I remember helping my father with the Christmas lights. I even remember one strand that if one was out or loose the whole strand was out. I am so glad that strand did not persist in our yearly tradition, but it was not as easy as today. Incandescent bulbs broke easily and they needed to be clipped on the tree. So when Mindi and I started celebrating Christmas as a married couple I was happy to buy a strand of the new LED lights. They were easy to put on and seemed to work well for the last 6 years and they worked perfectly fine the first night I put them up this year. The next day half the bottom strand stopped working. I changed the fuses and they still did not light.
I thus went out searching for similar lights and I did find something compatible at the second store. As a son of an engineer I was searching for a strand strung in a parallel circuit, not a series circuit. It is fine if you do not remember this information from grade school, as a son of an engineer I have to remember certain things. I will remind you the difference between these two type of circuits. A series circuit the current of electricity passes through each circuit element without branching, thus if one element is disconnected (for bulbs burnt or loose) the current is disabled. A series circuit also must share the voltage of the source, while a parallel circuit will have the same voltage draw of the source for each element is directly connected to the source. This is why a parallel circuit light strand will stay let if one bulb is burnt out or loose.
So I, as my father’s son, looked at the box of lights for the words parallel circuit, and found the trademarked term “Constant ON” with a accurate definition of a parallel circuit, including two illustrations. However, no where is it confirmed that the circuit was strung parallel, not even in parenthesis (I do like parenthesis). I have no problem with the company trademarking a catchy term, but if they were going to take the time to define it on each box, I feel it would be a good idea to share the official term within the definition. Do they really think we cannot handle the term “parallel circuit”?
I bring this up to demonstrate how terms meanings can be lost and or manipulated so easily in society. And as religious people we also let some of our important words to lose their meaning. Take for instance the word “love,” it is of great importance to the Gospel. We use it between, family members and friends. We say it to our children even before they understand language, and we use it to explain the feeling we have for them. We use it also for pizza, paintings, and presents under the Christmas tree. We are quite aware that feeling the word love varies as per the context. However, the word love is used only for half of its Biblical meaning. Feeling is important, but it is also used to refer to action.
Isaiah’s prophecy is about action for those oppressed, broken-hearted, captive, mourning and more. Jesus correctly states that the prophesy had been fulfilled in His reading, for Jesus is the incarnation of love. It is not that Jesus has a warm and fuzzy feeling, but came to earth as a baby to preach, heal, teach, and most of all love us beyond understanding, to the point of death. Isaiah’s words define the action part of the definition of Love, which is known as the Good News; Gospel.
I believe the best explanation how the definition is feeling and action is when Jesus answers what the most important law is:
He said to him, ‘ “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.” This is the greatest and first commandment. And a second is like it: “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.’ (Matthew 22:37-40)Yes it is important to have a wonderful feeling for God and simultaneously love your neighbor as yourself. As this is recorded in Luke, the neighbor is the Good Samaritan. It is clear that we are not simply to have nice and warm feelings, but to do compassion and merci to express this love. Just as Jesus tells us in Matthew 25 what we do to the least of these we do onto Him. The one that loved us so much he went humbly to the cross. This love is equally action, and we participate in the action of love we are in touch with the feeling for God with all our heart, soul and mind.
As church, we are to love each other, as Jesus told Peter when Jesus asked him three times if Peter loved Him. Peter would respond with affirmation and Jesus responded with a call to action; “…feed my lambs…tend my sheep….feed my sheep.” (John 21) And as a church we are not strung in a parallel circuit, we are strung in the old series circuit. The light of Christ is more than powerful enough to light each one, but if one is burnt out or loose we are all affected. Jesus is the strand itself, as He says He is the vine (John 15), but God does the pruning. We must love one another and the neighbor for we are all interconnected. God will fix and/or replace the burnt bulbs and loose ones, but we must realize we are strung together by God’s grace and love, and thus we shine Jesus’ love by our action of love, for Jesus fulfilled this prophecy and we are called to do the same:
The Spirit of the Lord is upon me,
because he has anointed me
to bring good news to the poor.
He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives
and recovery of sight to the blind,
to let the oppressed go free,
to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor. (Luke 4: 18-19)
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