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Creekside Church
Sermon of December
3, 2006
"Love
Lights the Darkness"
Luke
21:25-36
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Rev.
David Bibbee
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From
my childhood, I have held fast to treasured memories of Christmas,
especially of the days leading up to it. In Marion, Ohio, the first
alert that Christmas was near was the appearance of the sign above
the entrance to Crawbaugh's Hardware Store. On it was a rotund, rosy-cheeked
Santa and the word, "TOYS." Soon afterward, across the street
from Crawbaugh's, the manger scene appeared on the court house lawn,
and on the other side of the Court House, Santa's house. No one fussed
about mixing religion and politics in those days. Down the length
of Main and Center Streets, boughs of real garland entwined with colored
lights spanned the street, and in the center of each strand were red
bells that flashed back and forth.
Every year,
we piled into the car and drove around town looking at Christmas
lights. There wasn't much to see in our neighborhood, so we went
to the east side of town where the rich people lived. Their homes
were the first to have those flashy aluminum trees with the rotating
color wheels that turned the tree from red to blue to yellow to
green. We "Oood!" and "Ahhhhd!" as we wove our
way through the streets, debating which lights were prettier-- the
multi-colored or the solid-colored ones.
The best display
in town was on the corner of Uncapher and Mt. Vernon Avenue. It
was years ahead of its time, and must have been built by an electrical
engineer. Santa, sleigh, and reindeer flashed from one end of the
roof to the top of the chimney on the other, and when he reached
the zenith, flashing letters spelled, "NOEL."
Those were warm,
wonderful times that introduced me to the awe and holiness of Christmas.
From my limited little vantage point, life couldn't have been better.
Christmas was the sign that all was right with the world. But what
did I know? I had a family that loved me. I was taught that God
loved me even more. I had shoes on my feet, ate three meals a day,
and slept in a warm bed. Life was good and I was safe and that was
all that mattered.
I knew nothing
about want. I never met a starving person. My uncle fought in a
war, but I had no clue of what war was about. I was unaware of the
forces at work in the world that thwarted God's intentions for it.
The only darkness I knew was the kind that hid night monsters in
my bedroom.
I still enjoy
Christmas lights and the pleasant associations they inspire. But
I think we've gone overboard with outdoor décor. Miles of
lights are strung from every gable, window, bush, and tree. On its
next flight, I bet the Shuttle astronauts will be able to see the
Christmas light extravaganza from Winding Brooke Estates in Mishawaka.
Why all the lights? I have a hypothesis.
Their number
is proportionate to the depth darkness we feel. Given the number
and magnitude of troubles plaguing the world, people are edgy and
uncertain. They are not optimistic about the future. It could be
that homes consuming the greatest wattage do not even acknowledge
"the great fact" upon which Christmas is founded. Maybe
there is an unconscious "fear factor" at work. The greater
the darkness, the greater the need for light to keep it at bay.
The gospel of
Luke is synonymous with Christmas-Joseph and Mary's sojourn to Bethlehem,
shepherds keeping watch over their flocks by night, choirs of angels
proclaiming peace, our sentimental picture of baby Jesus wrapped
in swaddling cloths and nestled in a manger of sweet, warm hay.
But the scripture for the first Sunday in Advent is Luke 21, and
it has a decidedly different mood than Luke 2. It is not
about light and love. It is about darkness and distress.
Jesus issued
a warning. "Keep your eyes open. Stay alert. The days are coming
when the Big Dipper will crash into Orion. The seas shall roar.
You will faint from fear because the things you counted upon-the
human institutions you trusted and the cycles of nature you thought
were permanent will be ground into powder." And all God's people
said, "Thank you, Jesus, for spoiling a beautiful Advent morning
with all this unsettling talk about the world's demise.
Advent calls
us pause to ponder the incomprehensible thing God did. Out of his
great love for humanity, God omnipotent became vulnerable. God almighty
made a baby of himself.
Last week we
sent nearly a thousand mailings to homes around the church, inviting
people to worship with us during Advent. But God didn't announce
his arrival with mass mailings and advertisements. Quietly, humbly,
and in impoverished conditions, God visited us. For three short
years, God walked an obscure parcel of the Roman Empire teaching,
preaching, and healing. He was betrayed by his own, died an agonizing,
humiliating death, and rose from the tomb as unnoticed as when he
came… all because he loved us.
