Fourth Sunday in Advent
I was afraid of the
dark. Like most children, I was afraid
of places absent of light. Although there’s
nothing childish about this. Who isn’t
afraid of the dark? We need the light
and we fear its absence. Light allows us
to see, of course, it allows us to perceive and discern. It illumines and
allows us to know what’s around us, it allows us to know our surroundings,
whether we’re in a safe or threatening place. Light helps us to know. It reveals. It opens things up. Light holds the dark,
holds back the dark. And light allows us
to receive the loving gaze of another, and to see the face of one’s beloved.
When I went to sleep as a
boy, my mother closed the door to my bedroom door, but not all the way, so that
the light from the hallway would enter the room. I remember lying in bed, staring at the
darkness, looking at the door which, although brown, appeared black. Around the door was a thin sliver of orange
light. The door was framed in light, and
made the door look darker than it really was.
I was comforted in knowing that the light was still there, was always
there, on the other side of the door. As
a boy, I was fascinated by the relationship between light and dark. And it struck me this week, reflecting on my
memory and on that of the image of the dark door, that the light was framing
the darkness, holding the darkness, keeping it at bay, and therefore I felt safe
to sleep, safe until the rising sun pushed away the night.
At our Christmas Concert
Service last Sunday, we heard Luke's account of the annunciation (Lk. 1:26-38),
Mary's song of protest and hope (Lk. 1:46-56, the Magnificat), and the tidings
of joy to the shepherds (Lk 2:1-20). On this last Sunday in Advent, I would
like to go “off script,” or, actually “off lectionary.” I would like to focus
on a text never found in the lectionary: Zechariah's prophecy regarding his
son, John the Baptist. And I would like
to zero in on one image in particular.
It’s fitting on this last
Sunday of Advent, on the cusp of Christmas Eve, that we put the spotlight on
the John the Baptist—the main man of Advent.
You’ll recall that Elizabeth and Zechariah, up in years, were told that
they would have a son, and that they were to name him John. Zechariah was a priestly, faithful man, yet even
he couldn’t believe the news Gabriel brought to them. So he was struck mute until after the birth
of the child. Zechariah was unable to
speak all through Elizabeth’s pregnancy, he was silent for the birth of their
child, mute until the child’s eighth day, when he was presented for circumcision. Still silent, Zechariah wrote out on a tablet:
“His name is John” (Lk. 1:63). Yochanan, in Hebrew, meaning “Yahweh has
been gracious.” Fear came over their
neighbors. “What then will this child become?” they asked (Lk. 66). And then after all this time being silent,
Zechariah cried out offering a song of praise and prophecy, leaving us with
this remarkable canticle of promise, hope, liberation, and most of all, light.
“And you, child,” Zechariah
said, speaking to his son, you, “will be called the prophet of the Most High;
for you will go before the Lord to prepare his ways, to give knowledge of
salvation to his people by the forgiveness of their sins” (Lk. 1:76). John will
become the one who prepares the way for the coming of the light. “By the tender mercy of our God,” Zechariah
sings, “the dawn from on high will break upon us, to give light to those who
sit in darkness and in the shadow of death, to guide our feet into the way of
peace” (Lk. 1:78-79). John is the one who prepares for the coming one, the one
who brings light to the world.
Yes, Jesus was sent “to give
light to those who sit in darkness and in the shadow of death….” In many
respects, this isn’t anything new. God
was always viewed as the light of Israel; God’s presence is luminous. It’s
essential for us to know that the coming of Jesus was continuous with this
past, but it’s also different. Now, in
the birth of Jesus, the light of God comes among us and fills time and space in
the flesh. God comes close—uncomfortably close. God enters into the brokenness
of the world, in order to bring light to those who sit, who are stuck in
darkness. But how? Where?
Light and dark. These are
rich metaphors, archetypal in the way they tap into the deepest recesses of the
human psyche. Although, we tend to be existentially
removed from them today because most of us never really spend a lot of time in
total darkness, we’re not afraid of the dark, we just flip on a switch or press
an app on our Smart Phones and we have light. What does it mean, then to say
Jesus is light to those who sit in darkness?
Does this image still have the capacity to mean anything to us? If so, it will have to mean something
different for us.
