Promises of Hope: A Light in the Darkness

 A reading from Isaiah.

Nonetheless, those who were in distress won’t be exhausted. At an earlier time, God cursed the land of Zebulun and the land of Naphtali, but later he glorified the way of the sea, the far side of the Jordan, and the Galilee of the nations.

The people walking in darkness have seen a great light.
    On those living in a pitch-dark land, light has dawned.
You have made the nation great;
    you have increased its joy.
They rejoiced before you as with joy at the harvest,
    as those who divide plunder rejoice.
As on the day of Midian, you’ve shattered the yoke that burdened them,
    the staff on their shoulders,
    and the rod of their oppressor.
Because every boot of the thundering warriors,
    and every garment rolled in blood
    will be burned, fuel for the fire.
A child is born to us, a son is given to us,
    and authority will be on his shoulders.
    He will be named
    Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God,
    Eternal Father, Prince of Peace.
There will be vast authority and endless peace
    for David’s throne and for his kingdom,
    establishing and sustaining it
    with justice and righteousness
    now and forever.

The zeal of the Lord of heavenly forces will do this.

Alright. Show of hands. Who’s afraid of the dark? Come on, now. Be honest. You know that feeling. That little anxious feeling that, even as an adult, arises inside when it feels like it’s too dark. Just a little too dark.

My fear of the dark began - as, perhaps, for most of us - when I was a child. Honestly, it was thanks to my brother. Like my dad, he was a big practical joker. Always messing with my sister and I.

In the early years of our growing up, my sister and I shared a bedroom. Each night, after the lights had been turned off, we would lie there in complete fear. One of things my brother loved to do was to crawl into our room on his belly. Slither under the bed. And then slowly reach this long, seemingly endless, arm up over the side of our bed and try grab us. We would scream. Move closer into the center of the bed in an attempt to get away from him. And, then, he would laugh. An evil, wicked laugh. As only brothers can do.

Darkness. It still scares me a little today. Maybe because it just feels so uncontrollable. So unknown. So. Dark. 

Darkness was what Judah was experiencing in our text today. With the Assyrians breathing down the necks of Israel in the north, Judah was being pressured to enter into an alliance with Egypt and the northern kingdom. To try to defeat their common enemy. Or, at least, to hold them off even for a little while.

In the previous chapter, Yahweh warns Isaiah not to walk in the way of the wayward people. Isaiah is called not to fear what others fear. But to fear only Yahweh. Isaiah is called not to be in dread of what others dread, but to dread only Yahweh. The text in these preceding verses describes the plight of Yahweh’s people. Who do not “wait.” And who do not place their hope in their God. 

Darkness becomes the metaphor used in chapter 8 to describe these people and their wayward experience. They will experience no dawn. They will be greatly distressed and hungry. They will look everywhere, but will see only distress and darkness. Gloom and anguish. Then, again, Isaiah tells them once more, they will be thrust into thick, thick darkness. 

What is the plight of a people who live only in darkness? A people with no light? With no dawn? With no beginning again? With no hope? Darkness brings only gloom and despair. People walking in darkness walk with hesitancy and fear. Unable to find their direction, they grab onto nothingness as they see to touch something familiar. Something that will give them a perspective. That will help them along the way. 

What are your dark places? Maybe it's the darkness of this pandemic, which once more, especially in other parts of our country and the world, is once again increasing. Maybe it's the darkness of our political world, where compromise has become a dirty word and leaders have become more and more polarized. Unable to truly lead as they have been elected to do. Or maybe it's in our economic life, where we are seeing mass resignations because, as many workers are saying, we’re tired of being treated so poorly for so little. Or maybe it's the darkness of our system of justice that never seems to work for people of color, but just perpetuates “whiteness” again and again.

Maybe the darkness is in your personal life. The darkness of failing health. The darkness of disintegrating relationships. Or the deep, deep darkness of grief and loss. The death of a beloved one. Or the deep grief we are experiencing over these past two years. 

Or maybe the darkness is here. In the church. As we watch fewer and fewer people come in the doors. And it feels as though our way of being is dying a slow. Painful. Death.

What are your dark places? Those places where it feels as though there is just no hope.

