Michael D. Powell December 14, 2008
John 1:6-8, 19-28 3rd Sunday in Advent
It’s dark outside! The storm clouds of terrorism and war continue to rage, the economy is the pits, there are bankruptcies, budget deficits, political corruption and all kinds of bad, really bad news. It’s a dark time, and the title of my sermon this morning is “Rejoice In The Light.” Go figure!
Boldly claiming the promise of scripture - we assert the promise that God’s Light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it. It’s the Third Sunday of Advent and each week we’ve been lighting another candle as we grow nearer to the birth of the Christ child, the Prince of Peace and Light of the World. We started out waiting and watching, and this morning we’re getting prepared. The third candle is always pink, and is often associated with the joy of Mary as she prepared to birth the Light of the world. It’s a candle of rejoicing.
Our Gospel text this morning is the message of John The Baptist! Now, there’s a dark and gloomy guy who just doesn’t seem to fit into the rejoicing of the season. He admits as much when he says, “I am not the Light! The Light is coming, but my job is not to be the Light. My job is to bear witness to the Light, to share my testimony about the coming of the Light.” Thank you, John! I needed to hear that. Normally, when we think of John the Baptist, we think of this bizarre, buggy sort of guy, eating locusts and honey, carrying one of those signs that says, “Repent or perish.” All four Gospels tell the story of John the Baptist, but this morning we see a softer side of John. He seems to have mellowed. He sounds almost like a United Methodist!
“There was a man, sent from God,” we read, “and his name was John.” Not a single word about eating grasshoppers! “I’m not the Light,” he says. “I come as a witness to the Light, to testify to the Light which is coming into the world.” And I, for one, am glad that John has lightened up. It’s Christmas! I’m ready for something a little brighter, a little lighter than John’s usual hellfire and brimstone sort of message. Enough with the darkness, I’m ready to rejoice in the Light, aren’t you?
John speaks of the coming Light with such confidence, with such courage and conviction. Don’t you wish you had that kind of confidence? Most of us struggle and stumble in the darkness once in awhile. That’s why we’re here this morning. That’s why we pray for the coming of the Light, the birth of the Christ child, the Prince of Peace, the incarnation of God’s Divine Love in the person of Jesus.
It may surprise you to know that even John wasn’t so sure all the time. There came a time, just a year or so after he baptized Christ, when John found himself rotting away in a cold dark prison cell, facing an almost certain death for speaking truth to power, and he had a failure of confidence, a crisis of faith. That’s when he smuggled word out to his cousin, Jesus, asking: “Are you really the One we’ve been waiting for, or should we look for someone else?” You see, John had expected Jesus to come in power to liberate the oppressed, and now he himself is in prison. He’d expected Jesus to be pure, unbroken Light, and he finds himself a captive of the dark. It was confusing, and it shook his faith. Have you ever felt that way? I have! I think everyone has, and I personally wouldn’t trust anybody who denied that they’d ever felt threatened by the darkness. It’s part of the human condition. Jesus Christ is the Light of the World, but John was not Jesus Christ, and neither are you and I!
There was quite a stir not long ago when Mother Teresa’s private prayers and papers came to light and it was revealed that she struggled with the darkness. She inspired tremendous faith in others, but she confessed that she did not always feel the strength in her own faith. I personally found that reassuring. We tend to put our saints on a pedestal where they live far removed from our mundane concerns, so when I hear that even Mother Teresa struggled, and yet continued to dedicate her life to God and to a profoundly healing ministry, I am encouraged.
And I’ll tell you another true story, about the Reverend Theodore Parker Ferris. He was one of the great preachers of a generation or so ago. For thirty years he was rector of Trinity Episcopal Church in Boston. He was recognized as a man of faith who, by his witness, helped others see the Light shining in the darkness. He spent his ministry, like John did, pointing to the Light. After his death, twenty-some years ago, his family went through his private papers, and what they found surprised them. Faith was not easy for Ferris. Included in those collected papers was a prayer that he had written, scrawled on the back of a beverage list from an airline. The prayer went like this:
“Lord Jesus, I would like to be able to do myself the things I help others to do. I can give them a confidence that I myself do not have, and I can quiet their anxieties, but not my own. What do I lack? Or is it the way I’m made? I want to be free to move from place to place without fear, and I want to face the things that must be faced without panic. You did it, and you made it possible for others to do it. You trusted your Father. You met each moment as it came. I would like to do the same, but by myself I can’t. I like to think that you can be with me and in me, and that with your help I can do better. Amen.” [quoted by Mark Trotter]
What comes through that prayer is that Ferris, like Mother Teresa, like John the Baptist, was human, a man sent from God, to be sure, but a man who knew that he himself was not the Light – that his calling was to bear witness, to testify, to point others toward the Light, toward someone greater than himself. And that’s our purpose too. That’s what Christmas is about, and that’s why we’re here – that’s my prayer for you and for me this morning, as we gather in the darkness of bankruptcies, the threat of terrorism and a sagging economy. May we bear witness to the Light as we bravely sing our carols and light the candles of the Advent wreath. By the grace of God, may we catch a glimpse of the true Light that is coming into the world, and by the power and the inspiration of the Holy Spirit may we rejoice, and may we share a bit of that Light with others. That’s what it means to be a child of the Light.
I’ll close with a word of scripture. If ever there was anyone who knew about darkness, and yet pointed toward the Light, it was Paul. His words of encouragement to the church at Thessalonica are a beacon of Light, and they’re words to us as well, as we wait, work and pray for the Prince of Peace: “Rejoice always, pray without ceasing; give thanks in all circumstances; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you. Do not quench the Spirit. Do not despise the words of the prophets, but test everything; hold fast to what is good, abstain from every form of evil. May the God of peace sanctify you entirely; and may your spirit and soul and body be kept sound and blameless at the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ. The one who calls you is faithful, and will do this . . . the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you.” [11 Thessalonians 4:16-24]
Pray for the light, and rejoice in the Lord. Thanks be to God. Amen!