Light and Life to ALL He Brings.

An excerpt from my sermon today...

John 1:1-5
In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. 2 He was in the beginning with God. 3 All things came into being through him, and without him not one thing came into being. What has come into being 4 in him was life, and the life was the light of all people. 5 The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it. (NRSV)

All week I have been humming one refrain from “Hark the Herald Angels Sing.”  It is “light and life to all he brings, risen with healing in his wings.”  Light and life to ALL he brings.  Risen with healing in his wings. 

This past week was certainly one where we needed to be reminded of Jesus light, life, resurrection power and healing. 

Did you see the Rose Bowl game yesterday with that huge crowd of screaming fans?  Imagine every one of those people instantly gone.  Drowned in a wall of water.  What happened on the day after Christmas in the countries around the Indian Ocean was worse than that.  The death toll is now 150,000.  Of course in the months ahead we’ll hear of more and more who will die from bad water, airborne disease and the like.  Such darkness, such death.

A Wall Street Journal Article however reminded us that while this storm certainly got necessary attention from the world community, during 2004, 2 million people in sub-Sahara Africa died of AIDS, another 2 million died of diseases from bad water and inadequate sanitation.  Such darkness, such death.

Amidst the outpouring of support and care for the people of Southern Asia, there have already come warnings of fraud from those who are swindling people into giving them money in the name of the victims only for personal gain.  Such darkness. 

Advent began with a report out of the Netherlands that doctors in Groningen hospital have been systematically euthanizing severely deformed infants, in some cases without parental consent.  Such darkness indeed.

While none of us would say that our personal tragedies are on these scales, I was reminded that some of most unsettling darkness is most personal. My friend Julie is a mother of two young children a boy named Thomas and a girl named Emma.  I performed her wedding ten years ago.  A few days before Christmas, she wrote to a number of her friends to ask for prayers.  The ovarian cancer she is battling is worsened, she said.  She feared that this would be her last Christmas.  So for Julie and for so many others of my friends in my own congregation, I have prayed for the light and life of Jesus to indeed bring healing.

In the weeks leading up to Christmas
• I have counseled couples whose marriages are dark and dying,
• I have spoken to men and women who struggle with the darkness of depression, with suicidal thoughts, with those whose faith is dark and dying. 
• I have prayed for children to feel the light and life of Christmas in the darkness of families that are falling apart. 
• I have prayed with and for modern-day Magi who are seeking the light of God. 

I found myself singing again, this prayer of assurance, “light and life to all he brings, risen with healing in his wings.”  And with every chorus of his carol and prayer, I have asked God to continue to make our church here more and more into a community of light and life, of hope and care, of love and faith. 

When circumstances both global and personal seem to magnify the darkness and death of the world, we need this reminder:

Christmas is the assurance that God continues to respond to the darkness and death of the world with his light and life.

And the key word here is “continues.” 

Don’t ever forget friends that Jesus’ coming to earth in the manger in Bethlehem was not the beginning or the end of the story.  The incarnation is the exact middle of a Divine drama.  The Christmas visitation is the grand beginning of God’s second act.  It’s not the overture, nor finale but the climactic scene which gives us perspective on the past and hope for the future. 

Christmas cheer, holiday happiness and our own earthly love is not enough, we realize, we need the hope that comes only from God being at work in the world, at work in our lives. 

John begins his gospel at the beginning.  Right off the bat, he tells his readers who are looking for the light and life of God that the true light that brought the world into being, the life that gave life to every creature is the Word of God that is God and was with God at the beginning. 

(v.3) All things came into being through him, and without him not one thing came into being. What has come into being 4 in him was life, and the life was the light of all people.

For John, the good news for the world that we celebrate at Christmas is NOT that there is light in the darkness, but that the SAME life that created light with a mere word has come into the darkness of every age.  Both in the chaos of creation and the chaos of our lives today, the good news is and remains the same, “The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it.”