I’m reminded of the opening verses that we began this lectionary year with - those beginning words of Genesis. “In the beginning when God created the heavens and the earth, the earth was a formless void and darkness covered the face of the deep. The Spirit of God swept over the face of the waters. Then God said, “Let there be light.”

Friends, God was there. In the dark. All along. Present in the darkness and chaos. Working to bring order and light. Perhaps the light then wasn’t for God. But for us. For “those walking in darkness” to “see a great light.” To see God’s saving action that begins in Genesis. And that we read here of in Isaiah. Where Isaiah names the darkness that will be no more. No more burden. Or oppression. Or tramping warriors. Or garments rolled in blood. Perhaps the light is for us today, too. To see that God has been and is at work in our world in the darkness and that, with the light, we can now finally see the saving action of God.

But, is there enough light to break through the darkness? To break through our apathy? Our cynicism? Is there enough light to cause us to ask ourselves once again whether it is enough to penetrate our darkness? Enough light that can shine in and redeem us?

According to Isaiah, yes. Salvation can come. The light is named. A child will be born, Isaiah tells the people, “for us.” The son is given, Isaiah tells the people, “to us.” This ruler to come is called: Wonderful Counselor. Mighty God. Eternal Father. The Prince of Peace. 

Just as God created our beautiful and ordered world out of darkness. Just as God delivered Judah with a new king. So, too, God has delivered us through the light of Jesus Christ. Salvation can come, Isaiah says, because of the zeal of the Lord. What appears to be beyond possibility can be certain. God, through God’s passion and fury, with a great sense of urgency, will see that the light will come. 

Isaiah found this to be true. May we. Amen.

Preached November 21, 2021, at Grace & Glory, Prospect, and Third, Louisville.
Reign of Christ Sunday
Readings: Isaiah 9;1-7; John 8:12

Embodied Faith: Living With Integrity

This is the message we have heard from him and proclaim to you, that God is light and in him there is no darkness at all. If we say that we have fellowship with him while we are walking in darkness, we lie and do not do what is true; but if we walk in the light as he himself is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus his Son cleanses us from all sin. If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, he who is faithful and just will forgive us our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness. If we say that we have not sinned, we make him a liar, and his word is not in us.

My little children, I am writing these things to you so that you may not sin. But if anyone does sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous; and he is the atoning sacrifice for our sins, and not for ours only but also for the sins of the whole world. 1 John 1:5-2:2 (NRSV)



Grace and peace to you from God, our Creator, and from our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. Amen.

We are continuing our look at 1st John, which was a letter written to the community of John’s followers sometime after the Gospel of John, near the end of the first century. We learned last week, that this letter was intended to affirm the divine nature of Christ, but, that mostly, it was intended to stress the tangibility, the touchability, the being in community with Christ. Specifically, the human nature Christ. That it is this humanity of Christ--Christ coming to earth in the body to be with us--that suggests to us that our faith is to be lived out in community. Not individually. But, in community.

So, today, we have our second lesson from 1st John. As we think about this lesson, we are going to think about this together. This will be more of a participation sermon! More of a conversation between us. And, perhaps, between all of our ideas and thoughts, we may come to an even greater understanding of this passage than if I simply stood up here and preached a one-way sermon. Because we are so much greater together than we are individually. So, I hope and I invite you to feel free to join into conversation with me around today’s reading.

To begin with, we just heard a reading that is chock full of metaphor. What is a metaphor? (Dictionary definition: a figure of speech in which a word or phrase is applied to an object or action to which it is not literally applicable. Or a thing regarded as representative or symbolic of something else, especially something abstract.) It’s when we transfer some of the meaning of a word or a phrase to something else.

What are some examples of metaphors? These can be from scripture or not. 
I am the good shepherd. (Jesus in John’s gospel.)
All the world’s a stage, and all men and women merely players. They have their exits and their entrances. (William Shakespeare)
Chaos is a friend of mine. (Bob Dylan)

So, metaphors are things that are used to help us better understand something. Would that be a fair description?

