Jesus invites us to focus on "what can I do?" instead of "why did this happen?"

Sermon delivered Sunday, March 26, 2017 (Fourth Sunday in Lent, Year A) at St. Cuthbert’s Episcopal Church, Oakland, CA.

Sermon Text(s): John 9:1-41

“Who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?”

The question would have been a natural one in Jesus’ day; it was widely assumed that sin and physical illness were connected in a directly causal relationship: if you were sick or had a disability of any sort, it must have been because you had sinned. If you were born with an illness or disability, either you must have committed some sin while still in the womb, or your misfortune was due to the sins of your parents. So the disciples were trying to figure it out, to determine which category they should place this man in to explain his abnormality, to find someone to blame.

Despite the advances of modern science, we’re not so different in 21st century America from the disciples who sought to explain the condition of this blind man by blaming it on sin. We’re always looking for ways to blame someone for the uncomfortable abnormalities and disabilities we see in others – “That poor child is deformed because her mother used drugs during her pregnancy,” or “If only he’d stop smoking, he wouldn’t have gotten lung cancer,” or “She has AIDS; that must be a punishment for her lifestyle or drug use.” And if we can’t find a reasonable person on whom to pin the blame, we pin it on God. “Why, God? What have I – or my sister or my uncle or my friend – done to deserve this?” we ask, the assumption being that illness and suffering are only inflicted upon those who “deserve” it as punishment for something they have done wrong.

But the interesting thing is that Jesus rejects this assumption that physical illness is an indication of the presence of sin. “Neither this man or his parents sinned,” Jesus says, “he was born blind so that God’s works might be revealed in him.”

But is this really any better? The man’s blindness – and by consequence, the miserable life he would have experienced as a blind person in first-century Palestine, with no real opportunities for making a living open to him besides begging by the side of the road – was created just so Jesus could come along and perform a miracle? Does that mean all our sufferings are created just so God can be glorified through them? Certainly God can be glorified through our sufferings, but does God create them on purpose – does God make us suffer – just to glorify himself? What kind of God would that be?

But several biblical scholars have suggested that that is not necessarily what Jesus meant to say in this passage. Some scholars propose an alternative translation of the Greek text from the one we heard this morning, a translation that goes like this: “Neither this man nor his parents sinned, but in order that the works of God might be revealed in him we must work the works of him who sent me while it is day.” (9:3-4a). In this translation, Jesus does not give an explanation for the man’s blindness, but simply accepts it as a given. Rather than dwelling in the “why” questions, Jesus is concerned with the more practical “what” questions – what can I do for this man now, and how can God’s glory be revealed in his life, regardless of his condition or his past?

In a similar vein, the blind man is not interested in explaining or justifying Jesus’ behavior when he is interrogated by the Pharisees; he is only concerned with testifying to his personal experience of Jesus. “We know this man is a sinner,” the Pharisees say to him, trying to get him to speak ill of Jesus. “I do not know whether he is a sinner,” the formerly blind man replies. “One thing I do know, that though I was blind, now I see.” He offers no other explanations beyond this simple statement.

In the story as we have received it, both the blind man and Jesus are concerned with the here and now – with responding to the facts of the present situation without over-analyzing them. Jesus does not try to explain the reason why this man was born blind to his disciples, and the blind man does not try to justify Jesus’ actions to the Pharisees. Jesus sees a need and responds to it; the blind man receives a gift and testifies to it. The disciples are so caught up with trying to find a reason for the man’s blindness, to find someone to blame for this misfortune, that they miss seeing a real human being in need in front of them. The Pharisees are so caught up in arguments over what is and isn’t lawful according to religious tradition that they miss the miracle that has taken place in front of them.

The Pharisees tend to get a bad rep in the Gospels, since they’re always set as the “bad guys” in the story, in opposition to Jesus. But as this story shows, the disciples don’t always “get it” either. And aren’t we a little more like the disciples and the Pharisees in this story than we’d like to admit?

