An End to Darkness
Isaiah 60:1-7; 2 Corinthians 4:1-6
Cascades Fellowship CRC, JX MI
December 14, 2008
Advent Series 2009
This may sound a little strange, but I have always associated darkness with Christmas – physical darkness, I mean. All my childhood memories of Christmas seem to have formed after the sun went down or before it came up. My family always got up early for Christmas morning – me and my brothers would normally wake up around four or five in the morning, roust Mom and Dad out of bed and tear into our presents with the wild abandon of puppies at play; wrapping paper went everywhere. By the time the sun came up, we’d normally eaten breakfast and settled in for a morning nap.
And we never went to Christmas day services – always Christmas Eve candlelight services; they usually started at 9 or 10 PM, good and dark. We typically went sledding at night, we looked at Christmas decorations at night, we did Christmas caroling at night. I’ll be honest with you, I cannot distinctly remember one Christmas in daylight – everything of any note seems to have happened in the dark.
Now, maybe my own experience has colored my view a bit, but in some ways I think that’s the way it is supposed to be – Christmas is supposed to be experienced under this blanket of darkness that is pierced through with the lights of the season. I mean, have you ever noticed how much darkness surrounds the Christmas story – how much happens in the dark? In Matthew, Joseph has three dreams, presumably as he is sleeping in the dark. The Magi follow a star to the Christ child, again, the presumption is that they arrive in darkness. The Gospel of Luke intimates that the birth of our Savior took place at night – while shepherds were standing guard over their flocks.
But it’s more than physical darkness that surrounds the Christmas story – the Jewish people were at a dark moment of history. The promise of the Maccabean revolt had dissolved from the Hasmonean Dynasty to the rule of Herod. Do you know that Herod killed some of his own children out of paranoia over the throne? He was a brutal and unstable man – as his slaughter of the innocents in Bethlehem attest.
And on top of this, Rome ruled the known world, including Israel – permitting enough self-rule to promote compliance, but squashing any rebellion with swift and deadly action. More and more cultural lines were being blurred – Israel was losing its distinctiveness. The high priesthood had become corrupt, resulting in a precipitous decline in the spiritual health of the nation. Politically, culturally, and spiritually the people walked in great darkness with little or no hope of reprieve.
There is a palpable darkness to the Christmas story that we seem to lose in all the glitz, lights, and glamour of our modern celebrations of it. It begins with a birth announcement shaded by rumors of adultery, of infidelity. Then, a forced march to Bethlehem – no easy task for a young girl in her last trimester. A dark and musty stable only heightens the sense despair – it’s sort of like the Murphy’s Law police were busy with enforcing the law; like the whole universe suddenly turned against Mary, Joseph and the Messiah-in-waiting. I mean, hospitality was and is a big deal in Middle-Eastern culture, so “no room at the inn” just might have meant “you’re not welcome.” Whether that’s the case or not, Jesus is still born in a cattle stall. And who can forget the dark, foreboding words spoken by the old man Simeon to Mary, the mother of Jesus:
“This child is destined to cause the falling and rising of many in Israel, and to be a sign that will be spoken against, so that the thoughts of many hearts will be revealed. And a sword will pierce your own soul too.”
Mary must have thought she lived under a cloud of misfortune. Even the visit of the Magi was somewhat ambiguous as an event of happiness and light – the Magi had to sneak out of Bethlehem to avoid a confrontation with Herod. In their wake, disturbed by a dream Joseph packs up Mary and the family and flees to Egypt in the middle of the night.
You know, when you carefully read the story, you find that the bulk of it is fairly dark in nature – you have to really focus on the points of light to see them clearly. We have romanticized the story significantly – we have removed the fear, the blood, the tears. Can you imagine how terrified Mary and Joseph must have felt? Did they travel to Egypt under aliases to avoid detection until they were out of the reach of Herod?
And the violence – the closest we get to acknowledging the violence of the Nativity is to dress up our kids in bathrobes and towels and send them walking solemnly up the aisle with a couple of boxes wrapped in gold foil and gaudy bows. If the Nativity story were made into a true-to-life screen play, it would have to be rated R or NC 17 – there’s just too much stuff we wouldn’t want our kids to see.
I mean, if you really think about it, the only hopeful moments in the Nativity story are when the angels appear to the shepherds and the shepherds go in search of the Messiah. You get some rejoicing then, but even these moments are tinged with fear and pensiveness. The shepherds are terrified of the angels, but who can blame them. One moment they are alone in the dark with their sheep, the next every rock is bathed in heaven’s Light and the hills are alive with music! And as for their visit to see the Christ-child – well, let me read it for you.
So they hurried off and found Mary and Joseph, and the baby, who was lying in the manger. When they had seen him, they spread the word concerning what had been told them about this child, and all who heard it were amazed at what the shepherds said to them. 19 But Mary treasured up all these things and pondered them in her heart.
Let me ask you a question – do we read in the Gospels anywhere that Mary and Joseph rejoiced with the birth of Christ? Since I have already looked, let me help you out – no. Isn’t that odd? Shepherds come and are moved to shouts of glory at the sight of Jesus. Magi from the east come and bow down to worship Jesus. But Mary and Joseph, what’s their reaction?
All we get is “But Mary treasured up all these things and pondered them in her heart.” The Gospels don’t say that they took the shepherd’s visit as a confirmation and rejoiced to know they were doing God’s will. Nor do the Gospels record that they shouted with the shepherds – just that Mary rather pensively took it all in and pondered it.
