This year, my advent series is incorporating the work of someone else, so I am not comfortable posting it as my own. Therefore I will be posting my sermons from Advent 2 years ago. This one is from December 7th, 2003.
There is something about darkness which is difficult to deal with. When you cannot see what is around you, your eyes play tricks on you. I remember as a child worrying about the shadow of a tree limb outside my bedroom window. I knew what it was, for it was not menacing in any way in the daytime. But at night with the shadows and darkness, it was just eerie. The way the shadow played against my curtains caused it to look like a nose. And I wondered what kind of creature outside would have such a nose. Darkness is the time that we dream up the monsters that we are most scared of. I remember nights where I needed to go to the bathroom in the middle of the night but was scared of what might be under my bed, so I would jump as far away from the bed as possible to make sure that I would be safe. I never had this problem in the morning, when it was bright enough to see. Darkness is the time that we allow our doubts and worries to overwhelm us.
I personally was scared of the dark for a long time… until I realized that darkness is as light to God and just because my eyes could not see that which was around me clearly, that didn’t mean that it was different. It’s like the Veggie Tales song which tells us that “God is bigger than the boogie man”. We have the light of Christ in us and with us. We have his radiance shining ‘round about us. Though at times it might seem dark to us, it is not dark to God and he will shine our way.
I. Darkness
Here we are in the second week of Advent. We are looking at the way that Christ has affected this world and changed it. We are remembering that things grow and change when Christ enters into them. This is true of the world. The world changed in a miraculous way when Jesus entered it 2000 years ago. Angels sang, a star shone down where it hadn’t been before, promises were answered and a people without hope found it again. But this is also true of us as individuals. When we ask Jesus into our hearts, our lives change. They become something wonderful. We discover that there are things that we had been missing, but now we are complete. Last week we looked at music and how important it is to our relationship with God and how it came out of silence when Jesus was born. This week we are looking at light and as with music and silence, we will not truly be able to understand light, God’s light, until we understand darkness.
In Genesis we are told that the earth was formless and empty and darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters. And God then started the creation with a command, saying, “Let there be light.” And creation listened to God, as it always does; and there was light, and it was good.
So at the beginning of the Bible, at the beginning of time, there was darkness and God brought light… What is important to note is that the darkness, again, did not mean God was not present. We are told very specifically that God was there in the midst of the darkness, for the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters, but it was darkness.
By the third day of creation God decided that there needed to be light in the darkness of night as well so we ended up with the stars and the moon. This is important because it meant that we as well as all of creation would be protected from absolute darkness, though on some cloudy nights, we get pretty close.
Now we tend to look at darkness as representing evil and light as representing good, especially when we read about it in the New Testament. I understand this way of reading it, but I’m not sure it is the most accurate way to look at it. In John 3 we see this relation between darkness and evil very clearly spelled out. If you read verses 19 and 20 you hear a direct correlation. “Light has come into the world, but men loved darkness instead of light because their deeds were evil. Everyone who does evil hates the light, and will not come into the light for fear that his deeds will be exposed.” It seems that this passage is correlating darkness and evil… but it is not. John 1:5 tells us that “the light shines in the darkness, but the darkness has not understood it.” I grew up hearing that translated as “the light shines in the darkness, but the darkness has not overcome it.” Interesting that overcoming and understanding have the same meaning here.
Darkness isn’t a synonym for evil. Rather, darkness is a hope that we have to hide our evil from God. So when we sin we hope that the darkness, the lack of light will hide our sins from God. We hope to be like a military unit and use the darkness to hide our movements, to disguise what it is that we are doing. We think we can be stealthy with our sin, because of the darkness. And that is why those who love evil seek the darkness. But we are not able to hide our sins in the darkness, no matter what we believe. We were shown in Genesis 1 that even in the darkness of primordial earth, God was present.
Darkness isn’t about evil as much as it is about lack of light, lack of the ability to see clearly, lack of understanding. Darkness isn’t something… it has no form, it has no essence, it has not substance of its own… instead, darkness is a lack of something. When you take light away darkness comes in. When you add light, darkness retreats. You adjust darkness by adjusting light. You cannot make darkness brighter… but you can make light dimmer.
Living in darkness hoping to hide our sins, hoping to hide our imperfections, hoping to hide our faults from God and others and often even from ourselves, keeps us away from the light. We might think that we are protecting ourselves from God’s eyes, hiding our sins from God. This just isn’t the case, it’s a fool’s errand. So let’s not make the mistake of those who love evil. Let’s move out of the darkness and into the light… into the light of Jesus.
