By The Rev. Dr. Andrew Stirling
December 9, 2012
Text: John 1:1-6, 19-28
One of the most incredible gifts that we possess in this life is the gift of light. Without light, there is no life. Without light, there is no beauty. Without light, there is just dullness and darkness. Light is one of the greatest gifts that we take for granted. Here, in this magnificent land of Canada, this great nation that we are, light is what makes our country so magnificent when you think about it. From the aurora borealis to the snow-covered plains that we find in the Prairies, when the light shines upon them and glistens, they seem to go on forever. From the light that reflects from the peaks of Mount Robson to the glistening light of a summer's day on Lake Ontario, or the light that you see in the magnificent sails of boats in the Bay of Fundy, light is magnificent!
Light isn't just a natural phenomenon. It is true that human beings make our own light and create our own light because we know that without light there is no beauty. I noticed that just a couple of weeks ago. In the Square where I live just off Yonge Street, there was the ceremonial lighting of a tree, and the tree is on a bridge on Yonge Street, and many of you will have seen it: the magnificent blue light. There is a party before hand, and there is music and dancing.
I go for the cider myself and to have a chat with neighbours and to meet people from all over the city, but what really gets me is that when it is Eventide and the lights are turned on, whether you are ninety years old or whether you are nine months old, when the lights come on, the eyes open wide! There is nothing quite like light! Here we are, sophisticated twenty-first century people with all the gizmos and glitter that you can ever imagine, and yet, we put on some lights, and we are in awe! People of faith do this, do we not? Jews do it with Hanukah. We do it with the lighting of our candles, as the Fallis' did for us this morning.
We like light. We light our trees. We want the beauty that comes with light. We know that when we celebrate something good and something powerful, light plays a role within it. So, we abhor the darkness and love the beauty of light. But sometimes light goes even deeper than that: it goes right to our souls.
I was reading recently an article by Chuck Colson, you know, the famous man who was arrested after Watergate, who spent time in prison, and then when he came out, as a Christian, he dedicated his life to prison ministry. He visited prisons all over the world to make sure that the prisoners were taken care of and that they were nurtured and that they were safe. One of his trips took him to Ecuador, and he was greeted in Ecuador by the President, President Borja.
President Borja had a reception for him, and they sat in big leather chairs, and he was received with almost diplomatic privilege. There was fine china and nice sherry and a wonderful gathering. Chuck Colson talked about the state of prisons in Ecuador. He wanted to know how people were living, and Borgia said, “Let me tell you a story. This will tell you what I believe. When we were struggling for democracy in Ecuador and I was on the vanguard of the movement for democracy, I was arrested. I was placed in a single, solitary room on my own, and in that room, for days and weeks, there was no light at all: complete and utter darkness. In that darkness, I thought there was no hope. I felt I would never come out alive. I felt this was the end of my days. Then, one day, mysteriously, there was a hand that reached in and a wire was connected, and the light that had been hanging overhead finally had some electricity to it. This guard had done this surreptitiously, incognito (not wanting to be known or recognized). When that light went on, all hope rose within me.” The darkness had left him completely with a void, a sense that there would never ever be freedom, but now, just the coming on of that light was like God's great gift to him. How precious light is when you live constantly in darkness!
That is why this whole light/darkness metaphor is such a powerful one in The Bible. The Biblical authors knew and understood its power. The language that they used to describe what they were seeing was the language of light and dark. It is there in the incipit in John's Gospel and the incipit that I referred to last week (the opening lines that set the scene and tell the story), for the arrival of Jesus, according to John in the passage that Bob read for us beautifully this morning, in that very passage, we read that the life came into the world, and that life was “the light of humanity.” Notice the language - “the light of humanity.”
The language that John uses is the language of luminescence, and the powerful luminous power of the coming of Jesus Christ. He has in mind, I believe, Genesis 1, for in fact it is Genesis 1:3 when we are told, as I read this morning, that God created the light. And in John 1:3, Jesus is the light: the world was made by God, and light was supposed to be the dominant thing, the sign of creation, the moment of beauty, the star by which we can live. Jesus, in John's Gospel, is the manifestation of the same God that created the world in Genesis.
This is a powerful image. It goes right to the heart of our faith and what we believe. The two are synonymous. So, what does this mean? What is he trying to tell us? Why do we read it on a day like today? Well, we read it because there is an implication that humanity had lived in darkness before the arrival of Jesus. That is why his life is “the light of the world.” The implication here is that humanity had in fact lived in darkness - the Greek word that is used is skotos, which simply means “ignorance” or “blindness.” Notice the two different meanings: ignorance and blindness. In other words, the ability or the inability, should I say not to be able to see something? Darkness then is more than just the physical ability to see; it is the ability that you are lacking in being able to see something even more. It is ignorance, not just the absence of sight.