I sometimes wonder how Jesus would be received if he were to appear in an Episcopal church on any given Sunday morning. Might we not find ourselves to be modern-day Pharisees, more worried about whether Jesus was performing the liturgy correctly than about the miracle of his presence among us?

And don’t we often look around for people and institutions to blame when things go wrong in our lives, rather than accepting the circumstances for what they are and trying to think creatively about how we could contribute to making the works of God be revealed in that situation?

“Neither this man nor his parents sinned,” Jesus says, “but in order that the works of God might be revealed in him we must work the works of him who sent me while it is day.”

“I do not know whether he is a sinner,” says the formerly blind man. “One thing I do know, that though I was blind, now I see.”

John’s Gospel this morning is inviting us to let go of the urge to explain, to analyze, to justify, and simply open our eyes to the world around us. Where is there a need that you can respond to, regardless of the reasons it exists? Where have you received a gift that you can testify to with gratefulness? Our personal stories about how we have experienced God working in our lives are the most powerful evangelism tools we have. What is the “one thing you do know” about God in your life? I invite you to share your answer to that question with someone in your life this week, and see what happens. Maybe you too have the power to open the eyes of the blind.

The Transfiguration gives us a "spiritual booster" before Lent begins

Sermon delivered Sunday, Feb. 26, 2017 (Last Sunday After the Epiphany, Year A), at St. Cuthbert's Episcopal Church, Oakland, CA.

Sermon Text(s): Matthew 17:1-9

“This is my Son, the Beloved; with him I am well pleased; listen to him!” (Matthew 17:5)

Peter, James, and John hear the voice of God speak these words about Jesus as they are gathered on the mountain in today’s Gospel reading.

We heard these exact same words just a few weeks ago, on the first Sunday after the Epiphany, when our Gospel reading was the story of Jesus’s baptism. After John the Baptist baptizes Jesus in the River Jordan, the Holy Spirit descends from heaven in the form of a dove and comes to rest on Jesus’s head, and a voice from heaven says,

“This is my Son, the Beloved, with whom I am well pleased.” (Matthew 3:17)

The season after the Epiphany is bookended by this phrase – “This is my Son, the Beloved, with whom I am well pleased.” The season starts and ends with moments where God declares Jesus to be his beloved Son and commands those around him to take notice. These two great revelations from God take place at the beginning of the two significant phases of Jesus’s life. The first event – Jesus’s baptism – occurs at the start of his public teaching ministry, and the second event – the Transfiguration – occurs at the start of his passion, his journey to the cross. We are told to “look, listen up, take notice!” – as he begins to show us how to live and as he begins to show us how to die.

After the story of Jesus’s baptism, we get a series of his teachings in the following weeks. This year, our readings came primarily from the Sermon on the Mount, and we used those readings as starting points to consider how Jesus taught us to live, and how we vow to follow those teachings through the promises we make when we, too, are baptized. Our Baptismal Covenant is our vow to behave in ways that echo the teachings of Jesus: love your neighbor and your enemy, serve God in all people, strive for justice and peace among all people and respect the dignity of every human being.

The Transfiguration marks the starting point of Jesus’s journey toward his death. Shortly before this revelatory moment, Jesus begins to predict his death and speak of it to his disciples, and shortly after shining with a holy light on the mountain, he “sets his face to go to Jerusalem” (Luke 9:51), where he will be killed. We always hear the story of the Transfiguration on the Sunday before Lent begins because it marks the beginning of Jesus’s journey to the cross, the journey we commemorate during Lent and Holy Week.

It also gives us a preview of the Resurrection: the image of Jesus changed in form but yet still recognizably Jesus, shining with an otherworldly light, being proclaimed God’s beloved son, worshipped above all other revered prophets of old, foreshadows his eventual triumph over death through his Resurrection.

