The Coming Of The Light
A sermon preached by
Rev. Dr. Randle R. (Rick) Mixon
First Baptist Church, Palo Alto, CA
Sunday, December 21, 2008
Texts: Isaiah 9:2-7; John 1:1-14
Isaiah writes to a people who are pawns in the comings and goings of international superpowers, people who are facing conquest by foreigners and exile to an alien land. In the midst of their darkness and despair, the prophet speaks this incredible word for God: “The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light; those who lived in a land of deep darkness – on them light has shined.” It is truly an incredible word for a people faced with little hope, who are weighed down with the prospects of losing family, home and livelihood.
Who among us doesn’t know what it feels like to be in the dark? Maybe it’s the darkness of a lonely night in a quiet room; maybe it’s walking mean and fear-filled streets after midnight; maybe it’s anguish of surviving in a bombed-out village or of stumbling around a refugee camp that has no electricity to illuminate the night; maybe it’s that sense of being clueless as to what’s going on all around you; maybe it’s the stifling experience of some closet or another. Every one of us knows something of walking in darkness, though I suppose few of us know anything like the despair Isaiah’s listeners must have known. The coming of the light – God promises it, Isaiah prophesies it and some of the people, at least believe in its possibility, even in the midst of their own deep darkness.
Today is the actual solstice; today winter begins in earnest (as if we haven’t already felt its harsh effects.). This is the shortest day of the year and with it comes the longest night. It is in this season of attenuated light and extended darkness in the northern hemisphere that this promise of the coming of the light is uttered once more for modern believers. Perhaps there is some ironic reassurance that this great prophecy about the coming of the light is lifted up in the bleak midwinter, precisely when it is most needed. In this Advent season we have considered what it might mean to experience the silence or even the absence of God. It is to this sense of silence and absence that the promise of the coming of the light is clearly and strongly spoken. “Don’t despair; hold hope; the darkest hour is just before the dawn.”
“In the beginning…” John’s gospel begins, reminding us that Genesis opens with the same words. “In the beginning, God created…” “In the beginning was the Word…” In his poetic sermon on the creation, James Weldon Johnson contrasts light and dark this way:
And God stepped out on space,
And he looked around and said:
I’m lonely –
I think I’ll make me a world.
And far as the eye of God could see
Darkness covered everything,
Blacker than a hundred midnights
Down in a cypress swamp
Now folks, I submit that that is DARK. In the beginning is the darkness. Maybe it’s not all bad, but it is mysterious and not easily grasped. Like the womb, there is fecundity in the darkness, comfort, security and warmth. It is in the darkness that God finds the light and life which is drawn forth in the act of creation. Johnson’s poem continues:
Then God smiled,
And light broke,
And the darkness rolled up on one side,
And the light stood shining on the other,
And God said: That’s good!
In the midst of the teeming darkness comes the light and God pronounces it good.
But then what happens as life comes into being and rolls along? God’s creatures begin to entertain thoughts and foster feelings and engage in behavior that does not love the light, that does not want to be exposed to God’s gleaming smile. God’s creatures begin to keep secrets, send up smoke screens and hide from God, from one another and from their own true selves. They don masks and other garb in self-defense, thereby shutting out a lot of light. “We hid because we were naked and we didn’t want you to see as we really are,” as if God could not see right through their subterfuge and rationalizations.
One thing leads to another and we have run ourselves out of paradise. We have hoarded resources, cultivated greed, raised dishonesty to a fine art. We have made enemies of our sisters and brothers, raised arms of mass destruction and let the earth run red with the wasted essence of life. With only lesser light on which to rely our growth has been stunted. Now the consequences of our choices have driven us into the shadows where we are running scared.
In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth and made a pact with us to share in the care of all Creation; the light of God’s smile shone on all, filling all with light and life and love. Somewhere along the way we wandered off into the shadows; we have become afraid of the dark that we neither understand nor control; we walk again lost in darkness. Too grim an image for the Sunday before Christmas? If it is then let it go; let the warmth of the season wash over you instead. For the rest of us, the prophet’s words ring loud and clear…it is on those who walk in deep darkness that the light shines most clearly and brightly.
In this morning’s words of preparation, Morton Kelsey tells us a little tale of the coming of the light. He says, “I knew a man who started a practice of praying and keeping a journal and was making great progress, and then he stopped; he told me he had seen some light, and he didn’t like it” (Morton Kelsey, The Drama of Christmas, p. 23.) How often has the happened to you or me?
In this week’s Midweek Message, we were asked to consider these words of Desmond Tutu, which may reflect the kind of light that we find uncomfortable. Bishop Tutu says, “The Church of God has to be the salt and light of the world. We are the hope of the hopeless, through the power of God. We must transfigure a situation of hate and suspicion, of brokenness and separation, of fear and bitterness. We have no option. We are servants of the God who reigns and cares. He wants us to be the alternative society; where there is harshness and insensitivity, we must be compassionate and caring; where people are statistics, we must show they count as being of immense value to God; where there is grasping and selfishness, we must be a sharing community now” (Desmond Tutu, Crying in the Wilderness, pp. 6-7.)
Remember the lines from Diane Levertov’s poem, “The Annunciation,” that we considered last week?
More often,
those moments
when roads of light and storm
open from darkness in a man or woman,
are turned away from
in dread, in a wave of weakness, in despair
and with relief.
Ordinary lives continue.
God does not smite them.
But gates close, the pathway vanishes.”
It is precisely for those moments when we turn away in confusion, fear, anger, despair from the pathway God opens before us, it is precisely there that the Word becomes flesh. It is because we so often find ourselves wandering lost and alone, in some darkness of our own conjuring or among the harsh realities of a world gone mad that God becomes flesh. God takes on human form in order to dwell with us and walk with us, shining Her heartlight to show us the way out of the shadows into the illuminating light of God’s smile. God allows us to choose to enter the gate or not, but God also comes close to give us encouragement, hope and light for the journey.
“For a child has been born for US,” the prophet says, “a son given to US; authority rests upon his shoulders; and he is named Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, the Everlasting Father, the Prince of Peace.” “And the Word became flesh,” the gospel writer says, “and lived among US, and we have seen his glory…full of grace and truth” “What has come into being in him was life, and the life was the light of all people. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it.”
The coming of the light. It comes over and over, again and again. It comes for us, for you and me. All we need do is step from the shadows and receive it, open ourselves to it and say “yes.” In the beginning, God smiles and the light comes to all creation. In the midst of exile, the prophet promises that the light is available, even for those who walk in deep darkness and despair. In the fullness of time, when no other argument will do, when the situation seems most hopeless, God sends God’s own son, God’s very flesh and blood, to show us the way. Once again, the season turns, the days begin to lengthen, if only by minutes, and we are confronted with the coming of the light, the light of new life, the light of new possibilities, the light of transformation. Will we turn fully toward the coming of the light?