Admittedly, when images like those that have filled our airwaves this past week are put before us, when we who live in a prime earthquake epicenter and beach town consider the power of this ocean that is on our doorstep and the destruction that it can cause, it seems like the light may be shining, but darkness sure seems to be winning.

I know that is how I feel whenever I hear that a friend has received a new diagnosis, a marriage is falling apart, a teenager has become pregnant, a college student has abandoned his faith, or even when I fall into sin myself. 

It just seems as if the darkness is so dark, so immense. That death is so final, so ultimately powerful, At those times, the good news of God’s light and life come to earth seems like nothing but a fairy tale, like wishful thinking, like whistling in the dark to keep the monsters away. 

But that’s because we forget that the gospel is not the end of the story.  The incarnation is not the finale. That light has come into the darkness, but it is still a search light, a guiding light, seeking out those who are lost, finding those who are dying and bringing life.

Christmas is the assurance that God continues to respond to the darkness and death of the world with his light and life.  Continues and will continue until finally the Gospel of John will become the Revelation of John and the end of the story is revealed.  How ultimately all darkness will be swallowed up in light, all death be conquered by life. 

In Revelation 21, John writes these words:

God himself will be with them;4 he will wipe every tear from their eyes. Death will be no more; mourning and crying and pain will be no more…
23 And the city has no need of sun or moon to shine on it, for the glory of God is its light, and its lamp is the Lamb. 24 The nations will walk by its light… Its gates will never be shut by day—and there will be no night there.”

My friends, this is the good news of God, the good news that we proclaim and live out in a world of darkness and death.  The God who said, let there be light, became the light for all people.  And that light will ultimately conquer all darkness, all death.  “Light and life to all he brings, risen with healing in his wings.”

So, what does this mean for you and me today?  What do we do?  There is an old story, maybe even apocryphal is told of Russian novelist Leo Tolstoy, who read in the gospel of Luke, Jesus’ command to give to the poor and care for the needy and asked the same question. 

He was so deeply moved that he emptied his bank account, took the money to the poorest section of town and gave it all away in one lavish act.  That night he went home and slept soundly, content that he had done well.

The next day he went back to that poor section of town and realized that nothing had changed.  His money had been spent but there were still poor people, and many had used his handouts for nothing more than a big night of drinking and debauchery. 

So Tolstoy then declared that it was impossible to truly solve the world problems with one big gesture but that from then on he would seek “to add his light to the sum of light in the world.”

And I believe that is what we are to do: Add our light to the sum of light. 
Or to put it another way: God’s response is our rhythm. 

God continues to respond to our dark and dying world with his light and life.  And this provides the rhythm for our living.

This is the way God intended us to live.  We don’t just give and serve and extend ourselves.  And we don’t just take in, receive and center on ourselves. 

Like the rhythm of breathing, inhaling and exhaling, we are to continue to seek the light and life for our dark and dying places and we need to continue to share the light and life of Christ. 

There are organizations that will try to use you and abuse you.  They will try to tap into your feelings of guilt and try to manipulate you for their noble purposes.  There are also groups (even churches) that will tell you that all of life is about meeting your needs, about you continually receiving whatever you need.  About always telling you what you want to hear and doing everything for you. 

The church, if it is what Jesus calls us to be, is neither one of these.  The church is the community of Christ’s body, always living out the rhythm of God’s response. 

Seeking the light and life for our dark and dying places. Sharing the light and life for the world’s dark and dying places. Seeking and sharing as a rhythm for living.

The story of the Magi reminds us that there have always been and will always be people who are searching for the light and life of God.  Perhaps now more than ever.  Wise men and women still seek the light of Christ.  Wise men and women also continue to share the light they have found. 

Comments

[Rob A]

Very moving. Really love the Tolstoy anecdote.

[Mark Sides]

Agreed. The Tolstoy story really is moving. I had not heard it before.