[Sermon preached on 4 February 2018, Candlemas / 3rd year, ELCF Lectionary]
I have been living in Finland for more than thirty-five years now. And still, every year, I get affected by the winter blues. Days are so short, and the clouds are so thick, that some days it seems to me that the sun does not shine at all. Before it is really light, the sun is going down already. Really depressing! Do you have that same feeling sometimes?
What English speakers know as the winter blues, is officially called Seasonal Affective Disorder. The acronym is S.A.D. — “sad”. What a great name for a depression, isn’t it!
What causes Seasonal Affective Disorder? Very simply, it is a lack of light. Whether we like it or not, light affects our hormone production. When it is light, our body produces hormones that give us energy and good appetite, and that lift our spirits up. When it is dark, these hormones have to give way to colleagues who make us tired, sleepy and downcast (and an unhealthy appetite).
That works great in the rhythm of a normal day. When the sun goes up, we wake up full of energy and good spirits, ready to face a day full of challenges. And when the sun goes down, we start feeling tired and ready to go to sleep. But in the middle of the winter, the time between sunrise and sunset is really short. And if the clouds are thick enough and there is no snow to reflect whatever light there is, our “night” mode just goes on. When we wake up, we feel like just turning around and taking another eight hours of sleep right away.
You recognize that? We simply need light every day, and we need a lot of it to keep us going. That’s why one of the most effective remedies against the winter blues is “bright light therapy”. Expose yourself to bright light for 30–60 minutes a day, and after a few days you will feel a lot better and more energetic. Exposure to light does the trick. The brighter the light, and the longer you are exposed to it, the less depressed you will be.
The same is also true in a spiritual sense. S.A.D. can also stand for Spiritual Affective Disorder. It is a state of spiritual depression—a spiritual crisis, you might say. It can happen to all of us, any time. It happened to me, many times in my life.
There were times when I felt great about my Christian life and my relationship with God. Days when I would spend lots of time reading and studying the Bible, praying, writing a spiritual journal, devouring Christian books and sermons, attending several Bible study and prayer meetings every week, and eager to tell others about Jesus.
But then there were also times that—for no obvious reason—my spiritual life started drying up. My appetite for the Word of God was gone and it felt more and more burdensome to pray. I stopped reading Christian books, skipped Bible studies and prayer meetings, and felt as if God was so far away.
Spiritual Affective Disorder. Could perhaps “bright light therapy” be the remedy also for this kind of spiritual depression?
The two Bible readings from the New Testament give us an important perspective on this question. They speak about light and darkness, and about a lot of other things connected to this theme. Their perspectives are very different, but their truth and their message are the same.
“God is light; in him there is no darkness.”
What a bold and profound statement! God is light—perfect light—100% light. Hallelujah! But at the same time these texts raise the important question: What is light? What does John really mean here when he calls God light?
Light—in the metaphysical sense of the word—means different things to different people. It means different things in different religions and worldviews as well. In Buddhism, for example, light refers first of all to wisdom. The Buddha is often represented with his eyes closed. He focuses not on the light around him, that is bright in midday and disappears completely in the evening. He focuses on the light within, the wisdom that comes from contemplation and meditation and from connecting with the spiritual world.
In Western history, we identify the 18th century as the “Age of Enlightenment”. We also call it the “Age of Reason”. It was a time when science and philosophy were jumping ahead with remarkable speed and force. But it was also the time when the understanding of truth changed. Earlier on, truth was based on authority. When people wanted to know what was true, they would look it up in the Bible, or they would ask the church for answers. That should settle the matter. But in the Enlightenment, authority was challenged as the basis for truth. Instead, reason became the #1 criterion for whether something was true or not. And as a result, the Bible lost its unique status as the unquestioned Word of God. Instead, scholars in theology started to subject the Bible to scientific scrutiny on the basis of reason. And whatever was considered “unreasonable”, was labeled false—not true.
But when the Bible speaks about light—the Ultimate Light that is God—it does not speak about wisdom or truth alone. There is more to it—much more! Light is the source of life. It is the beginning of everything.
In the opening verses of the Bible we read the story of the Creation. Before anything else happened, God said: “Let there be light!” And there was light. At that point in the Creation process there were no sun, moon or stars to give light. They were only created on the fourth day. God himself was the light, and that light was the necessary precondition for the creation of everything else. Without God, who is light, there can be no life. Or to say it differently, we cannot live without God. Life without God is no life. Light means life—life with God. Darkness means death—life without God.
Jesus tells many parables that end with a kind of judgment or separation. One person has failed the test. And what happens to him? He will be thrown out into “the darkness” where there will be “weeping and gnashing of teeth”. Darkness—separation from God. Because, as John writes, in God there is no darkness at all. Another person has passed the test. He is the good guy in the story. So what happens to him? He is rewarded with an eternity in heaven, in God’s presence. The closing chapter of the Bible, Revelation 22, says:
The sun will no more be your light by day,
nor will the brightness of the moon shine on you,
for the Lord will be your everlasting light,
and your God will be your glory.
God—and God alone—is light. But Jesus makes that claim even more specific. In John 12 he speaks about himself when he says: “You are going to have the light just a little while longer.” God alone is light, but that divine light shines from Jesus. Already earlier, he had said a couple of times: “I am the light of the world.” There is no denying then, that Jesus claims to be more than a carpenter, more than a prophet, more than a king. He is God.
