WELCOMING THE LIGHT John 1: 6-8, 19-28 Sunday December 11th 2005
This morning I attended a Nativity at Alwington. It was extremely well done and brought us very much into the story of the coming of Jesus into the world.
And yet today our lectionary Gospel reading seems far removed from the stable at Bethlehem. For John like Mark has no nativity to share with us. For them the figure of John the Baptist is a powerful figure leading us into a meeting with an already grown up Jesus. John presents Jesus as the one who brings light into the world. In a real sense this is important to us for our Christmas comes at dark time of the year, just a few days after the darkest day of the year. That is why the early Church followed the practice of Judaism which celebrates its Festival of Lights, Hanukah in the darkness of December. For candles in the darkness present a powerful visual message that God coming into our world is a an act of bringing light into the darkest of situation, light which darkness can never put out.
Sometimes, I feel that our Christmas cards carry a sanitised message about the coming of Jesus. Too often, they like us look for the idyllic and try to forget harsh realities. Yet the harsh realities of military occupation and the misuse of power are very much to be seen if we look at the nativity accounts of Matthew and Luke. It is truly for a world of often harsh pain and anger that Jesus comes to offer light and a different way of being. Were it not so, Christmas would only be of value to those few people whose lives are untroubled. And yet it is in our darkest moments that we most need to encounter hope.
One of the great Saints of Judaism in recent years was Rabbi Hugo Grynn. He recounts the story of the time he spent in Auschwitz. There, they tried to hold on to their faith as best they could. On one occasion on the first night of Hanukah, the family were horrified to see Hugo’s father take the family’s last pund of butter to make a candle using a string from his ragged clothes. As his father took a match and lit the candle, Hugo cried out, “Father, no! That butter is our last bit of food. How shall we live?” His father replied, “ We can live for many days without food! We cannot live for a single minute without hope. This is the fire of hope. Never let it go out. Not here. Not anywhere.”
I wonder if we today cherish sufficiently the hope that comes from the Light. Are we in danger of letting other things cause us to neglect the light that brings the hope which we need to truly live. And yet it is when hope seems to be least explicable that we need to keep it alive.
There is a story of the German Kaiser’s forces burning Jewish villages in what is now Poland. The day after one such village had been devastated, an elderly Jewish man appeared, pounded a few boards together, made a stall an opened up for business. A young passer by stared at the stall and asked the old man, “What are you selling among these ruins?” the old man smiled and replied, “I am selling hope. You can sell water on a dry desert so the place to sell hope is on the ash heap of destruction.”
And that lies at the heart of John’s message. Christ has come to the darkest of dark places and offers the hope that only the Light can bring. When in his conversation with the priests he echoes words from Isaiah recorded at a time when hopes were rising that half a century of exile were coming to an end, John is seeing Christ as the one who offers a new beginning, a beginning to be lived in the very presence of God.
And that new beginning is one that draw us in. We are called to follow John’s example and to point to the Light that offers new beginnings a new hope. When the world goes the way of violence and destruction, followers of the Light are called to be sign of a better direction. During the past week there has been much in the media about torture allegations. Some may find pragmatic reasons for some of the practices which have been in the news but they can never be reconcilable with God’s better way, the way to which we owe our supreme loyalty. I have found myself revisiting the story the fourth century clash between Ambrose, Bishop of Milan and the Emperor Theodosius. Theodosius had just been responsible for the massacre of 7,000 people at Thessolonika. When next he appeared at the church where Ambrose ministered, Ambrose refused him entry saying, “You must not be dazzled by the splendour of the purple you wear. How could you lift in prayer hands which are stained with the blood of an unjust massacre? Go away and do not add to your guilt by committing a second crime.”
Light confronting the darkness and in Jesus’ life we will see him being confronted by the worse that darkness can be. Yet, the light that he brings into the world can never be erased and in resurrection, against all worldly wisdom, light is victorious.
And so back to the nativity presentations that are all around us. Many a child will enter fully into their role whilst we watch on. But where are we in all of this? The question put to John is one that we have to face also. Who are you? Well, I suggest that like John the Baptist you as God’s valued children are called to bear witness to the Light which is God’s love in the world. And so as we approach Christmas, we are called from our seats as observers on to the stage to the presentation of God’s love shining into the world. For now we have the Gospel Starring You!
