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The Sacraments of Hospitality ˜ 259
to us who sit in darkness and in the shadow of death, to guide our feet into the
way of peace.’”
My father’s Christmas sermon ended with those words. I was too young
then to question its conclusion. While it is true that we need to be conscious of
Christ’s presence in our lives, to know that the Dayspring is visiting, I wonder
how we can know.
It seems to me that the answer lies in that all-important act that takes place
over and over again in the opening chapters of the New Testament: visitation.
Our friends in prison sit literally in the shadow of death, but as we visit them
the light of the Dayspring shines. My experience of prison visitation is always
that I am visited. When I go to the prison, I feel overshadowed by death until I
am visited by my friends, who always bring with them the light of Jesus. So in
our prison visitation we can be conscious of Christ’s support. We can know that
Christ shares all our burdens.
The Butler Street Breakfast is another place where we visit and are visited,
and I always feel a sense of life after I’ve served the meal. Again, I believe we go
to those that sit in the darkness. They sit in the darkness of a filthy slave-labor
pool; they dwell in the shadow of death from skyscrapers downtown; they are
consigned to dark church basements for their meals; they wait through the night
with no home and no bed; they dwell in the darkness of racism, which is obvious
as we serve the breakfast to two hundred people, of whom only two are
white. And yet the Dayspring dawns and shines on our lives as we share a meal.
As we eat with hungry sisters and brothers, we can experience Christ’s presence
in our lives and be conscious that he relieves all our needs.
Our lives in community are almost a continual act of visitation, and, as Jürgen
Moltmann reminded us, we can always feel Christ’s presence in each other.
There is no problem or burden so great that we cannot find relief in the gift of
life in community. Christ, the Dayspring, visits us, even as we visit each other.
Finally, the Dayspring dawns on our lives at Dayspring Farm. For two
weeks in May, I did my morning devotions on the front porch while the sun rose
over the hill. Quite literally the Dayspring shone on me, even as Christ’s light
was allowed to shine in me through prayer and meditation—something that I
don’t do enough of in the city. As we rest and recreate and meditate and communicate
with God, as we worship together, share the Lord’s Supper, and wash
each other’s feet, we remember and experience and are conscious of Christ, the
bright Dayspring, shining on us and sharing both the joy and the bitter sadness
of our hearts. Truly God has come to the Open Door and set it free. Through
God’s tender mercy—in the gift of Dayspring Farm, in each other, and in the
greatest gift, Jesus—the Dayspring from on high has visited.