God of the dawn break

A varying assortment of thoughts for today's sermon. When I preach without a manuscript this is sometimes the format in which I blog the sermon. While the thoughts are not all connected it hopefully gives some sense of where the Holy Spirit might be speaking through today's scripture.

Luke 1: 5-13, 57-80

*The light shines in the darkness… and the darkness has not overcome it.

*I’m actually going to start by parsing a Greek word that’s not even in our reading today. (Nothing like talking Greek to make everybody sit up straight and listen to the sermon). It’s that word we know as “overcome” which is the Greek word “katalambano,” which is most often translated “catch” but might also be translated “comprehend.” The light shines in the darkness… and the darkness does not comprehend it. I like all these translations, actually, side by side. The light shines in the darkness and the darkness has not overcome it, will not catch it, and cannot comprehend it in all its mystery.

*Even though this scripture is from John 1:5 it has the same themes as our reading from Luke 1. Light and darkness interplay with one another. These are the darkest days of the year. Long days… lots of seasonal affective disorder, depression, anxiety. Lots of drinking. Lots of generally sad things. This is a season of the highest highs and lowest lows.

*Naturally, Jesus comes into the world in the darkest of days. Of course some history-theology geeks—I bet you didn’t know there were such people; they’re the ones in the library with the plaid coats with a clerical underneath—anyway, they’ll tell you that Jesus probably wasn’t actually born in the winter because of the shepherds tending their flocks in that particular way or some nonsense. Whatever. It doesn’t matter what time of the year Jesus was actually born; the point of celebrating Christmas this time of year is to accentuate the darkest darkness (and also to remind ourselves how northern hemisphere-centric we are). In Australia they should probably celebrate Christmas in place of the 4^th of July, which—come to think of it—they don’t celebrate anyway.

*“The night is always darkest just before the dawn.” There’s so much wisdom in that proverb that it’s been quoted in The Alchemist, The Dark Knight, and by theologians for ages. Darkness seems its most complete right about now. Darkness and sin go hand in hand. When we think about sin we tend to think again about darkness… about things done in secret, about parts of ourselves that are hidden away. These are parts of us that we fear coming to light.

*John is coming to prophesy to something world-changing. “To give knowledge of salvation to his people by the forgiveness of sins.” Sins are actually how we come to know about God, or rather the forgiveness of those sins testifies to something we know in our hearts: that we are not the perfect people we could be, and the only way to be perfect is to not die, and the only way to not die is to have some kind of salvation, and the only salvation that lasts is eternal, and the only one offering such a promise is one who takes on sin in death for us. There is no other way. There are no shortcuts.

*The light shines in the darkness and the darkness does not comprehend it, because we believe that this little baby boy was born to die. The darkness does not comprehend it, because the darkness is too busy obsessing over our inward thoughts and all our hang-ups. The darkness does not comprehend it, because the darkness is concerned with judging us for what we have done wrong. The darkness does not comprehend it, because the darkness measures us by how we stack up to being “good” people. The darkness does not comprehend it, because the darkness is too busy with the law. The darkness does not comprehend it, because the darkness is blind to the Christ-child. And the darkness is blind to a baby because it is too small, too insignificant, and too out-of-the-way to matter.

*Jesus was born insignificant, just like the rest of us. We dress him up, surround him with prophesies and wise men bringing gifts, even as we talk about the manger and no room for Mary and Joseph at the inn, but the real story is darker. The wise men were supposed to report back to King Herod. The gifts were burial spices; seen another way this looks sinister. King Herod meant to kill the baby before any of this got underway. The night is darkest just before the dawn. The light shines in the darkness and the darkness cannot even see it.

*Zechariah’s song, sung for John, his son, who came to testify to Jesus, concludes with this line:

“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 and in the shadow of death, to guide our feet into the way of peace.” Peace, I bring you. Peace and light. Jesus came and, like the angels with the shepherds, he might as well begin his life with the words, “Fear not.” Do not be afraid. Yes, you have been living in darkness, but it is that darkness that will testify to me, because now you know why you need me, now you comprehend the light that shines in the darkness.

*Our problem is a lack of awareness that that is where we stand. Our problem is that too many people live in darkness and pretend it is the light. But Zechariah’s song lays the framework for what it means to be people of the dawn-break. It means forgiveness; that we acknowledge the darkness is real, but something more powerful is coming. Not power of our hands, not strength or might, but a baby who receives gifts from wise men of burial spices, anointed for death even from birth.

*The darkness does not comprehend the light because the darkness assumes that death wins. Jesus, becoming love incarnate for the world, comes to bring us a promise that darkness is just fleeting. Dawn breaks. Amen.