What, then, might it mean
for us? Sometimes we hear talk of the battle between the forces of light and
dark. But it’s more complicated than
that. The dark, which is part of God’s good creation, is also good. We’re told in Exodus that God dwells in the
darkness, that’s where Moses encountered God (Ex. 20:21). The Psalmist reminds us, “God made the
darkness his dwelling place” (Ps. 18:11). Or, “Darkness is not dark to you, and
night shines as the day. Darkness and light are but one” (Ps. 139:12).
But darkness is really dark to you and me, darkness is
absence; for us, the absence of light, deep darkness, disturbs us profoundly. Maybe because we know there’s still quite a
bit of darkness in this world—and there’s quite a bit of darkness in the human
heart, at times devoid of light.
I
recently came across a quote from L. R. Knost, editor of the Holistic Parenting magazine. She writes,
“Do not be dismayed by the brokenness of the world. All things break. And all
things can be mended. Not with time, as
they say, but with intention. So go. Love intentionally, extravagantly,
unconditionally. The broken world waits
in darkness for the light that is you.” I
like this reminder. She is a Christian
and she writes to offer hope. In many
respects, she’s right. I like how she makes the connection between light and
love. The broken world waits in the darkness for the light that is in you. There’s more light in us, created as we are
in the image of God, than we often suspect.
But
not always. I wonder whether this is true for everyone.
What
if you feel so broken, so wounded that you can’t see the light within yourself?
What if you can’t love intentionally, extravagantly, unconditionally? What then?
What if your pain and sorrow, your anxiety, maybe depression, your concern over
the current state of the world the stress that comes daily with one more “breaking
news” story that leaves us speechless?
What if all of this makes it difficult to see light, let alone be
light. What then? What if asking to be
light is just too much for us?
There
are far too many who can’t see or feel any warmth within themselves. They can’t see themselves as bearers of the
light. Maybe that’s what they were
taught as children. Maybe life has been so
tough for them that it’s difficult to see the light. It’s just how they feel. Or maybe you feel there’s some light in you,
but not enough light to confront a world that feels dark. Perhaps you feel overwhelmed by the dark. The bright spark is tenuous.
I
was Christmas shopping this past week at Macy’s in Towson. I struck up a conversation with the
salesperson at the register. I had
several bags in my arms, so she asked, “Is all your Christmas shopping
finished?” “Almost,” I said. “So you can
go home,” she said, “have a quiet evening and a peaceful holiday.” I smiled and said, “Well, sort of….” I “outed” myself and said, “I’m actually a
pastor, so it’s kind of a busy, stressful time.” “Episcopalian?” she asked. What does an Episcopalian look like? I
thought. “No, Presbyterian.” What
does a Presbyterian look like? Then
she said, “Say a pray for me and all of us working behind registers in malls
this season. There are a lot of people who are just plain mean and nasty. I go
home and pray for them, and try not to take it personally. But it’s tough.” I tried to joke with her a little, make her
laugh, and then as she gave me my purchase, I looked her in the eye and wished
her a strong, heartfelt, “Merry Christmas.”
The Sufi mystic Rumi (1209-1273) wisely said, “The
wound is where the light enters you.” As
a Muslim mystic, Rumi had a profound insight into the workings of God, and had
a better understanding of the incarnation than many Christians. It’s our wounds, the places that hurt, the
places that appear devoid of light and love, it’s in our weaknesses and
struggles and all that comes with the fragility of being human, the flesh—that’s
where God’s love chooses to enter our lives. That’s where God chooses to be
born, in the messy muck of a stable and feeding trough which is sometimes our
lives. The light of God enters the world
through the weakness and wounds of the flesh, not apart from them. The Gospel
of John says it even better, “The light shines in the darkness, and the
darkness did not overcome it” (John 1:5). Did you hear that? Listen to that: Light shines in darkness. God’s light shines—not our light, but God’s light—shines not apart from the
darkness, but in the darkness, in the darkest places in us and in the world,
which means we don’t have to be afraid of the dark.