On their way down the mountain afterwards, Jesus tells the disciples not to tell anyone about what they have just seen until after “the Son of Man is raised from the dead.” The Transfiguration only makes sense in light of the Resurrection, but the Resurrection cannot happen without walking the road to Jerusalem, the road to death. Peter, James, and John, Jesus’s “inner circle,” are given the vision of the Transfiguration as a “spiritual booster” before they head down that difficult road. They may not understand it in the moment, but somewhere in their consciousness, when they find themselves in the midst of despair, they will remember this: the road may be long and dark, but the end result is Jesus standing triumphant, radiant, shining, glorified above all the prophets.

And as we remember these events of so many years ago, we too are given this “spiritual booster” right before Lent, a “foretaste of the feast to come,” a reminder that the doom and gloom of Lent isn’t all there is to the story. As we prepare for Lent, the Transfiguration reminds us that the Resurrection is not far behind. We enter Lent with the image of a shining, glorified Jesus to lead us through the darkness. In the words of the psalmist, “though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for you are with me” (Psalm 23:4). As we begin Lent this year, let us not forget that God is with us even as we walk through the wilderness. God is with us in our pain and God is able to transform that pain into new life. The road to death is lit by Resurrection light.

Being a "light to the nations" means helping others to see the light in themselves

Sermon delivered Sunday, Jan. 19, 2014 (2nd Sunday After the Epiphany, Year A), at St. Paul’s Episcopal Church, Franklin, TN. (Isaiah 49:1-7)

The season of Epiphany is all about light. It begins with the light of the star of Bethlehem guiding the magi to the Christ Child, and ends with Jesus glowing in dazzling light on the mountain at the Transfiguration. These two dramatic manifestations of Jesus’s identity bookend a season chock-full of stories about Jesus being made known as Messiah and Son of God.

The light of the season of Epiphany carries with it a message: “Behold, to you is born this day in the city of David, a Savior!” “This is my Son, the Beloved, in whom I am well pleased. Listen to him!” The light shines as a beacon to point us to Christ. And we, in turn, are called to let the light shine through us so that we may point others toward Christ. In the season of Epiphany, as we remember the ways Christ was made known to the people of his day, we consider the ways we can make him known to the people of our day.

Our collect for today summarizes this central theme of Epiphany: “Grant that your people, illumined by your Word and Sacraments, may shine with the radiance of Christ's glory, that he may be known, worshipped, and obeyed to the ends of the earth.” We are “illumined” as we take in the light of Christ through the Scripture and through the Sacraments, and as it shines in us, others will come to know and worship him as well. The season of Epiphany reminds us of the call to evangelism and mission at the heart of our faith.
Today’s reading from the Hebrew Bible contains one of the most well-known biblical “catch-phrases” on the subject of evangelism and mission: “a light to the nations.” God says to the prophet Isaiah, “It is too light a thing that you should be my servant
to raise up the tribes of Jacob
and to restore the survivors of Israel;
I will give you as a light to the nations,
that my salvation may reach to the end of the earth” (Isaiah 49:6).

“I will give you as a light to the nations, that my salvation may reach to the end of the earth.”

In an historical context where the prevailing assumption was that each nation had their own god or gods, whose role was to protect only the people of their nation, this was a revolutionary idea – that the God of Israel would care about the people of other nations. In fact, most of the biblical writings prior to the time when the Israelites were in exile in Babylon – the period when this passage from Isaiah was probably written – assumed just the opposite: that the God of Israel cared only for Israel, and whatever “salvation” was promised had to do only with the success and prosperity of Israel, not of anyone else. This passage is one of several in Isaiah and in other writings dated to this period that represent a significant theological shift – from a view of salvation as being “all about us” to a view that included “them” as well – the other, the outsider, the foreigner, the stranger. The goodness and mercy and blessings promised by God to Israel are available not only to them, but to all people. The role of Isaiah – and of Israel as a whole – as a “light to the nations” is to bring that goodness and mercy and blessing to all people. It is not enough to receive it for themselves; they must be willing to share it with everyone.

