This sermon was preached for Sunday, January 22, 2023 at St. Mark's Episcopal Church in East Longmeadow, MA. The texts for this sermon were: Isaiah 9:1-4, Matthew 4:12-23, and Psalm 27:1, 5-13.
 |
| My son receives the light of Christ at his baptism in 2021. |
Back when my husband and I lived in Berkeley, very soon after we had adopted our dog, Remy, we received some devastating news. It knocked the wind out of us on the way home from a party and we had no idea what to say to one another. I just remember being so filled with dread and grief that all we could do was lie on the floor in silence. We didn’t even turn on the lights or take off our shoes, just lay down on the carpet. Our dog, our new addition to our family, a rescue who was still learning to trust us, got up and lay down right between us. I remember being so surprised by how comforting her warm, furry body was. She was a light in the darkness to us in that moment. She didn’t need to understand why we were in shock. She didn’t need to say anything, in fact it was even better that she couldn’t. She had no idea what her presence meant to us in that moment. She was just dog. And that was all we needed her to be.
The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light; those who lived in a land of deep darkness–on them light has shined.
Every life of faith has moments of darkness, distance, and despair. Even the lives of giants like C.S. Lewis, one of the greatest Christian apologists of the last century. His writings on faith have been a beacon for so many, as well as his children's series, like the Chronicles of Narnia. Lewis himself went through a period of atheism as a young man. He only returned to Christianity in his thirties, persuaded by his good friend, J.R.R. Tolkien, author of the Lord of the Rings. He wrote that at the moment of his surrender to God and faith, he was "the most dejected and reluctant convert in England." Lewis writes about faith by writing about grief, about struggle, about doubt and temptation. His work is all the stronger, all the more compelling because he had known the absence of faith and because he walked in the darkness of grief after the loss of his wife.
The quote that I think about a lot from C.S. Lewis, the one that was carved into his gravesite, goes like this: "I believe in Christianity as I believe the sun has risen: not only because I see it, but because by it I see everything else."
Christ is the light that illuminates everything worth seeing. When we look for God's love, through God's love, when we view the world in the light of the risen son, we can see kindness and hope where it might otherwise escape our gaze.
The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light; those who lived in a land of deep darkness–on them light has shined. Our Gospel today draws from Isaiah's promises. The passage begins right after John the Baptist's arrest. In the midst of that disappointment, confusion, and fear, Jesus enters the community of Capernaum, a land currently under foreign occupation. It is into that darkness that the light comes to shine.
One of my favorite podcasts, Heavyweight, is all about helping people reconcile with their pasts. One of their shorter episodes recently was about a man named Cody. He asked the show's producers to help him find the person who gave him a single hug many years ago - a hug he says changed his life.
Cody lost his mother suddenly when he was just 17. His family fell apart in the wake of her death. He was lonely and isolated in his grief, just numbly going through the motions, when his new football coach took him aside. Coach Walling said nothing, just gave Cody a hug, a real hug, like the hugs only his mom had ever given him, warm and full of care. Hugging with all his heart. It was exactly what Cody had needed without knowing it. Coach Walling changed jobs shortly after and Cody never heard from him again. But ever since that hug, Cody says he became a guy who hugs. Hugs became central to how Cody loves and he wanted Coach Walling to know what it had meant to him.
Turned out Coach Walling remembered that hug, too. Turns out Walling had just lost his mom that year as well. He hadn't known what to say to the kid who just lost his mom in the midst of his own grief, so that's what he did, just hugged the kid. And after that day, Coach Walling said something changed inside him as well. It was easier from then on for him to share raw emotion with other men. To hug.
Turns out they both found each other in similar darkness and in a moment became each other's light, a light that would illuminate the rest of their lives and the way they loved.
An atheist can bring a word of faith even when they do not believe. A depressed person can spark joy even if they can't feel it themselves. Someone can be light to others even when they can't see their own light themselves.
When my grandfather was dying, my family gathered around his deathbed. My cousins brought their toddlers and my sister brought her son who has just started to walk. Those little kids were a light to our family as we grieved. Even as our patriarch was leaving us, the messy chaos of those little kids helped us have faith that our family was continuing on.
You have been a light to someone sometime, even when you did not know it. You were the hands and feet of God to someone, even when you could not find faith within yourself. You were a reason someone smiled, even before you knew how to smile yourself.
My question for you today is this: Who was a light to you in a dark moment? Take a moment now to think and remember.
My challenge for you today is to let them know. Tell them about it. Maybe they remember, maybe they don't. Tell them. Maybe they never knew how much it mattered to you. Tell them. Maybe they have already left this life. Tell them anyway, however you know how.
We are each given the light of Christ at our baptism. Of course for infant baptism we hand the lit candle to the parents not the baby. So there's always this little awkward moment when the parents aren't sure whether to blow the candle out. I want to tell them in that moment that what they've just promised, to raise their children in Christian community and in the life of faith, it doesn't mean their candle won't ever get blown out. Because it will sometimes. There will be darkness. I want them to know that. I want them to know, too, that behind me, by the ambry, right there, there's a candle that stays lit, day and night. Even when no one is here to see it, it still stays lit. The altar guild makes sure of it. That candle tells us that we can find the light of Christ again, here, at the altar and in one another. Coming together, in community, that's the best chance we have to be relit. It's where we learn to relight others, too.
The light will shine again.
It may already be shining from you onto others in a way you cannot see.
And I meant it about telling that person - even if they're actually a dog. Even if it's just a quick text during the offertory. Or a hug at the Peace.
Comments
Post a Comment