What is being implied here is that Jesus has come as the light into the darkness to reveal something. It is as if God, at Christmas, walks out of the shadows and is the light for humanity. Now does this mean that God has never been witnessed before the coming of Jesus? By no means! There is a thing in theology that we call “general revelation.” There is a revelation of God that we find in The Commandments; we find it in Creation; we find it in the law. We find it and we see it in the love that people have for one another, and in faith.
It was not as though it was complete darkness in the sense that there was no knowledge of God. Rather, God now comes out of the shadows in the fullness of his Son, and in the coming of his Son, and what we know about God now is visible for us to see in a person. He becomes the light where before there had been the darkness, and the darkness can't put it out. Once the light has come, the darkness in a sense of ignorance has moved away. People cannot say that they are ignorant of God, for God has revealed God's self through the Son. God always reveals himself through something. It is always mediated, and the mediator is his Son, Jesus of Nazareth. So, that is God coming out of the shadows.
Advent is when we need to take a step out of the shadows of our own darkness. The darkness that exists in the human soul and the human person is actually something for which we should be responsible. After all, is not the slaughter of the innocents, the abuse of people in their homes, the discrimination against people, the violence that is manifested in the world, is that not borne by darkness within ourselves? It is not just some force out there that is just moving us along and doing it! It is from the heart of darkness, of an ignorance of the love of Christ that we do such things, and in an unwillingness to follow Christ that we do such things.
I have always liked the writings of the great philosopher Vince Lombardi! Those of you who know football will understand the allusion: the famous coach of the Green Bay Packers. He always had an instruction for his running backs. In football, as many of you know, there is an offensive line, and a running back is given the ball and has to run through that line, and that line pushes away the defensive line of the others, and the running back has to make some yards. It is a simple game! (I am grinning!)
So, they hand the ball off to the running back, and the running back runs, but the plays don't always work well. Something goes wrong: someone misses a tackle; someone doesn't block properly. Vince Lombardi always had an instruction for his runners. You have probably heard it a thousand times! He always said, “Run for the light!” When the play breaks down and you don't know what to do, look for the light and run for it. In Advent, we have to run for that light. In Advent, we have to take what we have been given in the Son, but we have to run towards Jesus.
I have been reading a most moving book: a short biography of the life of William Wilberforce, by Victor Shepherd. William Wilberforce, who I have mentioned before in sermons, was the Member of Parliament in Britain who brought an end to slavery within the British Empire. Wilberforce is known for all the abilities that he had to persuade people, and there is much about Wilberforce that is magnificent, but there is a part of Wilberforce's life that people don't know.
William Wilberforce was born into a family where his father died at a very young age. He was physically challenged because he was born nearly blind, and he lived his life with a great degree of darkness physically. He grew up in a Christian home though, and eventually he was with a family that took over his life - they were Evangelical Anglicans - and they eventually became followers of Wesley - they were Methodists. He would go every Sunday, and his preacher was none other than the great John Newton, who wrote the wonderful hymn Amazing Grace.
Newton was the one who had been the owner of slave ships and had seen the light. Wilberforce grew up with him as his minister. But, like so many do, he went off to university. When he went off to university, his life fell apart. He went to Cambridge, and there he started to play cards. In fact, when he was at Cambridge all he did was play cards! Well, along with drinking, womanizing, gambling, and a few other extracurricular activities for which Cambridge is famous! He went there and had a wonderful time! He didn't achieve much academically, but was having a blast!
They also found out that he was very academically attuned, despite all of this, and was quite a wordsmith. So, people talked him into running for Parliament. At the age of twenty-one, he was elected to the House of Parliament. He was treated like royalty! He joined all the great clubs of London. He was chauffeured around in a cab. He was treated as one of the great orators in the Houses of Parliament. He had a wonderful time: he even went to a rich friend's house in the south of France to enjoy himself and relax.
When he was there, this profligate young man, who had said that the teachings of Wesley were “vulgar and unnecessary” - to quote him - started to read a book by a man called Philip Dodderich, a wonderful theologian. It was about the light of Jesus, and that the light shines in the darkness. Dodderich challenged the reader, “Where is darkness in your life? Do you need to have it exposed to the light?” Wilberforce read this, and he felt ashamed. He thought of his childhood and his upbringing and the state of slaves, and he realized that there were people living in darkness, as he was enjoying all the privileges that he had, and he had to do something about it.
The reason he had to do something about it was that his own life had to change first. He could not continue the way he was living. So, he renounced his memberships. He stopped drinking. He decided to dedicate himself - heart, soul and mind - to the liberation and the freedom of the oppressed. And, for the rest of his days, Wilberforce dedicated himself to that because of the writings of Dodderich and the light of Christ. In other words, Wilberforce “ran for the light.” He went and he found the light. Or, should I say the light re-found him and reflected in his life?