Unfortunately, the way both Jews and Christians have read and interpreted this passage has often presumed that only Israel – or in Christian thought, only the church, as the “New Israel” – has the light to share with others. As Christians sought to be a “light to the nations,” we saw ourselves as a shining example to those other more “primitive” or “uncivilized” people who we considered to be in darkness, and through our actions and our theology we continued to assert our superiority over other nations and peoples. As this passage about being a “light to the nations” became one of the theological underpinnings behind Christianity’s worldwide missionary outreach, we forgot the inclusive flavor that it had in its original context. Instead of saying, “I believe that God loves and cares for you and I am willing to include you in what is most holy and sacred to me,” too often the message expressed by the missionaries was more like, “I believe we have the light and you don’t, and God disapproves of the things you hold most holy and sacred.” In many cases, instead of bringing light, we brought more darkness. Instead of inclusion, we brought rejection and condemnation.

So how can we be obedient to Isaiah’s call to be a light to the nations, to Jesus’s call to make disciples of all nations, without falling into the same mistakes that some of our forefathers and foremothers made? How can we share the good news so that it is actually received as good news, rather than as rejection and judgment?

Well, we can think about the people we know or have known who truly are a “light” – to their community, to the nations, to the world. What are those people like? Are they angry, judgmental people? Are they in the habit of pointing out others’ flaws, or of telling them how much their behavior is unacceptable to God? Probably not. Their light most likely flows from a genuine love and acceptance of those around them. Are they the only ones who have the light? No, they probably cause others to shine too when they are around.

The true lights of this world cannot possibly judge the darkness, because they bring light to wherever they are, and they see the light in others. They don’t claim to be the only ones who have the light, but they help others to see the light in themselves. And in doing so, the light becomes much stronger than if it were proceeding from only one person or one group. To me, that is what it means to be a “light to the nations.”

It is interesting that although Christian theology names Jesus as the “light of the world” (John 8:12), Jesus also says that we are the light of the world (Matthew 5:14)! In the Sermon on the Mount, he says to those gathered to hear him teach, “You are the light of the world. A city built on a hill cannot be hidden. No one after lighting a lamp puts it under the bushel basket, but on the lampstand, and it gives light to all in the house. In the same way, let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father in heaven” (Matthew 5:14-16). Jesus, the very light of the world himself, did not tell his followers that he was the only light, but taught them to see the light in themselves.

And he taught them that that light shines more brightly as a result of our actions. It is a cliché, but it is certainly true that actions speak louder than words. The trouble with the way some of our forefathers and foremothers approached the missionary task is that their actions did not match up with the words they were sharing. Their words said that God loved and cared for all, but their actions said that some people were worth more than others. They were more concerned with making sure that others had the right beliefs than they were with living out those beliefs themselves.

My favorite saying about evangelism is one attributed to St. Francis of Assisi: “Preach the Gospel at all times; if necessary, use words.” We preach the Gospel, the good news of Christ, not primarily by what we say, but by how we live. The truth of this statement has been illustrated powerfully in the past 10 months by the first Pope to take St. Francis as his namesake. What has captured the world’s attention about Pope Francis is not his words, but his actions. In word, he has not said much that departs from traditional Roman Catholic teaching, but what is different about him is the way he lives. While others have affirmed the church’s teachings about caring for the poor, Francis has chosen to give up the comforts of the papal palace, dress simply, and be among the poor as much as possible, inviting several street people to the Eucharist at his birthday celebration in December. While others have said and taught that the faithful should put their trust in God and not in human force, Francis has chosen to leave the bulletproof Popemobile behind and embrace the risk of traveling unprotected and vulnerable among the people. Francis is living proof that the Gospel, authentically lived, is powerful.