In today’s lesson, there is a very famous metaphor that is used for God. “God is light.” What meaning does this particular metaphor for God have for you? What are other examples of metaphors for God that you can think of or that we find in scripture? (I am the gatekeeper. I am the bread of life. Etc.) Why do you think the Bible writers use metaphor so much? (To help us better understand the nature of God.)

So, if metaphors are used in scripture to help us better understand who God is, then, I’m going to do a little demonstration using the “God is light,” metaphor to understand what this might mean for us in our lives as disciples.

(Hold up flashlight.) What is this? Flashlight. What is it used for? To help us see better in dark places or in darkness. What are some other things we use to help us see better in darkness? You have an example of something that was given to you as you entered the sanctuary this morning. Candles, lights, or nightlight.

So, now, I’m going to tap into those who were in the Kerygma class this past spring. In that class, we went deeper into the Gospel of John. In particular, at the start of our study, we looked at specific words and their meaning as they were used by the gospel writer. The epistle of 1st John was likely either written by the same author or group of authors. So, many of the meanings from the gospel of John are transferable to the letter of John.

So, Kerygma experts, how did the author of the gospel define the word “light”? As goodness. So, if “light” means “goodness,” then what is “darkness”? Right, the absence of goodness, or, in one word, “evil.” Let’s go back then to the very first sentence in today’s Gospel lesson and replace the words “light” and “darkness” with “good” and “evil.” Does someone what to read it with those replacements? This is the message we have heard from him and proclaim to you, the God is good and in him there is no evil at all. 

How does this change, or does it change, your understand of who God is? Has anyone ever said this to you, “God doesn’t give you more than you can handle.”? Do you see how bogus that phrase is? It’s bogus because it suggests that God gives us evil things, but never anything more than we can handle. If the nature of God is good and if there is no evil in God at all, does God really send evil to us? 

This leads us to the second point of today’s text. It’s the part that applies to us as people of God. It’s a pretty strong and pointed message for us. I’m going to read it this time from The Message paraphrase:

“If we claim that we experience a shared life with God and continue to stumble around in the dark, we’re obviously lying through our teeth--we’re not living what we claim. But, if we walk in the light, God himself being the light, we also experience a shared life with one another, as the sacrificed blood of Jesus, God’s Son, purges all our sin.”

As Lutherans, over and over again our focus is that we are saved by faith through God’s grace. This is absolutely true! But, what this often led to is a disconnect between our faith--what we say we believe--and our actions.  If we truly have faith, 1st John says, then our faith--our embodied faith where Jesus is incarnated in our very hearts. Then our faith requires us to live with integrity.

Integrity. That’s a big word. What does it mean? There is a consistency between words and actions. When we do what we say we will do. Or when we do what we say we believe. 

When we say we will do something and do it, that is integrity. When we say that God desires we love our neighbors and we go out of our way to help someone, that is integrity. 

But, when we say that, as believers, we are to care for the poor or the marginalized and we act in ways that harm them, then, quite simply, we are lying. And, even worse, if we say we have faith and then walk in darkness, but then say it is light, we “double err.” That’s what Luther calls it. Two evils: to err and, then, to defend error.

My friends, faith is not faith if we don’t live it out. And not just to our family and friends and those people we like. But, particularly, to those we don’t like or to those who we don’t think deserve it. That is an embodied faith that is living with integrity. A faith that walks the talk.

It is not easy. And we often fail, don’t we? The good news is the promise at the end of our lesson today. “My little children, I’m writing these things to you so that you don't sin. But, if you do sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ, the righteous one. He is God’s way of dealing with our sins. Not only ours, but the sins of the whole world.”

This is our comfort. That, as we go about our lives together and seek to truly live out our faith with integrity, here in this place and in our neighborhood, we have the promise that, when we fail, God will be right there to pick up the pieces. To pick us up and forgive us. Because God has given us God’s Son as our advocate. Our own public defender. Our Savior who has dealt with our sins and with the sins of the entire world. 

Thanks be to God, who, loves us so much that, even when we fail, God clears us of guilt and frees us to try one more time!

Amen. 

Preached Sunday, July 1, 2018, at Grace & Glory Lutheran Church, Goshen, KY.
Pentecost 6
Readings: 1 John 1:5-2:2 (John 1:29)