Ordinary Time recorded “This Little Light of Mine” when we were together in Vancouver a few years ago (click here to listen). We didn’t mean to hang onto the recording in order to release it at the end of one of the most challenging and darkest years in our collective memory, but here we are!

The origins of the song aren’t clear. It was a popular children’s song in the United States in the early decades of the 1900’s. In the 1950’s and 1960’s it became an anthem of the Civil Rights movement – a song that united protesters as they marched and stood together against the injustice of legislated racism. A song of hope and also of defiance. In the act of singing, they could proclaim together that no matter what injustice or opposition they faced, they would take a stand and let their light shine for goodness, for justice, for hope. Many said that songs like “This Little Light of Mine” gave them courage in intense and scary situations. It was sung in Charlottesville, Virginia at a protest in 2018 – still bringing unity and shoring up courage.

It is Ordinary Time’s privilege to release our several-year-old cover of this song in 2020, a year that has highlighted the racial divides and systemic injustice that still cast a dark shadow over us (speaking from my view in the United States right now). There is still so much work to do; there is still so much hurt. With this little recording we honor the thousands who have sung it as they stood for justice. May we all let our lights shine, even in the darkest days, and even when it is hard and costly to do so.

Jesus said in his Sermon on the Mount (find it in Matthew 5) that we are to let our lights shine before the world, that the world may see our good deeds and give God glory. We have light to shine because God himself came into our dark, messy, broken world. “In him was life, and that life was the light of all humankind. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.” (John 1:4-5)

Not even in 2020.

In this season of Advent we celebrate that the Light has come—and we wait and long together for Jesus the Light of the world to come again. We can lean into the pain of this world and lament it together; we can step out boldly into the world’s brokenness and let our own lights shine because we believe that one day the Light will fully banish all darkness. No more pain. No more injustice. No more tears, or sickness, or death. “And they will not need the light of a lamp or the light of the sun, for the Lord God will be their light.” (Revelation 22:5)

Come Lord Jesus!

Jill, for Ordinary Time