Longing For Light
“Longing For Light” by Pastor Rosanna McFadden
Good morning! This first Sunday of Advent has been ushered in with a breath of frost and a foretaste of the season to come. The calendar may still say Autumn, but the air outside and the decorations around the church say that Advent is here and Christmas is coming. Advent preparations can take many forms, from the practical — When are we going to get those Christmas lights hung up outside? Are the cookies baked yet? — to the spiritual — What does it mean to prepare my heart to make room for Jesus? At Creekside we are providing a number of ways for you to connect with Advent preparations, from cookie-baking to Outreach opportunities, to daily devotionals. Our worship themes are going to begin with a wide angle, long lens shot of some of the history which happened before Christ’s birth, and how that history continues today. In the coming weeks we will narrow our focus until the frame is filled by the birth of a baby: one of the most intimate and life-changing events which we can experience. This birth is one which we prepare for and celebrate every year.
I would have had many options for a biblical text to use this morning — after all, the entire scope of history is a pretty broad range. I choose the opening of Isaiah chapter 60 for its hopefulness and images of light and God’s glory. This text predates, by 500 years or so the familiar prologue to the gospel of John which reminds us that “the light shines in the darkness and the darkness has not overcome it.” The prophecy from Isaiah, and the prologue of John are both indicators of the already and not yet character of the promises of God. God promised us a Savior, the light of the world, Emmanuel, God-with-Us and Savior — the light has come! And somehow there is still work for us to do.
Isaiah 60 mentions that “darkness shall cover the earth and deep darkness the people.” I think we can assume this is the same darkness that John refers to, which will not overcome the light. The reality is that darkness is a universal human experience, and it is present now just as it was for John or Isaiah. There is physical darkness, of course — the daily cycle of day and night which God established in Creation, and also the yearly cycle of day and night which changes with the seasons. We can’t help but be aware of this cycle in November and December in N Indiana, when we have to turn on our headlights to come home from work at 5pm. This kind of darkness would have been more profound before electric lighting, when roads and fields were not lit at all, and even homes had limited lighting indoors.
Of course there are more metaphorical kinds of darkness, ranging from being ignorant or ill-informed to individual or collective criminality and even evil. We need to be cautious about equating physical and metaphysical darkness — the month of December is not evil just because it gets dark at 5:00 in the afternoon. Darkness does mean some attention and adaptation from us, however, including paying more attention to light.
I am not a physicist, but I know that the earth does not create its own light. The natural light we receive comes from the sun, and even the moonlight we see at night — sometimes — is reflected sunlight. That light comes from somewhere else, and even though light moves at 186,000 miles per second, it takes a little time to reach us. The sun is 93 million miles away, so it takes sunlight 8 and 1/3 minutes to travel to earth. This morning I want to consider that physical reality in light of what we read and hear and know from this prophecy from Isaiah, the birth of Jesus, and what that means for us today. This section of Isaiah was written about 500 years before the birth of Jesus; Jesus was born about 2020 years ago: we are looking for light that is at least 2500 years old. It still illuminates our lives today.
We are, of course, familiar with light which shined hundreds, thousands, or even millions of years ago. With the exception of our sun, the stars we see from outside our galaxy are at least light years, and sometimes unimaginably further than that away. We see their light thousands of years after it shone at its source. This is powerful and comforting image for me: the light of these distant prophets still shining for us today. Of course, we see stars only in darkness, when they are not obscured by the brilliance of sunlight or the glare of headlights and streetlights. We can’t see stars at all when we are shut in our houses or have our eyes fixed on the ground.
Our view of the stars, like the words of promise in scripture, go back further than we can imagine, back to Creation. No one knows what the origin of the universe looked like, but that light may still be traveling the far reaches of space. We don’t know what the formless void was like before the Spirit of God moved across it and God spoke to create light, but that physical and metaphysical reality are the source of all life that we know. There are still stars which guide us today, and they are the same stars which shone thousands of years ago. That is part of the reason I love images like the one digitally created here, and others like the star in the Advent stained glass window: God works on a cosmic scale and on a timeline which is beyond what I can comprehend: the stars which guide my path today have been shining for thousands and thousands of years, but are somehow what I need right now.
I love some of Isaiah’s poetry, like the beginning of verse 4 he writes, “Lift up your eyes and look around.” We may feel like when we look around all we can see is the darkness. Perhaps that darkness is personal; I’m getting older, my health is failing, my funds are dwindling, my strength is diminishing. That darkness could be national: the economy is stumbling, immigration is out of control, my way of life is threatened. The darkness may be multi-national: there are wars and rumors of war which threaten to engulf entire regions of the world, people are dying, the planet is warming . . . I could go on and on with these things. I believe this darkness is real, and there are times I wake up in the middle of the night in a cold sweat wondering how it will all work out. Maybe you do, too. But darkness and fear and anxiety have always been part of the world which we know. Neither the patriarchs nor the prophets nor Jesus Christ ever promised us a world without darkness. What we have been promised is that the darkness will not overcome the light. Isaiah says it this way in chapter 60 verse 5: “then you shall see and be radiant; your heart shall thrill and rejoice.”
I don’t know what you do when you are swamped by fear or anxiety: maybe this never happens to you. If so, you are blessed indeed. But for the rest of us, who may need some encouragement to be radiant, I would offer this humble bit of counsel: Do something. God may have spangled the heavens with stars, but it will be a lot easier to see them if you step outside and look up. God knows there are problems in the world, but sitting and wringing our hands will probably not make much difference. Whatever it is that wakes you up in the middle of the night, learn about it, pray about it, talk to other people about it, join other people who are working for things you care about. Creekside’s Outreach Team has been providing opportunities for connection for unhoused people, women who need job skills and training, women recovering from abuse or addition. That’s why we have offered outreach opportunities during Advent. Maybe these aren’t the issues you care about — find where you can go to make a difference in things you care about. Because what I know for sure is that we defy the darkness when we look for the light. As people of faith, we are called — maybe compelled is a better word — to be partners with God in the mission of God. We can’t do everything, we are not called to do everything, we are not the ones who set the stars in the sky; but if we are brave enough to believe that Christ’s coming means there is more light in the world than there was before, we have to do something. We have to do something besides pointing to the darkness and shaking our heads in resignation or despair.
How will you, how will we shine Jesus’ light in this season of darkness? We don’t have to be supernovas of service or political activism — but if that’s your thing, please, go ahead. But I pray that each of us can be a candle of kindness, a word of encouragement or hope, an echo of joy which sounds above the clatter of chaos. I pray that Creekside can be that light to our neighbors in this community, but we can’t do that as a church unless we commit to do it as individuals. It isn’t someone’s work to do for us; it’s work for each one of us. The question is Why isn’t our church doing more? Doesn’t make sense unless we are asking ourselves What is God calling me to do? What light will I commit to shine?The light which was promised to us, Jesus Christ, has come, and that light is still shining more than 2.000 years later. Inheritors of that promise, lift up your eyes and look around. See God’s radiance. Arise, shine and see the glory of God. Amen.