We tend to think of Christmas as all happiness and light. Our little statues of Mary all have a serene look on her face, a half-smile playing on her lips. Joseph, apparently the strong, silent type gazes on placidly. And Jesus literally beams from the manger – all is right with the world, the smell of manure notwithstanding.
If you strip away all the window dressing we impose on the Christmas story it really becomes a tragedy of sorts – there isn’t much there to make you smile. So it leaves you to wonder, “How did Mary and Joseph do it? Where did they find the courage to deal with everything?” I mean, if I try and imagine myself in that situation, the moment I realized the one who would be called the Son of the Most-High God was going to be born in a stable and laid in a feed trough, I would have started questioning whether I was just crazy and wanted desperately to believe the voices telling me that this child was going to be the Messiah. It is hard to imagine Mary and Joseph going through all this without glancing sideways at the heavens and praying, “Is this the way it’s supposed to be? God, are you there?”
I mean, what was Mary pondering as she treasured all these things up in her heart? Well, we can’t be sure – Scripture never tells us. But I think it may have been something like Isaiah 60:1-7,
“Arise, shine, for your light has come, and the glory of the LORD rises upon you.
See, darkness covers the earth and thick darkness is over the peoples, but the LORD rises upon you and his glory appears over you.
Nations will come to your light, and kings to the brightness of your dawn.
“Lift up your eyes and look about you: All assemble and come to you; your sons come from afar, and your daughters are carried on the arm.
Then you will look and be radiant, your heart will throb and swell with joy; the wealth on the seas will be brought to you, to you the riches of the nations will come.
Herds of camels will cover your land, young camels of Midian and Ephah.
And all from Sheba will come, bearing gold and incense and proclaiming the praise of the LORD.
Mary and Joseph must have realized that even though darkness covered their lives, God’s promise of Light and glory – of redemption – were true; that God was faithful and his Word could be trusted. In the midst of every twist and turn of this story, God’s promise must have hung before them like the star that led the Magi to their home.
You see, we live on the other end of all this – we know the whole story, how it all ends, so we can talk about the joy and the hope that Jesus’ birth brings. We can clinically look at all the bad stuff and say, “But…redemption came to us wrapped in baby flesh and swaddling cloths that day.” We can chase away the darkness by putting up lights and breaking out the festive decorations. But Joseph and Mary – all they had was God’s promise. In the midst of all that darkness, amid all the questions and moments of doubt, they could cling to the message of the angel, “He will be called the Son of the Most High and he will save his people from their sins.” No matter how deep the darkness, they knew that the baby they nurtured and protected would one day bring an end to the darkness.
Can you imagine? Hanging on by nothing but God’s Word?
Yes, yes we can. The reality is we are living in a time of deep darkness. The foundation of our state’s economic system is ready to collapse under its own weight. Our political system is preparing to undergo a transition, breeding this sense of uncertainty for the future. And worse than both of these, the spiritual darkness in our country continues to grow. The church daily faces being made irrelevant by marginalization. Quite frankly, you’d think Jesus would return before things got too out of hand. For some of us, that moment has already passed. And the only thing that keeps us going sometimes is God’s promise that one day Jesus will return and put an end to the darkness.
So what do we do in the mean time? You know, the easiest thing in the world would be to withdraw into our shell – circle the wagons as it were – and wait for Jesus to return. It would be so simple – avoid public gatherings, find work places where we won’t be hated for our faith, hang out with other Christians all the time. If we just keep praying, keep reading our Bibles and keep to ourselves the sojourn we have in this old world will be pretty easy to get through. Sure, there’ll be suffering and disappointment, but we live in a darkened world, shouldn’t we expect a little grief?
But we can really minimize our troubles and sorrows if we just play it safe. Just don’t do anything to attract the enemy’s attention. Take the light Jesus has shone into your life and tuck it away in your heart. Put it behind a veil of worldliness; blend in, allowing just enough Light to filter out to push the darkness back away from you and you will get through this life essentially unmolested. Light and darkness can live easily side-by-side; all it takes is a little compromise.
Or we can take Paul’s exhortation to heart …
Therefore, since through God’s mercy we have this ministry, we do not lose heart. Rather, we have renounced secret and shameful ways; we do not use deception, nor do we distort the word of God. On the contrary, by setting forth the truth plainly we commend ourselves to every man’s conscience in the sight of God. And even if our gospel is veiled, it is veiled to those who are perishing. The god of this age has blinded the minds of unbelievers, so that they cannot see the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God. For we do not preach ourselves, but Jesus Christ as Lord, and ourselves as your servants for Jesus’ sake. For God, who said, “Let light shine out of darkness,” a made his light shine in our hearts to give us the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Christ.
Look, God knows that the darkness seems to be overwhelming sometimes. He knows that sometimes the loneliness seems too deep, the fight too hard, the situation too hopeless. He knows that the enemy has done us violence, he knows that we have failed in our fight against sin, he knows that if we really try to follow Jesus we’ll be ridiculed – even persecuted. Yet, in spite of all that he says, “Don’t lose heart, continue to shine the Light.”
God even knows that the enemy has blinded the eyes of many – those who are perishing so that when we shine the Light before their eyes, their pupils remained fixed and unseeing. But his promise to us is that Jesus will return and that when he does, he’ll put an end to darkness. In the meantime, we’re to not lose hope, faithfully shining the Light of the Savior into the gathering darkness – knowing that God’s promise is sure and he will make his light shine in our hearts giving to those who believe the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Christ.
