Sermon, Advent 1

“In those days, after that suffering, the sun will be darkened, the moon will not give its light, the stars will be falling from heaven, and the powers in the heavens will be shaken.”

Wow, what a great way to start the gospel reading today! Good news? Sounds more like dark news! And, let’s be honest, dark news is NOT what we want to hear. It’s not what we’re looking for.

Realistically, if we want dark news, all we have to do is look to the world around us. The newspaper, the television, the internet – there’s darkness there, and we don’t have to search very hard.

Suffering? Check. Greed? Check. Hatred? Check. Violence? Check. Darkness? Check.

Darkness is there in our own lives, too. Self-doubt? Anger? Depression? Temptation? Check, check, check.

It can be tough, to know that the darkness is there. And when we start thinking about that darkness, to realize that it’s so uniquely ours. What is darkness for one of us may not be too terrible for another: Wine with supper? A treat for one person, a taunt for the alcoholic sitting beside them. The “never-fail” recipe that just flopped? Inconsequential for one person – there’s always peanut butter in the cupboard!, but just another in a long line of failures for someone else already struggling. An argument with a neighbor? A simple misunderstanding to be rectified for one person, a horrible, hate-filled personal attack for another.

Darkness. It’s there, it’s personal, it’s real. And it’s as though it knows just how to affect each of us individually, in the worst possible way. It can take root; subtly, gradually, incrementally, until we ourselves start to believe it. We start listening to that negativity; we become captive to it, until we realize that we ourselves are now carrying that darkness with us, everywhere we go. When we have that day when start to believe that the darkness is so pervasive that it might just be unstoppable.

“In those days, after that suffering, the sun will be darkened, and the moon will not give its light, and the stars will be falling from heaven, and the powers in the heavens will be shaken.”

BUT. What if we don’t have to give in to the darkness? What if we choose not to? What if we can change our perspective to respond to the darkness not with reluctant acceptance but with defiant determination? What if we decide to deny that darkness a home, to reject its advances?

Well –we can. We do. We have exactly what we need to do it. But how?

I’ll take a quote from Nadia Bolz-Weber for this one – she’s an edgy Lutheran pastor from Denver. And I mean edgy – girl’s got a potty-mouth worse than mine, more tattoos than I have, and could probably bench-press me without breaking a sweat. And she says, in her book “Pastrix”, “defiantly shout back at this darkness, “I am baptized,” not I was but I am baptized.” She even once challenged her congregation to see their own darkness  “not as powerful and unstoppable but as desperate and vulnerable.” 

(Read next paragraph from book)

I am baptized. I am a child of God. I am forgiven, loved, chosen. I have been – as Nadia says – named and claimed – to be Christ’s own forever. In our baptismal sacrament this is where the very mark of the cross is placed on our heads in the blessed oil. I am even given the very thing I need most during my baptism – the light of Christ. “Receive the light of Christ” our service says, “to show that you have passed from darkness into light.” In some places, people even receive candles –lit from the paschal or Christ candle – so that they can have a physical reminder of that inextinguishable light.

“Let your light so shine before others that they may see your good works and glorify your father in heaven.”

And so we are encouraged to know it – not just in our minds, but in our hearts and souls: I am baptized. I am a child of the light.

Does it mean I always get it right? Definitely not! I’m human, I make mistakes. But I also take those baptismal vows seriously, and I return to them again and again and again.

And I know that the light of my baptism gives me strength. It gives me the strength to meet the challenges of my day to day life with conviction and commitment. It gives me the will to endure the darkness that creeps in. It gives me the confidence of knowing that I am prayed for not just the day of my baptism but other days as well – and it gives me the encouragement to pray for others.

I am baptized. I am Christ’s. I am strong enough to overcome the darkness; not on my own, but with the power of Christ’s light that was given to me at my baptism.

And when we hear that, when we trust it, when we believe it, well THAT, my friends, is a spiritual awakening. It’s a realization and acceptance and embracing of that light. It’s being shaken into a new way of thinking, of doing, of being: it’s a way that shouts defiantly to the darkness, a way that denies the darkness any grip. It’s an awakening to living this life more fully IN the light – in the grace and peace and that is possible, in the infinite love and joy that can only come from the true source of light. It’s an awakening to know that this gift is always before us, all we have to do is choose to live it.

So let’s do just that. Let’s live the light, and share the light. Let’s be awake to what it means to be a baptized community, to be light to the world. Let’s live out the response when the newly baptized receive those candles: “Let your light so shine before others that they may see your good works and glorify your Father in heaven.” Let’s have our actions shine that light into the world, banishing the darkness from every corner.

Let’s start anew – Advent is the start of the new liturgical year, so let’s kick it off the best possible way: “new day, new joys, new possibilities.” Let’s start the new year by finding new opportunities to live our faith to the fullest. Let’s start the new year choosing to be fully awake: “for you do not know when the master of the house will come, in the evening, or at midnight, or at cockcrow, or at dawn, or else he may find you asleep when he comes suddenly. And what I say to you I say to all: Keep awake.”

May the strength of our baptism keep us awake in the light of Christ.