So how can we be a “light to the nations?” Perhaps we can take our cue from Pope Francis and from his namesake, seeking to live an authentic life of faith modeled on the teachings of Jesus. The best way to be a light to others is not to assume we are bringing them a light they do not already have, but by to affirm and help them see the light in themselves.

The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it.

Sermon delivered Sunday, Dec. 29, 2013 (1 Christmas, Year A (John 1:1-18)), at St. Paul’s Episcopal Church, Franklin, TN.

On this First Sunday After Christmas, we hear a very different version of the Christmas story than the one we heard on Christmas Eve. Rather than shepherds and angels and a family sent to the stable because there was no room for them at the inn, we hear John’s version of “the beginning” of Jesus’s story, a beginning that began not in Bethlehem, but at the beginning of time, before the creation of the world. John’s account is a cosmic creation story, a magnificent theological poem about the very essence of the Divine breaking into the depths of our world: “the Word became flesh and lived among us” (John 1:14).

And in this artistic proclamation of the origins of the Christ, the author of John’s Gospel gives us what I believe to be one of the most powerful summaries of the Christian message in all of Scripture:

“The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it” (John 1:5).

In that one sentence lies the heart of the Gospel: the power of light over darkness, of love over hate, of life over death. Jesus’s Resurrection is the ultimate expression of this truth. Death itself could not extinguish the light that came into the world with the birth of Christ, and it continues to shine through all the ages, despite countless attempts and threats to extinguish it.

This is the heart of the Gospel, the Good News that we proclaim as Christians: that nothing will be able to extinguish the light of God that shines in all creation. The Apostle Paul said in his letter to the Romans that he was convinced “that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord” (Romans 8:38). This is the message we are called as Christians to proclaim to a broken and hurting world: “The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it” (John 1:5). And we are called to proclaim this message precisely during those times when we cannot see the light, when all seems to be darkness, when the world around us tells us there is no joy, no hope, and no love.

Many of us know that Christmastime can bring with it both great joy and great sadness. There’s something about this time of year that has a way of bringing up old memories, of reminding us of Christmases past that were happier or more joyful than this year, of making us acutely aware of the absence of those departed family members whose presence was so much a part of what Christmas meant to us in the past. This is why we gathered the week before Christmas for our first “Blue Christmas” service here at St. Paul’s, to acknowledge and sit with those less-than-merry feelings as Christmas grew nearer.

But now Christmas is here, and sometimes the “blue” feelings show up even more poignantly after the pomp and circumstance of Christmas Eve is over, after all the presents are opened, the family from out of town has left, and all the merriment is over. Although Christmas lasts for 12 days, our culture is done with it the day after December 25th. The trees and lights start to come down on December 26th, and the working world immediately goes back to “business as usual.” This sudden removal of all festivity can sometimes feel like a bit of a “let down” after the “high” of Christmas Day. The Sunday after Christmas and the Sunday after Easter are known amongst church leadership as “low” Sundays, and although we’re usually talking about attendance numbers, we could also as easily be talking about spirits. There is a natural human tendency to feel a bit low after a great high. But the celebration of the church goes on, even when it doesn’t match up with the culture around us. It is still Christmas, and we continue to celebrate the birth of Christ.

It is particularly appropriate during this post-Christmas Day “low” that we hear and affirm that “the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.” Because this reminds us of something that is absolutely essential to the Christian life – that we continue to proclaim the truth of the Gospel not only when we feel happy and joyful and confident in the ability of light to overcome darkness, but even during the times when we most doubt it, when we are consumed by fear, sadness, and despair.

The only time we let the light go out in our churches is on Good Friday – in a symbolic recreation of the darkness of the crucifixion, when the disciples thought the light really had gone out, when that light of the world that John’s Gospel speaks of was, for a time, absent. But the light did come back – it burst forth from the tomb in the body of the Resurrected Christ and set ablaze the light that the church has carried ever since, through times of deepest darkness. In the Church, we are an Easter people, a Resurrection people. Except for the one liturgical exception of Good Friday, no matter what else is going on in the world around us, we come to church to see the light. Our calling as Christians is to carry that light even when the darkness creeps in around us and we are certain it will extinguish the light.