And then comes his conclusion:
“Therefore, walk while you have the light, before darkness overtakes you.” […] “Believe in the light, so that you may become children of light.”
Walking in darkness is often used as a metaphor for living in sin. John makes that point repeatedly in his first letter, and we see some of that in the second Scripture reading as well. Living a life that goes counter to how God wants us to live our lives inevitably separates us from him. Sin switches out the light in our lives, because it disconnects us from the source of light. John says that we cannot live a sinful life and yet claim to have fellowship with God—to belong to his household and have a genuine relationship with him. In order to have a true relationship with God we must let our sins and our sinful nature be exposed to the penetrating light of God. We must be willing to say “no” to sin and “yes” to God.
It is not always easy to recognize the sin that separates from God. The Bible gives a fairly black-and-white picture of good and evil, of truthfulness and corruption, of holiness and ungodliness. But we live in a time when we are used to paint our reality in shades of grey. Most of us have grown up without developing a sensitivity for what is right in God’s sight and what is wrong. Our ethics are no longer dictated by God’s authority but increasingly by reason. Or moral standards are moveable, flexible, bendable. So we like to think that we are okay. We often—perhaps without realizing it—convert our image of a loving and merciful God into the image of an undecided and wavering God who goes with the flow and doesn’t really care in the end.
But it is not only that we do not recognize sin. We do not always want to confront the sin that separates us from God and deal with it even if we recognize it. We want God to look the other way or at least to have patience with us. When God addresses our sin on the pages of the Bible, we simply turn the page or close the Bible altogether. That is how we disconnect with God. In God there is no darkness, and if we continue to cherish things in our lives that God condemns as wrong the separation is inevitable.
We need to live holy lives in which we honor God in our thoughts, words and actions. But there is a danger involved here. Let me explain what I mean.
In John 12:36, Jesus speaks about becoming children of light. The original Greek text speaks about becoming “sons of light”. In the days of Jesus, there were a couple of pietistic movements that called themselves “sons of light”. These were the Pharisees and the Essenes.
The Pharisees went around showing off their righteousness and goodness everywhere: in their homes while hosting dinner parties, on the corners of the street while praying long prayers aloud, in the temple while putting considerable offerings into the treasure chest while everybody was watching, and in the synagogue where they showed off their knowledge of the Bible. They were keen on observing all the commandments and rituals given in the Law of Moses.
Then there were the Essenes who went even further than that. They felt that living in the heart of society was making it virtually impossible not to get contaminated by sin. So they withdrew from society altogether to form small communities of their own out in the wilderness, far away from the threats of civilization. These were much like the monasteries that were commonplace in the Roman Catholic and Orthodox churches for centuries.
These Pharisees and Essenes went through considerable effort not to “sin” and to live a life of great discipline, righteousness and devotion. Therefore, they felt they were entitled to call themselves “sons of light”.
But look at what Jesus said in John 12:35:
“Believe in the light [– –], so that you may become sons of light.”
Becoming sons of light is not primarily a matter of attaining spiritual disciplines, or a life that has been purged from every form of sin. That is not the way to becoming sons of light. Instead, we should believe in the light—believe in God who became one of us in Jesus Christ in order to re-connect us with himself and to take away our sins. John writes in his letter that if we walk in the light, i.e. walk with Christ in faith, that we have fellowship with God and with one another. And what is more: the blood of Jesus will purify us from all sin. It will expel all darkness from our lives.
If you have a look at the internet and google for sermons and Bible studies on “walking in the light”, you will find many teachings about how to live a better life as a Christian. You will be told to read and study your Bible more, to pray more, to be more involved in your church, to share your faith more with unbelievers, to share your belongings and your homes more generously. You will be told to fight temptations in your lives, to avoid the company of people who might pull you away from the right path, tackle your wrong desires, renegotiate your values, your time management, your investments etc.
No doubt, all those things are important. And yet, none of those by themselves will help us overcome Spiritual Affective Disorder. I can read and study the Bible without really connecting to the author. I can pray in my mind or out loud, without sensing God’s presence or hearing him speak to me. Believe me, I have experience. The only thing that really helps is “bright light therapy”. We need to walk out of the darkness and let ourselves be exposed to God’s light. The closer we are to him, the more powerful it is. The more we dwell in his presence, the more effective his light is to expel the darkness from our lives.
Trying to do a thousand things right does not make us sons and daughters of light, just as the Pharisees and the Essenes were not considered sons of light by Jesus’ standards. It will just make us focus more on ourselves and less on God. It will just get us stressed, weary, exhausted and increasingly frustrated. Because the more we try to be what God wants us to be, the more we discover how far we are from that ideal.
Jesus said: “Believe in the light.” — Entrust your life and your spiritual wellbeing to Jesus. He has promised to purify you from all your sin. His presence and his light will heal you from your Spiritual Affective Disorder. Just rest in him, trusting that he will heal your life.
Be still, for the presence of the Lord, the Holy One is here.
Be still, for the glory of the Lord is shining all around.
Be still for the power of the Lord is moving in this place.
Amen.
