Spiritual guidance for anyone seeking a path to God. explorefaith.org

 

Explore God's Love Explore Your Faith Explore the Church Explore Who We Are  

Home
> Margaret Jones' Featured Contributions > "In the Deepest Darkness...an Invincible Light"
 

Join our mailing list
Join our mailing list
 
Send this page to a friend

Support explorefaith.org

Give us your feedback

RELATED LINKS

More from
Margaret Jones

Being Real
Spiritual Tools for
Authentic Living

Collections
A Collage of Suggestions
for Deep Reflection

Stepping Stones
for Spiritual Growth

FAITH and LIFE

Signpost:
Daily Devotions

Oasis:
Take a Moment
to Meditate

Send a free e-card


 
 

December 11, 2005
The Third Sunday of Advent

In the Deepest Darkness...an Invincible Light
The Rev. Margaret Jones

Gospel: John 1: 6-8, 19-28
Old Testament Reading: Isaiah 61:1-4, 8-11
(This sermon is also available in audio)

Two weeks ago, at the beginning of children’s chapel, we went to the Great Hall to put the first figures into the beautiful new creche. As different children placed the figures, I told them about Advent and how we are to watch, and listen, and wait for Jesus to come. I thought things were going pretty well and that I was getting the message across, when suddenly a six-year-old girl named Christina raised her hand and asked, “Is Jesus going to be born again?”

I thought it was an amazing question and told her so. “Well, yes!” I said. “And it is wonderful. Year after year, Jesus is born in us, and for us. And each time is different. Jesus comes to us in a new way each year.”

Thanks to Christina’s curiosity, I thought back on Advents past and realized how different and varied they have been. Some years, I await Christmas eagerly, full of joy and wonder, like a child. Some years, I feel hollow and brittle and on the verge of tears most of the time.

One year was particularly sad for me, but that was the year I found a small wall hanging with a quote from Albert Camus written on it. The quote was, The harshest winter finds in us an invincible spring. I hung it in my bedroom and memorized it. By the grace of God, I learned that Camus is right. The harshest winter does find in us an invincible spring.

What I hear in today’s Scripture readings is the same thing: through the grace of God, the deepest darkness finds in us an invincible light. Listen to the first part of the gospel: “There was a man sent from God, whose name was John. He came as a witness to testify to the light, so that all might believe through him. He himself was not the light, but he came to testify to the light.”

What the gospel writer tells us so eloquently is that God’s holy and life-giving light comes into our world, and that God sends messengers, people like John the Baptist, to tell us about the light, to point us toward it. In the gospel of John, there is no mention of John the Baptist’s clothing or his diet of locusts and wild honey. Those details come from Matthew, Mark and Luke, but in this gospel all we know is that John was sent from God and that he came as a witness to the light.

The second part of today’s gospel reads like a courtroom trial, with the religious leaders as interrogators and John as a witness. They ask, “Who are you? By what authority do you baptize?” John answers, “I am not the Messiah, I am not Elijah, I am not the prophet.” And he points away from himself to the One who is coming. John knows that he is not the Light, but he knows the Light exists and that it is coming into the world. The people who came to hear John and be baptized by him were oppressed by the Roman Empire, crushed by economic and social injustice, and longed for that light.

Five hundred years earlier, the people who listened to the prophet Isaiah’s words, in today’s Old Testament reading, had returned to Jerusalem from exile in Babylon and faced the critical and difficult task of rebuilding their community. They were free, yes, but also they were in the dark about how to rebuild their lives.

Isaiah’s words are like lightning bolts: The spirit of the Lord God is upon me, he begins, and then he proclaims the good news – his gospel – to the oppressed, the brokenhearted, captives and prisoners. They are to receive garlands instead of ashes, oil of gladness instead of mourning, and mantles of praise instead of a faint spirits.

Imagine hearing this when you are down and out, struggling in the dark. No wonder that, according to Luke’s gospel, this was the text for Jesus’ first sermon in a Nazareth synagogue.

John the Baptist and Isaiah’s anointed one were both sent from God to point people who were in all sorts and conditions of darkness toward God’s holy, healing light, to let them know that in the deepest darkness there is the invincible light of God. I have had some Johns and Isaiahs in my life. Maybe my list will remind you of people who pointed you toward the light:

There was a man sent from God whose name was Bob, a priest who sat with me one Sunday afternoon outside a hospital in Memphis where my father, inside, was not expected to live through the day. Bob stayed there for hours, talking to me about what could happen and what decisions I might have to make. My father recovered, but what I remember most about that day was how Bob enlightened and comforted me.

There was a woman sent from God whose name was Janie. She’s about ten years older than I, and for years her practical wisdom has been for me like ballast on a ship. Once, in that dark and sad Advent years ago, Janie came over to bring Christmas tree ornaments for my children. She stayed a while, and when she left she said something I’ve never forgotten: “I know things are going to be better for you than you can even imagine.” I probably went, “Sure!” But she fixed her eyes on me, said, “I really mean it,” and went away, taking with her some of the darkness that had begun to overwhelm me, and leaving me much lighter in spirit.

Of course, God sends light-bearers into our community life as well as our personal lives:

There was a man sent from God whose name was Scott. He came among us asking, “What can be done to give the working poor good health care?” And he lit a bonfire of hopeful light that became the Church Health Center.

