Holy Insomnia

This is a hard week for many of us here. I think all of you must have read of the murder-suicide that took place in our town just a week ago. By itself, it is one of the most tragic incidents to occur among our midst in quite a long time - certainly since I arrived. Two young men in their prime, one driven by jealousy and rage and pain that he allowed to consume him; another just in the wrong place at the wrong time. Each man leaves children behind him, left to grow up wounded and bereft. And it affects this congregation even more deeply that one of the young men was brother to one of our own.

In sharp contrast to these violent and ugly deaths, just a few short days later, on Thanksgiving itself, the father of one of our own members was called to the Lord. He too leaves sons, but grown sons, and he leaves them with a legacy of love and faithfulness and godliness that leaves them sad, but whole.

The Book of Common Prayer, that matchless contribution of the Episcopalian Church to the devotional literature of our faith, says truly indeed in their burial service that “in the midst of life we are in death.” And it is ironic to be brought face to face with that bitter reality right in the middle of this season of thankfulness. I can only try to imagine how hard it must be to enter the joyful season of Advent under the shadow of death.

And yet it would have been entirely natural in the Middle Ages to begin to prepare our hearts and minds and homes for the coming of Jesus with what they called a “memento mori,” that is a reminder of death. But it’s not our custom, is it. And so it jars us. It doesn’t seem to fit. “Joy to the world,” we sing, and we look forward to glad tidings, to the newborn king, to angels and shepherds and wise men and gifts. But think for a minute: what was it like when the baby first came?

In chapter 4 of his Gospel Matthew quotes Isaiah 9:2, “the people who sat in darkness have seen a great light, and for those who sat in the region and shadow of death light has dawned.” [Mt 4:16]

Now, Isaiah had written those words for the people of Galilee, who were about to be hauled off into slavery by the Assyrians, and Jesus began his ministry in Galilee by quoting them. And this was a people for whom life was very rough indeed. Not only did they have to live under the Roman occupying forces, who taxed them into poverty and then sold them into slavery, they also had to deal with the fact that their more sophisticated cousins in Judea, where the capital Jerusalem was, looked down on them as yokels, hayseeds, and unwashed louts.

But things hadn’t really been much better 30 years before, down south in Judea when Jesus had been born. In fact, some would say they’d been worse. Because even though Rome hadn’t taken over completely yet, Herod the Great was a paranoid dictator who killed indiscriminately anyone who remotely appeared to threaten his rule, including his own sons, and used the local population as slave labor for his building projects. So when Isaiah wrote this, the people really did live in the shadow of death, and when Jesus was born the people also lived in the shadow of death, and when Jesus started to go about the country teaching, people lived in the shadow of death, and when Matthew wrote it all down 30 years later the people were still living in the shadow of death. And yet Jesus said, and Matthew said, and we affirm: “light has dawned.”

Because that is what we believe, isn’t it, that on that miraculous night 2000 years ago that the light did dawn, and that it has not gone out since. In the midst of life were are in death. That is true. And that is painful. But it is equally true that in the midst of death we are in life. As the Apostle John said, “The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.” [Jn 1:5] And that is what lifts us out of the pain of death, from the ordinary losses that are the inevitable part of life to the inexplicable evil that occasionally shatters our world, into hope.

But - that was 2,000 years ago! When Jesus was born, it had only been 400 years since the last prophet had spoken a promise to the people. When Matthew wrote, it had only been 30 or 40 years since Jesus had risen from the dead with a promise of eternal life, with a promise that he would return and take to take his people home. People expected it to happen any day, but it hasn’t happened yet. It can be really hard to keep focused on the light - either of the long-ago Christ Child or the some-day-to-come Christ King! How long are we supposed to wait?