Will we see the Light?
Sermon for Holy Trinity Church, Llandudno; Advent Sunday, 1 December 2019
The churches of the Ministry Area of Llandudno are spending a year following the lectionary and themes of Brian McLaren’s We Make the Road by Walking. This sermon is the first of the second season, “Alive in the Adventure of Jesus”.
Daniel 7:9–28; Isaiah 40:9–11; Luke 1:67–79
Words from our Gospel reading: “By the tender mercy of our God, the dawn from on high will break upon us, to give light to those who sit in darkness.”
Will we see the Light?
In the church calendar of the food department of Marks & Spencer in Bangor, where I do some of my shopping, today is, by my estimation, the Fourth Sunday of Christmas. Advent, the time before Christmas, lasted a very short time in the food hall — it lasted, indeed, as long as it took to take down the merchandise of the great feast of Halloween and to replace it with Christmas wrapping and poinsettias; although I noticed that the odd box of mince pies had already made an early appearance with the Back-to-School uniforms. I confident that the celebration of Easter, heralded by daffodils and Cadbury’s Cream Eggs at the checkout, will begin no later than 21 January.
As the commerce and the marketing and the glitz all increase and accelerate at this time, the natural world all around us is slowing down, diminishing, emptying. Birds have migrated; animals are beginning to disappear to hibernate; fruit has ripened and fallen; leaves are shrouding the ground, soggy under foot; the wind has flayed the trees; the frost bites everything to stillness in the morning; the light is austere and lateral and short. Creation seems reduced to its elemental self; it’s skeletal; you can see the structure, the bones of things. All decoration is gone. Only the bare, important things are left.
Celebration is a wonderful thing and there is great joy to be had in the real meetings of faith and friendship, in the opportunities for hospitality and patience, that fill these Christmas-coloured days. But we have the four Sundays of Advent, this purple season, given to us for a reason — an invitation, amid all around us, to keep a quiet space, a sacred time, a sanctuary away from the the busy-ness, to be still, and to wait for what will come, and to know what hope feels like.
Will we see the Light?
In the church calendar of Holy Trinity, today is the First Sunday of Advent. It is also our first Sunday using a new order of service for the Eucharist. And that change marks the fact that we’re moving on to a new chapter in the series of readings we’ve been following on Sunday mornings. Over the three months since the beginning of September, we’ve looked at readings that get us to the heart the big themes of our relationship with God — we’ve looked at stories of conflict and captivity, stories about freedom and forgiveness. We now begin a new three month sequence of readings, where our focus is narrower, no wider than one person, Jesus, the Christ.
Will we see the Light?
Through these dark days of Advent, our end point is Christmas itself. On Christmas Eve, here, at the first Eucharist of Christmas, we will hear again that tremendous passage from the very beginning of St John’s Gospel — the passage that is read last at every Service of Nine Lessons and Carols — the passage that begins “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word as with God, and God was the Word.” That passage contains within it one of the most tremendous lines in all of Scripture. Talking about Jesus, the Christ, the Word, John says: “The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it.”
And that is our Advent challenge, our challenge over the next three months as we narrow the focus of our Sunday readings — our challenge is to see that strong, single light — the light shining in the darkness, a darkness that does not overcome it.
Will we see the Light?
As well as the bright lights of Christmas to distract us, there’s also the loud noise of a General Election echoing through this year’s Advent. To the advertising and the discounts in the shops, we add the din of clanging politicians, of discordant half-throughs, of societal disharmony on a scale that can scare us.
It can seem almost impossible for us to strip away the superfluous stuff so that only the elemental is left. It can seem almost impossible for us to face our fears with nothing more than honesty and faith. It can seem almost impossible to light nothing more powerful or threatening than a candle, defiant against the dark, hopeful to the end.
We’re fortunate that the stories we’ll hear this Advent in this place are of women — Mary the mother of God, Elizabeth the mother of John the Baptist — women who persevered against all odds, against all rejections, against every closed door, to see good happen, to see dawn break, to see the light shining in the darkness. We’re fortunate that the stories we’ll hear this Advent in this place are of men — the shepherds, the wise men, and today the prophets of Israel — me who persevered against all that seemed likely or normal or expected of them, to see the good that was happening, to see dawn break, to see the light shining in the darkness. These are not weak or waylaid men and women; and what they will do is not marginal or immaterial. They do one of the strongest, most uniting, most peacemaking, most reconciling things possible — they hope for the coming of the Light, and they commit themselves to its importance.
And so this week, I urge you, in rebellion against Boris Johnson and Jeremy Corbyn and the John Lewis advert and Jingle Bells everywhere, this week I urge you to do nothing more than light a candle — here in church, or at home, with your children or grandchildren — to light a candle and to pray and hope and know that in its light — its strong, silent light — you will see Light, the light we wait for, the light that will come, the light of the dawn that will break upon us, the light that shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it.
