years ago, I had a conversation with an old friend who had been, for many years, teaching optics at the graduate level.

 

Now, you need to know: though I enjoyed physics in high school, it was definitely not my first language. Anyway, we were driving to the airport late in the afternoon and ended up talking about how polarized sunglasses work. He was explaining that the way they cut down on the glare is by filtering out half of the sun’s light waves.

 

But isn’t light a particle? I asked. Well, yes, he said. That is also a model for light. In some situations, the wave model works better for describing how light behaves; and in others, the particle model works better. The fact is that light is neither wave nor particle. Both are ways we can think about, and talk about, light; but neither completely accounts for the “miracle” of light.

 

So, here you and I are, just about a week after Christmas, with the stable at Bethlehem, courtesy of the Gospel of Luke, still right here, listening to the Gospel of John’s version of how Christ came into the world. These first eighteen verses of John 1, which is called “The Prologue”, are offering us another model, if you will. A model that is as different from a young woman giving birth in a stable as particles are from waves...(read more)