This is a difficult task, to be sure, and I dare say it would be impossible for any one person to do. But the good news is that none of us is called to carry the light of Christ alone. We are part of a community of faith, the Church, which is the very Body of Christ, which will go on proclaiming the good news of the Gospel even when we as individuals are not able to proclaim it ourselves. When we fall into despair and find ourselves quite literally unable to say the words of faith, when we have no will power to pray, and when we can affirm nothing but the existence of the darkness around us, the corporate prayer of the Church goes on in endless praise of the One who is the Light even in the midst of the darkness.
When we cannot see the light ourselves, we come to church to allow others to hold it up for us. When we cannot find the words to pray, we allow the community to pray for us until we are able to join in again. We are able to carry the light of Christ through the darkness only to the degree that we are willing to carry one another through the difficult times.

And, thanks be to God, the truth of the Gospel does not depend on our emotional state of being. “The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it,” whether or not we believe that is true, whether or not our hearts are in it when we say that statement. Trusting in the truth of the Gospel, a truth that comes from outside ourselves, we can continue to say it, even when the world around us screams that the light has gone out. We light the Advent candles of hope, peace, joy, and love even when the world says there is no hope, peace, joy, and love. We sing songs of praise even in the midst of great loss. We do so because we are an Easter people. We do so because at the center of our faith lies the proclamation of a Truth that is greater than the truth of this world: “the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it” (John 1:5).

The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.

Sermon for Sunday, Dec. 30, 2012 (First Sunday After Christmas, Year C: Isaiah 61:10-62:3, Psalm 147, Galatians 3:23-25; 4:4-7, John 1:1-18). I was sick on Dec. 30 and did not get to deliver this sermon publicly, but I publish it here in written form for the edification of any who might come across it.

On this First Sunday After Christmas, we hear a very different version of the Christmas story than the one we heard on Christmas Eve. Rather than shepherds and angels and a family sent to the stable because there was no room for them at the inn, we hear John’s version of “the beginning” of Jesus’s story, a beginning that began not in Bethlehem, but at the beginning of all time, before the creation of the world. John’s account is a cosmic creation story, a magnificent theological poem about the very essence of the Divine breaking into the depths of our world: “the Word became flesh and lived among us” (John 1:14).

And in this artistic proclamation of the origins of the Christ, the author of John’s Gospel gives us what I believe to be one of the most powerful summaries of the Christian message in all of Scripture:

“The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it” (John 1:5).

In that one sentence lies the heart of the Gospel: the power of light over darkness, of love over hate, of life over death. Jesus’s Resurrection is the ultimate expression of this truth. Death itself could not extinguish the light that came into the world with the birth of Christ, and it continues to shine through all the ages, despite countless attempts and threats to extinguish it.

This is the heart of the Gospel, the Good News that we proclaim as Christians: that nothing will be able to extinguish the light of God that shines in all creation. The Apostle Paul said in his letter to the Romans that he was convinced “that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord” (Romans 8:38). This is the message we are called as Christians to proclaim to a broken and hurting world: “The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it” (John 1:5). And we are called to proclaim this message precisely during those times when we cannot see the light, when all seems to be darkness, when the world around us tells us there is no joy, no hope, and no love.

In the wake of the shootings at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Connecticut two weeks ago, many people around the country have questioned how they could go on with Christmas preparations and celebrations in the midst of such unspeakable loss.

One of my colleagues from seminary told me that a sermon preparation resource she reads sent out a message to their subscribers suggesting that they not light the “Candle of Joy” for the Third Sunday of Advent this year, given the deep dissonance many would feel in proclaiming a Sunday of “joy” just two days after such a horrific event.