II. Light
So Jesus is born, and with Jesus light comes into the world. John 1 is very much tied to Genesis 1. Both begin talking about the beginning… and God in the beginning. They both begin by talking about the creation of the world… but John 1 spiritualizes the creation of the world in a way that Genesis 1 does not. We are told that Jesus, the Word, was with God in the beginning, during the creation, and we are told that Jesus was a part of the creation. “Through him all things were made… In him was life, and that life was the light of men.” Jesus is the Word and in Jesus there is life and in that life which is in Jesus we see light. In John 9 Jesus tells us that he is the light of the world. He tells us this in the midst of healing a blind man. But he also talks about how it is that he is the light of the world when he is in the world… and he talks about night coming. I think this is interesting because it makes me wonder what happens to Jesus’ light when he leaves the world. When he ascends back to heaven and leaves the church in charge.
That is also very clear throughout Jesus teaching. Jesus tells his disciples in the Sermon on the Mount that they are the light of the world. We, you and I, are the people who are to bring light to the world around us. We reflect Jesus’ light in our lives and bring light to those around us. Today’s bulletin cover quotes from Isaiah… “Arise, shine, for your light has come.” Our response when we see the light of Jesus, the light that is Jesus, is to shine ourselves… to reflect that light to the world around us. We are human moons, reflecting the sun’s rays in the night. The sun is bright and shines throughout the day. It gives off its own light. It’s a giant nuclear ball of fire that gives light and heat and even radiation. But the moon does not give off any light. It is just a big rock in the sky. Yet we see light when we see the moon. Where is that light coming from? It’s coming from the sun. The moon does not give off its own light it gives off the sun’s light. That is our responsibility. We are moons in the night. We are able to see the sun and reflect the sun in the darkness. The light banishes the darkness, it makes it fade.
Christ is the light of the world. He brings things out into the open. He makes things understandable. We, as Christians are called to step into that light, to enjoy the heat and the clarity. We, as Christians are called to bask in the light of Christ. What a wonderful thing to do… basking in the light of Christ. But a part of that basking means that we are also called to be reflectors of that light, shining it into the shadows where people are trying to hide from God, hide from us, hide from each other, and hide from themselves.
How do we reflect God’s light? By living the life that Jesus called us to. By being a positive influence in the world around us. By sharing our faith, our stories of how God has worked in our lives with others. By loving those around us with a godly love. By caring for those who need care.
III. Glory
Now when we think of light and we think of the Christmas story we often think of the Bethlehem star. The star which guided the unspecified number of wise men, not kings, to the place of Jesus’ birth… sometime in the first two years of Jesus’ life, not on the night he was born. It’s amazing what a song can do to get it wrong. But this is not the only instance of light in the Christmas story. The scripture in John tells us that light was born that night in Jesus… and it compares Jesus coming into the world to the coming of light from the darkness at creation. And light also plays a role in the story of the angels, which we read last week. A quick reminder… this is a story we hear year after year so I hope you know it very well. Shepherds watching their sheep; an angel appears… calms them down because they are so scared… tells them about a king born in Bethlehem wrapped in swaddling cloths and lying in a manger… is joined by a heavenly host praising God and singing… Glory to God in the highest and on earth, peace to those with who God is well pleased… the angels leave and the Shepherds go to Bethlehem to see this wonder…
When the angel appeared, though, we are told that the glory of the Lord shone round about the shepherds… notice how when we talk about the Christmas story we fall into the fancy language, “shone round about,” and “the shepherds were sore afraid.” A better way to say this is that when the angel appeared there was a bright light and the shepherds were scared to death. Light, here in the story of the shepherds, is described as glory, and for good reason.
Glory is pure. Glory is radiant. The glory of God shines with an intensity that we cannot understand. Glory is not a physical light… though I believe that there was a physical light accompanying it with the angels. Glory is a spiritual light. It is a light that is holy, is pure, is clean… and it is a light that makes holy, makes pure, makes clean. But glory is not always a physical light. Jesus talks about the Glory of God when he raises Lazarus from the dead. When Jesus tells people to roll away the stone so that Lazarus might come out, people question him, even Martha, Lazarus’ sister. Jesus responds to her question with this phrase, “Did I not tell you that if you believed, you would see the glory of God.” The glory of God can be seen in actions… it can be seen in the miracles that Jesus did… it can be seen in the wonder of something that seemed impossible but wasn’t. God’s glory shines forth when Jesus’ kingdom grows.
Advent… Christmas… is a time of wonder, it is a time to acknowledge how much greater God is than us and celebrate that greatness of God. But though we celebrate the greatness of God, glory shows up in the small things… so does light. Glory showed up in a manger with a group of refugees crowded in a stable. The light of the world entered the world in such mean estate. So this advent season, look for God’s glory not only in the big things like Jesus’ second coming… look for God’s glory in the small things… and look to bring God’s glory to those around you. Be a moon, reflecting the light of Christ, the glory of God, throughout the darkness. Help those in need, care for the poor and the sick, love the sinner, share the gospel story with those who have not heard it, be a friend to the unsaved so that they might see Christ’s light reflected in you. Reflect Christ to those who live in darkness. Quite often, they will not understand the light… they will wonder what the light is about… but soon, with the help of the Holy Spirit, they will discover that life is much easier to live in the light. Let us all live in the light and invite those around us to live in the light this holiday season. Amen.
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