There were some people sent from God whose names were John T. and Annabelle and Frank, to name just a few. In 1968, at a dark time in our city, they came together with others who shared their passion for spreading the light of justice and compassion into other people’s lives. Gathering a diverse group, they asked, “What can be done to bring people in Memphis together to deliver services to those who need them?” And MIFA was born.

There were some folks sent from God whose names are Elizabeth and Jimmy and Matthew and Meg. Along with several others, they drove to the Gulf Coast in early November, bringing hope and help to people whose lives have been turned upside down. Since I these men and women, I can say with assurance that they brought the light of Christ right into that devastation. And many of YOU are going today to do the same. God bless you, every one.

Every now and then, God sends us great preachers.

There was a man sent from God whose name was John – John Claypool, the preacher many of us knew and loved. John Claypool lived through the deepest darkness and despair when his young daughter died. But he turned that darkness into a light of hope and healing for others as he wrote and preached that “all life is gift, pure and simple, something we neither earned nor deserved nor had a right to, and that the appropriate response to a gift is gratitude.”

Speaking of gifts, there was a child sent from God whose name is Miriam, my three-year-old granddaughter. As most of you know, we spend a lot of time together.

One evening at our kitchen table, I looked out the window and said, “Look! The moon is out.” She turned her head away and said “NO, Gigi! I no like the moon. Close de curtains.” I could tell she was really afraid, so I began to tell her that the moon helps us, that it lights our way in the dark, that it is a good thing, like the nightlight in her bedroom. She listened carefully and I thought we’d made some progress, but when it was time to go home, she put on her heart-shaped sunglasses, held up her arms, and said, “Pick up me, Gigi.”

I held her close and asked her if she was afraid to go out into the dark, and she whispered yes. “Is it the moon you are afraid of?” I asked. “Yes,” she said. “What about the moon scares you?” I asked. She was very still and finally said, “I am afraid it will fall.”

What I told her may not be scientifically accurate, but I know it is true. “Miriam,” I said, “the moon is a special gift from God, a light that comes to us in the darkness. The moon will never fall because that kind of light is forever, I promise you.” She relaxed a bit, so we got into my car and drove through the dark to her house. When I saw the moon, I didn’t say anything to Miriam, but I noticed that it was brighter and stronger than I had ever seen it.

Copyright ©2005 Calvary Episcopal Church

Gospel Reading: John 1:6-8, 19-28
There was a man sent from God, whose name was John. He came as a witness to testify to the light, so that all might believe
through him. He himself was not the light, but he came to testify
to the light. (John 1)

This is the testimony given by John when the Jews sent priests and Levites from Jerusalem to ask him, "Who are you?" He confessed and did not deny it, but confessed, "I am not the Messiah." And they asked him, "What then? Are you Elijah?" He said, "I am not." "Are you the prophet?" He answered, "No." Then they said to him, "Who are you? Let us have an answer for those who sent us. What do you say about yourself?" He said, "I am the voice of one crying out in the wilderness, 'Make straight the way of the Lord,'" as the prophet Isaiah said. Now they had been sent from the Pharisees. They asked him, "Why then are you baptizing if you are neither the Messiah, nor Elijah, nor the prophet?" John answered them, "I baptize with water. Among you stands one whom you do not know, the one who is coming after me; I am not worthy to untie the thong of his sandal." This took place in Bethany across the Jordan where John was baptizing.
NRSV (New Revised Standard Version)

(Return to Top)

Old Testament Reading: Isaiah 61:1-4, 8-11
The spirit of the Lord God is upon me,
    because the Lord has anointed me;
he has sent me to bring good news to the oppressed,
    to bind up the broken-hearted,
to proclaim liberty to the captives,
    and release to the prisoners;
to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favour,
    and the day of vengeance of our God;
    to comfort all who mourn;
to provide for those who mourn in Zion—
    to give them a garland instead of ashes,
the oil of gladness instead of mourning,
    the mantle of praise instead of a faint spirit.
They will be called oaks of righteousness,
    the planting of the Lord, to display his glory.
They shall build up the ancient ruins,
    they shall raise up the former devastations;
they shall repair the ruined cities,
    the devastations of many generations.

For I the Lord love justice,
    I hate robbery and wrongdoing;
I will faithfully give them their recompense,
    and I will make an everlasting covenant with them.
Their descendants shall be known among the nations,
    and their offspring among the peoples;
all who see them shall acknowledge
    that they are a people whom the Lord has blessed.
I will greatly rejoice in the Lord,
    my whole being shall exult in my God;
for he has clothed me with the garments of salvation,
    he has covered me with the robe of righteousness,
as a bridegroom decks himself with a garland,
    and as a bride adorns herself with her jewels.
For as the earth brings forth its shoots,
    and as a garden causes what is sown in it to spring up,
so the Lord God will cause righteousness and praise
    to spring up before all the nations.
NRSV (New Revised Standard Version)

 


(Return to Top)

 

Send this article to a friend.

Home | Explore God's Love | Explore Your Faith | Explore the Church | Who We Are
Reflections | Stepping Stones | Oasis | Lifelines | Bulletin Board | Search |Contact Us |
 
  Search
Copyright ©1999-2007 explorefaith.org