Jesus came to
redeem the world. But the world is not yet redeemed-not by a long
shot. The early Christians were despised and persecuted. They lived
hard lives in troubling times. The signs Jesus described played
out before their eyes. They drew courage from these words because
they were living the end times.
Today, many
in our world understand Jesus' signs of the times. They know about
war, ethnic cleansing, famine, and suffering brought about my human
hatred and devastating power of natural disasters. We who are the
children of plenty have been insulated from suffering that grips
much of the world and Jesus' words are foreign to us.
But we are starting
to take notice. There are signs in the sun and moon and stars and
on the earth, distress and perplexity among the nations, foreboding
at what is coming. Order has broken down. Human affairs have blown
far off course.
It used to be
that only the hell-fire preachers ranted about such things. Now,
social scientists, epidemiologists, climatologists are sounding
the warnings. The ranks of the poor are growing. The needs of large
segments of the population are ignored. AIDS continues to spread,
and there is great concern about a devastating pandemic. The planet
is warming, ice caps are melting, storms are more violent, and species
of plants, birds, and animals are becoming extinct at an alarming
rate.
There are sobering
parallels between the collapse of the Roman Empire and the direction
we are going in this country, while elected leaders work for their
own good instead of the common good. Do you go to sleep confident
that our leaders have a handle on the conditions in Iraq? Is there
a plan in place to end centuries old sectarian violence?
When Mary and
Joseph presented Jesus at the temple, the prophetess Anna, who worshipped
and fasted night and day, saw Jesus, thanked God, and spoke of him
to all who were looking for the redemption of Jerusalem. The world
however, remains to be redeemed. Stress factures are everywhere
in this troubled time, and we are still waiting for redemption.
In the film,
Signs, Mel Gibson plays the Reverend Graham Hess, a man who renounces
his faith and leaves the ministry after his wife's senseless death
six months earlier. He is enraged at God. He will have nothing to
do with the God he blames for bringing his world to an end.
He goes to live
in a farmhouse with his two young children and his brother when
a far greater crisis comes. Aliens invade the world, but the story
that follows is not about battling aliens. It is about what happens
when we are overwhelmed and conditions are hopeless and we desperately
need God.
As Graham and
his brother watch TV reports of the event as it unfolds all over
the world, his brother asks for words of comfort. He tells him,
"There are two kinds of people in the world-those who believe
there are no coincidences and God is watching over every aspect
of their lives, and those who believe that everything is a coincidence
and there is no One to turn to in times of need." When Graham
is asked which person he is, he responds, "We are all on our
own."
I want you to
watch a scene from the film. The house has been boarded up, and
the family sits at the dinner table for what may well be their last
meal. It seems likely that the world as they know it will come to
an end.
If there are
only coincidences; if there is no God to pray to, or no God who
will help; if all we can do is weep and hold on to is each other;
knowing that we are in fact, all on our own, the darkness wins.
But the message of this film is that when life seems hopeless and
our prospects are most bleak, God's love intervenes.
Jesus didn't
tell us to string up colored lights when life grows bleak. He said,
"When these things take place, lift up your heads and look
because your redemption is drawing near."
Only God knows
if we will wake up and correct the course on which we are headed.
But Advent tells us to trust something greater that trends. I take
comfort in the faith-filled observation that… "We can
never take our own projections more seriously than God's promises."
The Bible scholar
J. B. Phillips said, "Behind all our fun and games at Christmastime,
we should not try to escape a sense of awe, almost a sense of fright,
at what God has done. We must never allow anything to blind us to
the true significance of what happened at Bethlehem so long ago.
Nothing can alter the fact that we live on a visited planet."
I don't know
about aliens, but we do know that God once walked the earth and
staked a claim on it. The day will come when the Big Dipper and
Orion will collide. The day will come when the last traces of human
institutions will disappear. Even so, Jesus tells us to look up,
because our redemption and the redemption of the world is near.
We look up, because God's future is tied to Jesus' future, and our
future is tied to his.
Look up, because
the light of his love shines in the darkness, and the darkness will
not overcome it.
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