Sermon preached by the Rev. Fredrick A. Robinson
The 4th Sunday of Advent
I’d like for you to use your imaginations for a moment. We’re going to go back into prehistoric times. A written language has not been invented. There is no way to record the memory of previous years, previous generations. You are living during that time. You are part of a tribe that believes in many gods. Every year the same thing happens, and every year it causes you great anxiety. The trees have lost their leaves and look dead. Many of the plants have also died. The grass is brown. It’s getting colder and colder, and the days are getting shorter and shorter. Yes, it happened last year the same way, and the year before, but for all you know, things might not turn out the way they turned out before. Maybe the process will continue, the cold will become unbearable, and daylight will eventually cease altogether. The food will run out, and all living things will die just like the rest of nature.
Then, one day that process appears to change. The day doesn’t get shorter but actually lasts a little longer. Or was it your imagination? The next day, though, brings more good news. The day is yet a little longer. It’s time to rejoice, to give thanks to the gods. The sun was not going to die.
I imagine that anxiety is not unlike what ancient peoples went through with the approach of winter. We know that all sorts of pagan rituals developed around that day which has become known as the winter solstice, and which happens every year around the 22nd of December. In the Roman Empire, the celebration of the winter solstice with precedents that surely were prehistoric, was known as Natalis Solus Invicti, the birth of the unconquered sun. The choice of the 25th of December to celebrate the birth of our Lord is connected to this cycle of nature. It is believed that the 25th was chosen to counteract the pagan festival. Whatever the reason, we celebrate the birth of the Redeemer of the world just as nature itself seems to be saying that when things seem darkest, there is hope.
Advent is just about over. As the days are still growing shorter, our Advent trindle has become brighter and brighter, until on this fourth Sunday of Advent, it is ablaze with light. Light shining in darkness is a wonderful symbol for who we are as Christians.
When we baptize someone, one of the things we do after that person is baptized is light a candle, from the Paschal Candle, and give the candle to the newly baptized person. It is a symbol that that person has passed from darkness to light.
The image of the light shining in the darkness doesn’t speak too well of the world, for it is the world without Christ that is characterized by darkness. It shouldn’t take much persuading to convince the average person that the world is in darkness. The newspapers are full of stories about violent crime, increased drug usage, Ponzi schemes, Tiger Woods’s escapades, and of course the wars going on in Iraq and Afghanistan—the list is endless.
Probably 20 years ago or so, I went to a convention of the National Association of Episcopal Schools (My parish at that time had a school). Highly acclaimed educators all echoed the same theme without having collaborated. That theme was the need for schools to teach values and morals; the need for schools, in other words, to be a light in the darkness. They were all saying that schools need to educate for character because that education was not happening elsewhere, including and especially the home. Another corollary to what these educators were saying was that television and popular music were having a tremendous impact on weakening the moral fiber of society. As I said, that convention happened 20 years ago or so. Things haven’t gotten any better. Certainly what we see on television and the movies and the music that many of our children listen to have only gotten worse.
One response to the condition of the world in which we live is to wring our hands, to despair of hoping for any change. But that is not a Christian response. The Christian response is to do what we are doing today. As the world gets darker, we light more candles. The motto of the Christopher Society says it well: “It is better to light one candle than to curse the darkness.” Children in our society are suffering from a lack of values, and so we work harder to instill values in the children who come to our Sunday School.
Business practices by many we know are unethical, but the Christian business person continues to hold the line and deal with people honestly and fairly. People continue to get sick, and we build hospitals. We continue to sin, and we forgive. Society becomes more inhuman, and we work in our small corner of the world to be more compassionate.
We light our candles because we do not lose hope, and we do not lose hope because God has not given up on us. Today’s Gospel is God’s answer to the darkness of the world. When the Blessed Virgin Mary visited her cousin, Elizabeth, Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit and exclaimed with a loud cry, “Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb! …Blessed is she who believed that there would be a fulfillment of what was spoken to her from the Lord.” Through her the Savior of the world took flesh and entered this world as a human being. God chose to deal with the darkness of the world he had made by sending his Son. He is the light that shines in the darkness.
Whenever I am tempted to think that the darkness of the world is winning, it helps me to recall that God never loses hope in us, that he has already won the victory over darkness in sending his Son, Jesus Christ. And most of all, what gives me the greatest hope is our life together in Christ. I see how you all deal with the chances and changes of this life, I see the strength that God gives you to deal with all kinds of challenges, I see your Christian values and convictions being lived out in your work and in your families, and I see the light shining in the darkness. Yes, we are a flawed community. We make many mistakes and we fall from time to time. God isn’t finished with us yet! But it is the Christian community through whom he has chosen to continue to make himself known. I give thanks to God for you, and I pray that for you I, too, can be one through whom light shines.