This sermon was preached at Appledore on Sunday December 11th 2005
This morning I attended a Nativity at Alwington. It was extremely well done and brought us very much into the story of the coming of Jesus into the world.
And yet today our lectionary Gospel reading seems far removed from the stable at Bethlehem. For John like Mark has no nativity to share with us. For them the figure of John the Baptist is a powerful figure leading us into a meeting with an already grown up Jesus. John presents Jesus as the one who brings light into the world. In a real sense this is important to us for our Christmas comes at dark time of the year, just a few days after the darkest day of the year. That is why the early Church followed the practice of Judaism which celebrates its Festival of Lights, Hanukah in the darkness of December. For candles in the darkness present a powerful visual message that God coming into our world is a an act of bringing light into the darkest of situation, light which darkness can never put out.
Sometimes, I feel that our Christmas cards carry a sanitised message about the coming of Jesus. Too often, they like us look for the idyllic and try to forget harsh realities. Yet the harsh realities of military occupation and the misuse of power are very much to be seen if we look at the nativity accounts of Matthew and Luke. It is truly for a world of often harsh pain and anger that Jesus comes to offer light and a different way of being. Were it not so, Christmas would only be of value to those few people whose lives are untroubled. And yet it is in our darkest moments that we most need to encounter hope.
One of the great Saints of Judaism in recent years was Rabbi Hugo Grynn. He recounts the story of the time he spent in Auschwitz. There, they tried to hold on to their faith as best they could. On one occasion on the first night of Hanukah, the family were horrified to see Hugo’s father take the family’s last pund of butter to make a candle using a string from his ragged clothes. As his father took a match and lit the candle, Hugo cried out, “Father, no! That butter is our last bit of food. How shall we live?” His father replied, “ We can live for many days without food! We cannot live for a single minute without hope. This is the fire of hope. Never let it go out. Not here. Not anywhere.”
I wonder if we today cherish sufficiently the hope that comes from the Light. Are we in danger of letting other things cause us to neglect the light that brings the hope which we need to truly live. And yet it is when hope seems to be least explicable that we need to keep it alive.
There is a story of the German Kaiser’s forces burning Jewish villages in what is now Poland. The day after one such village had been devastated, an elderly Jewish man appeared, pounded a few boards together, made a stall an opened up for business. A young passer by stared at the stall and asked the old man, “What are you selling among these ruins?” the old man smiled and replied, “I am selling hope. You can sell water on a dry desert so the place to sell hope is on the ash heap of destruction.”
And that lies at the heart of John’s message. Christ has come to the darkest of dark places and offers the hope that only the Light can bring. When in his conversation with the priests he echoes words from Isaiah recorded at a time when hopes were rising that half a century of exile were coming to an end, John is seeing Christ as the one who offers a new beginning, a beginning to be lived in the very presence of God.
And that new beginning is one that draw us in. We are called to follow John’s example and to point to the Light that offers new beginnings a new hope. When the world goes the way of violence and destruction, followers of the Light are called to be sign of a better direction. During the past week there has been much in the media about torture allegations. Some may find pragmatic reasons for some of the practices which have been in the news but they can never be reconcilable with God’s better way, the way to which we owe our supreme loyalty. I have found myself revisiting the story the fourth century clash between Ambrose, Bishop of Milan and the Emperor Theodosius. Theodosius had just been responsible for the massacre of 7,000 people at Thessolonika. When next he appeared at the church where Ambrose ministered, Ambrose refused him entry saying, “You must not be dazzled by the splendour of the purple you wear. How could you lift in prayer hands which are stained with the blood of an unjust massacre? Go away and do not add to your guilt by committing a second crime.”
Light confronting the darkness and in Jesus’ life we will see him being confronted by the worse that darkness can be. Yet, the light that he brings into the world can never be erased and in resurrection, against all worldly wisdom, light is victorious.
And so back to the nativity presentations that are all around us. Many a child will enter fully into their role whilst we watch on. But where are we in all of this? The question put to John is one that we have to face also. Who are you? Well, I suggest that like John the Baptist you as God’s valued children are called to bear witness to the Light which is God’s love in the world. And so as we approach Christmas, we are called from our seats as observers on to the stage to the presentation of God’s love shining into the world. For now we have the Gospel Starring You!
This sermon was preached at Appledore on Sunday December 11th 2005
posted by Rev Paul Martin | 12:11 PM
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