OUT OF DARKNESS

Scripture: John 1:1-13; 3:18-21

INTRODUCTION

I don’t know who first coined the phrase, but I believe it with all my heart. You won’t find it in the Bible, but it comes ever so close to the gospel. And although the words can’t be heard in any of our Christmas carols, the words are true and speak to me, as I hope they speak to you during this Advent season:

It is better to light a candle than to curse the darkness.

As Christians, we believe that God lit the candle of salvation once and for all, a long time ago, when He sent His Son Jesus to live among us on earth. The prologue of John’s gospel proclaims that, In Him was life, and His life was the light of humanity. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it (John 1:4-5).

That is what we believe, and that is what we celebrate this Advent-Christmas season – that God’s love, revealed in Jesus Christ, leads us out of the darkness into His glorious light!

Yet, with all of that said, every one of us knows that the darkness is still at work in this world, and sometimes it seems that the darkness just won’t let us go.

The Presbyterian pastor and author Frederick Buechner describes it this way:

“We are (as Isaiah once prophesied) ‘A people who walk in Darkness’ (Isaiah 9:2)…if darkness is meant to convey a sense of uncertainty, of being lost or afraid…if darkness suggests conflicts between races, nations or individuals…if darkness depicts a world where we can’t see very well (because of sin), then we know enough about the darkness.” (From “Listening To Your Life” by Frederick Buechner, page 266)

Do those words strike a chord deep down inside any of you? I suspect they do, because some of us have come here today with broken hearts and shattered dreams, searching for the healing and hope that we need. We know about the darkness.

Others here might be struggling with anxiety, depression, fear or self-doubt and we’re looking for help and some way out of the storm. We know about the darkness.

There are those who have been unemployed, since or before September 11; some of us who are caught in the vice-grip of addiction; still others who are trying to keep a marriage or a family together; people who feel overwhelmed by the daily pressures of life and many more who are suffering with pain and sorrow, praying for relief and the promise of tomorrow. We know about the darkness.

A little girl, born into poverty, shivering on the streets of a northeastern city, slipped into a church one Sunday morning during December to get warm. Sitting in the back pew, she heard the preacher declare from the pulpit that “the light shines in the darkness and the darkness has not overcome it.”

When the service was over, she went up front and asked the pastor what he meant. He answered, “Jesus Christ is the light of the world and has come to save us and set us free.” The girl looked up at him and replied, “Well then, I wish He would come hang around our alley, cause it’s awful dark down there.”

My friends – the good news of the gospel is that He has come down here to live among us, to help us face the darkness and to conquer our fear. There is no sin so great that He cannot forgive it. There is no relationship so broken that He cannot help us restore it. There is no problem so serious that He cannot show us the way to resolve it. There is no pain so deep that He cannot intervene to heal it.

And when we open our hearts to let the light of Jesus Christ shine within us, He has promised to guide us in the way He wants us to go, and to show us how we can live according to God’s will. I think that’s what the Danish Christian philosopher Soren Kierkegaard was trying to tell us when he said that “faith sees best in the dark.”

Do you believe that today? If you do, or if you want to, then you can know beyond the shadow of a doubt that the words of John’s gospel are true: The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.

II.

But John went on to say something else which we need to explore before we’re through. In chapter 3, verse 19, he warned us: This is the judgment, that the light has come into the world, and some people loved the darkness rather than the light…

Most of us would probably apply that warning to the terrorists who attacked our nation on September 11. Perhaps we might point our finger at suicide bombers in the Middle East, and closer to home, at those who sell drugs to children, or produce pornography or shoot innocent bystanders on our city streets. It’s so obvious to us that they have chosen to live in the darkness instead of the light.

But what about the darkness in our own lives when we refuse to let the light of Christ shine? A father was Christmas shopping in a mall with his three-year-old son, and became impatient with a store clerk behind the cash register. As the father was arguing about the sale price of a shirt, the little boy wandered away. Minutes later, the father realized he was gone and began a frantic search to find him. The child was standing outside a window, with his nose pressed up to the glass, looking in at a manger scene. When he heard his father call his name, he shouted out gleefully, “Look Daddy, it’s Jesus! The baby Jesus in the manger!” The father grabbed him by the arm and said, “C’mon, we don’t have time for that today.”

It can happen, it does happen you know, especially at this time of year in what we call “the Christmas rush,” when the crowds push, the parking lots are full, our patience wears thin, our blood pressure goes up and we lose sight of the light and the real reason for this season.

It happened to Helen Hayes, that grand lady of screen and stage, but hers was a different situation. She lost a daughter far too young to a disease that wouldn’t go away, and she shut her friends out and cut herself off from God. Later, as she wrote her autobiography, this is what she said: “I cut God out of my life and didn’t have the nerve to ask Him to come into my life again. Nevertheless, I went to my church in New York City and prayed there every morning and I kept looking for a restoration of faith and reunion with God. And then, much later, I discovered that it had happened, right there in the church. I could recall, vividly, one by one, the people I had seen there – the solemn laborers with tired looks, the old women with gnarled hands. Life had knocked them around, but for a brief moment they were being refreshed by an ennobling experience. It seemed as they prayed their worn faces lighted up and they became the very vessels of God. Suddenly I realized I was one of them. In my need I saw they too had needs, and felt an interdependence with them. I experienced a flood of compassion for people, and have never since felt separated from the love of God.” (From “This I Believe,” by Helen Hayes, Simon & Schuster)

III.

It can happen, right here in the church, even though sometimes we get to fussing with each other about issues and problems and often argue about the silliest things. A rural church over in Arkansas held a meeting early one December to decide about purchasing a new chandelier for the chancel. An old mountaineer stood up to protest and this is what he said: “I’m agin’ it! First of all, can’t none of us even spell the word. Second, if we did have one, there’s nobody who would know how to play it. And third, what we really need in this church is more light!”

Now that man didn’t understand what he was talking about, but strangely enough, he was right. Because in that church, and in this church, we need to let the light of Jesus Christ shine in our worship, draw us together as a Community of Grace and radiate out across this city so that others will know of His love and be touched by His embrace.

I saw that light and I felt that grace just an hour ago in this sanctuary as we celebrated our annual Christmas Pageant. The children, more than 250 of them, dazzled every one of us in their costumes as they re-enacted the Christmas Story in all of its glory! There was light in their eyes, excitement on their faces and joy in their hearts as they played their parts and sang the Christmas carols.

And watching all of them focus on the Baby Jesus in the manger, I couldn’t help but remember another pageant which was produced long ago in London by Laurence Housman. Hundreds of people were involved in the production, and instead of a real, live baby, the Christ Child was to be reflected and revealed by an electric light hidden in the manger. During the final scene, all the stage lights were darkened so that only the brightness of the manger would be visible. But something went wrong. One of the backstage crewmembers became confused and turned off the manger light with all the others, leaving the entire theater in total darkness. It was a tense moment of silence, with everyone holding their breath, until at last, the entire audience could hear the stage manager’s loud whisper: “Hey…you switched off Jesus!”

CONCLUSION

In just sixteen days, it will be Christmas, and I hope and pray that will not happen to us. God knows this world is full of darkness – that is why He sent us His Son, to set us free from sin and to lead us out of the darkness into His glorious light. But God has not and will never force the light upon us. He has, instead, given us the choice. And if we will open our hearts and homes and lives to Him, when that silent, holy Christmas night comes, we will have good reason to rejoice. Because the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.

In the name of the Father, and the Son and the Holy Spirit. Amen.

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