In Anthony Doerr’s novel All the Light We Cannot See,
we are drawn into the lives of two children just before the Second World War. Marie-Laure in lives Paris and Werner lives
about three hundred miles to the east, near Essen, Germany. The
novel is written in such a way that we imagine the world through their eyes,
what we imagine them seeing and experiencing as Europe is about to be swallowed
by darkness. Marie-Laure, however, is
blind. Her world is always dark and yet she “sees” through her
imagination, and we begin to view the world as we imagine for her what’s
unfolding around her. Werner lives in an orphanage with his sister,
Jutta. Light is a theme that runs through the novel. Late
one night, after Werner and Jutta were supposed to be asleep, Werner pulls out
an old shortwave radio, hooks the antennae out the bedroom window, and soon
hears “scratchy broadcasts” coming from Russia, London, Rome, Berlin, and one
coming from somewhere in France. A man
is talking with a French accent, talking about light. The voice says: “The brain is locked in total
darkness, of course, children…. It
floats in a clear liquid inside the skull, never in the light. And
yet the world it constructs in the mind is full of light. It brims
with color and movement. So how, children, does the brain, which
lives without a spark of light, build for us a world full of light?” “…Open
your eyes,” concludes the voice in the night.[1]
The mystery of light and darkness in us, embedded within us, the fact that light
shines in darkness, and darkness can even generate light, allowing us to see,
just consider how awesome this is!
One of my favorite writers
is Robert
Macfarlane. Fellow at Cambridge
University, he has written remarkable books on walking, following old paths, a
book on our fascination with and relationship to mountains and mountain
climbing. He’s mesmerized by words, especially
forgotten words in Old English, Scots, and Gaelic used to describe the natural
world. I follow him on Twitter, where he
posts a word a day. Several weeks ago,
he introduced me to a new word: “quaquaversal,” meaning, literally, “wherever-towards.”
It means “dipping or emanating in all directions from a central point.” It was
originally a geological term; but a person, thought, event, artwork, etc., may
also be said to be “quaquaversal.” Macfarlane says, it’s, “A relishably precise
term for a radiant quality.”
A person, thought, or event
emanating in all directions from a central point. It emanates from a central
point and moves “wherever-toward” everything else. Quaquaversal. As it emanates, and moves out and moves in, it
fills every available space, not unlike light, which breaks forth upon us like
the dawn and fills all in all.
I love this image and this
word, because it resonates, or, better, illuminates what the birth of Christ might
have meant for his first followers, what it could mean for us today. It illustrates what his birth—and his entire
life—meant for those who encountered him, those who allowed themselves to be
filled with the quaquaversal-quality of his light. There was something then—something
still—about the birth of this child that brought and still brings light to our
lives, a light that pushes the darkness away.
Or, perhaps better, it’s the kind of light that illuminates and holds
the darkness, frames the darkness, fills the darkness, and helps us to see what
previously was lost in shadow. And his
light has the power to illuminate all things because the source of his
brilliance is love.
Love and light are always linked. Because it’s
really love that brings all things to light and, therefore, to life. The
naturalist John Muir (1838-1914) once said, “One can only see by loving; love makes things visible and all
labor light.”[2] Love brings us to light.
And
this light, this love, this life cannot be wished or forced or controlled or
earned or manipulated. The ever-wise
Annie Dillard put it so well, “I cannot cause light, the most I can do is try
to put myself in the path of its beam.”[3]
That’s all we can ever do. We place
ourselves in the way of Christ’s light.
His light, the path of his beam is always coming toward us, is always
about to dawn upon us, and fill us. As
Zechariah knew, this light, this love, this “tender mercy of God” (Lk. 1:78),
is freely given by God, it’s all grace.
And as Mary modelled for us so well, for both women and me: “Then Mary said, ‘Here am I, the servant of the Lord; let it be with me
according to your word’” (Lk. 1: 38). Like
Mary, we are invited to put ourselves in the path of his light. Like Mary, we are
called to be receptive to what is always coming toward us, to what is being given
to us, to what is being offered to us, to what of God is being born in us and
through, to that new horizon of hope and liberation and salvation about to open
before our eyes by the light of God’s love.
“For
in those days, a decree went out from Caesar Augustus…”—in those dark days of
Caesar, the dark days of Caesar oppression sword, in those days, a light was
born, to “guide our feet into the way of peace” (Lk. 1:80).
[2] Cited in James B. Hunt, Restless Fires: Young John Muir’s
Thousand-Mile Walk to the Gulf in 1867-68 (Macon: Mercer University
Press, 2012), 49. And on the luminosity of darkness, see Jungian analyst Melanie Starr Costello’s reflection here.
[3] Annie Dillard, Pilgrim at Tinker Creek (Harper Perennial Modern Classic), 38.
[3] Annie Dillard, Pilgrim at Tinker Creek (Harper Perennial Modern Classic), 38.