In the news coverage of the observation of Christmas in Newtown this year, reporters talked to people gathered at makeshift memorials, keeping vigil beside twenty-six candles kept lit all night from Christmas Eve through Christmas morning. Some said it felt too sad to be Christmas this year. One woman said it had taken her longer than usual to finish her preparations for Christmas. “I just felt like my heart wasn’t in it,” she said. Another man said he felt celebrating Christmas at all was inappropriate, given the town’s grief. “Christmas shouldn’t even be happening,” he said. “Life has changed as we know it.”

But it is precisely during those times when the darkness seems to have won, when our hearts just aren’t into the proclamations of joy, when we do not know how we can possibly affirm the goodness of the world and the goodness of God’s providence, that we most need to do so. To not light that Advent candle of Joy on December 16 would have been to affirm the truth of the world rather than the truth of the Gospel. To not celebrate Christmas Eve on December 24 would have been to say that the darkness had overcome the light.

Monsignor Bob Weiss, pastor of St. Rose of Lima Catholic Church in Newtown, encouraged his parish that there was still reason to celebrate Christmas in Newtown, even after he and the community spent the week before Christmas burying eight children from their parish, sometimes conducting two children’s funerals in one day. In the midst of what was surely one of the darkest weeks in the history of that church, Weiss wrote these words to the parish in his annual Christmas message:

“I have been asked so often how do we celebrate Christmas this year. I believe that we celebrate it in its truest sense, putting aside all the secularity and simply sitting in silence and praying that the hope, healing and peace promised to us by Christ will be given to us in abundance… We need to know that even in these darkest hours, there is still light, light that is brighter than that great star over Bethlehem, which will take us to the place where we need to be… it will take us to the heart of Christ who will heal our brokenness, remove our anger and hurt and fill us with the peace and strength we need to not just move forward but to reclaim the life that is ours as a community in Christ Jesus.”

The only time we let the light go out in our churches is on Good Friday – in a symbolic recreation of the darkness of the crucifixion, when the disciples thought the light really had gone out, when that light of the world that John’s Gospel speaks of was, for a time, absent. But the light did come back – it burst forth from the tomb in the body of the Resurrected Christ and set ablaze the light that the church has carried ever since, through times of deepest darkness. In the Church, we are an Easter people, a Resurrection people. Except for the one liturgical exception of Good Friday, no matter what else is going on in the world around us, we come to church to see the light. Our calling as Christians is to carry that light even when the darkness creeps in around us and we are certain it will extinguish the light.

This is a difficult task, to be sure, and I dare say it would be impossible for any one person to do. But the good news is that none of us is called to carry the light of Christ alone. We are part of a community of faith, the Church, which is the very Body of Christ, which will go on proclaiming the good news of the Gospel even when we as individuals are not able to proclaim it ourselves. When we fall into despair and find ourselves quite literally unable to say the words of faith, when we have no will power to pray, and when we can affirm nothing but the existence of the darkness around us, the corporate prayer of the Church goes on in endless praise of the One who is the Light even in the midst of the darkness.

What a relief it is to experience the corporate and communal nature of our faith! When we cannot see the light ourselves, we come to church to allow others to hold it up for us. When we cannot find the words to pray, we allow the community to pray for us until we are able to join in again. We are able to carry the light of Christ through the darkness only to the degree in which we are willing to carry one another through the difficult times.

And, thanks be to God, the truth of the Gospel does not depend on our emotional state of being. “The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it,” whether or not we believe that is true, whether or not our hearts are in it when we say that statement. Trusting in the truth of the Gospel, a truth that comes from outside ourselves, we continue to say it, even when the world around us screams that the light has gone out. We light the candles of joy, faith, hope, and love even when the world says there is no joy, faith, hope and love. We sing songs of praise and joy even in the midst of great loss. “Even at the grave we make our song, ‘Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia’” (BCP 499). We do so because we are an Easter people. We do so because at the center of our faith lies the proclamation of a Truth that is greater than the truth of the world: “the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it” (John 1:5).