Is not Advent a time for us to discover the dark places in our lives, to honestly assess our existence, and say “Where is there such darkness in our being that we cannot totally embrace the wonder and the fullness of the light of Christ? It is a time for introspection, to get out of the shadows and into the light: When you do that your life changes and your sense of God changes. You see the wonder about the coming of Jesus is that the Holy Spirit uses the life and the ministry of Jesus to be able to shed light on our lives about what God is like. God has come out of the shadows through the light of his Son.
I read a deeply moving book just recently entitled Abba's Child by Brennan Manning. In it, there is an opening story that grasped me right away. It is by Flannery O'Connor, the American woman writer. She is a wonderful teller of tales and of stories - a great writer! She is a bit too mystic for me, but I like her. Her one story, entitled The Turkey, just grabbed me. Well, it's Christmas, right? You've got to read a story about a turkey!
I thought the story was about a turkey. It was not! It was about a young boy called Ruller - and Ruller is you and Ruller is me! Ruller grows up in a family where he is really not appreciated. He thinks he is a special child, and he plays only with his own being. He doesn't go and play with friends. He remains isolated. He overhears his parent's downstairs saying, “Ruller is a strange child. Nothing will ever become of Ruller.” Ruller hears this, and he is upset. He feels darkness, according to O'Connor.
One day, he goes out into the woods, as always just walking on his own, and he sees in the distance a turkey. He thinks to himself, “It is nearly Christmas, if I can grab that turkey and bring that turkey home, my mother and father will think I am special.” He thought about it for a while, and then he thought, “No! No! God won't make it that easy for me. God will make me run and run and run, run out of the State trying to chase this turkey. God doesn't really want me to do anything great.”
Ruller sits there for a while. Then, he starts to approach the turkey anyway. The turkey has been shot. He doesn't realize this. So, he grabs the turkey and puts it over his shoulder, and he says, “Thank you, God. You are a great God! You know, God, that I am special, don't you? You gave me the turkey to prove it. Lord, thank you very much for this turkey! God, you are good!” He wants to go into town to show off the turkey. Ruller is pretty cocky at this point.
He goes out into the town, and he then sees a poor person, and he says, “You know, God, now that you have been good to me, you want me to be good to somebody else, so the next poor person that I see I am going to give them a dime.” Ruller finds a poor person, and Ruller gives the dime. Ruller feels good about himself. “God, aren't I good?” Ruller says to God, “Look at me, I am generous. You have given me the ability to be generous. Isn't this just fantastic?”
Then, he says, “Maybe you want me to be a preacher? God, yes, I am special! You want me to be a preacher, and I've got the turkey to prove it.” So, he walks a little further, and a group of young men come up to him, and they say, “Ruller, where did you get the turkey?”
Ruller says, “I got the turkey in the woods. I ran after it, and I got it. Aren't I clever?”
They say, “Ruller, let's have a look at that turkey.”
So, Ruller hands them the turkey. They look at the turkey, and they run away with it. Ruller is standing there in the middle of the square. The turkey has been taken from him! He says, “God, why do you hate me so much? You have taken away my turkey! Now I am going to go home and look a fool! What kind of God are you to do this?”
Finally, after a while, he tries to go and approach the boys to get the turkey back. The story unfolds with Ruller going home. He goes home without the turkey that he thought God had given him to be great and good. Flannery O'Connor wrote at the end: “He ran faster and faster, and as he turned up the road to his house, his heart was running as fast as his legs, and he was certain that something awful was tearing behind him with its arms rigid and its fingers ready to clutch. Ruller had concluded that God was out to get him.”
I love the words of Blaise Pascal, the philosopher. He says: “God made man in his own image, and man returns the compliment.” In other words, the problem with Ruller, as both Manning and Flannery O'Connor point out, is that he decided what God wanted and what God was like. Ruller had made up his mind that God was not going to give him the turkey. God gave him the turkey! God was going to make him a preacher. God was good. He was going to help him feel good about helping others. God then took the turkey away! God is after him! God hates him! He has no self-esteem!
How many of us are just like Ruller? If we are really honest, do we not live in an ebb and flow, vacillating relationship with this God that we make up in our own consciences and our minds? Do we not also live with that cycle: God loves me; God hates me; God wants good things for me; God has taken things from me? But, that is the God of the shadows! That is the very God of darkness that we make God into - a God of our own image and emotions. But, the true God comes out of the darkness and is the Son. And, the Son says, “I have died for you. I lived for you. I love you. I want you to follow me. I want you to love one another, as I have loved you. I want you to live in the light.”
So, never mind the ebb and the flow of the God of your own making, just follow the light. There He is - for all to see! Grace, life, the light in the darkness! Run to it! Run to it! Amen.