Reverend Philip Stringer
John 1:1-18
LET US PRAY: Enlighten our hearts, O God, through the hearing of your word and the meditations of our hearts, that we may be strengthened in faith and bear a bright witness to the world, through Jesus Christ, the Light of the World. Amen
The light shines in the darkness. We have heard this statement many times. We need to hear it new again -- and again. The light shines in the darkness.
What John means to say is quite plain. Jesus Christ is the light of the world. The light that shines in Christ is life -- the fullness of life issuing from the author of life. Life that is communion with God. Life that is, in another word, love.
And it is not enough to say that the darkness is the evil one. That would be convenient for us — to say that it is out there, localized in someone or something else. But the darkness as John speaks of it is sin. It is the darkness that resides in the human heart.
In your heart.
In my heart.
“People loved the darkness more than the light” we hear. Those are hard words for us. But John tells us, “The light keeps on shining in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it.” Those are words of hope for us every day.
Some people believe that our hope is in the idea that as Christians we are getting better and better -- as we perfect our faith. We will become closer to God and more endeared to God as time goes by and we become better and better. Holier and holier.
But it is Christmastime -- 2000 years after the birth of Jesus, and little has changed. John tells us that the light keeps on shining in the darkness. Which tells us, there is still both light and darkness.
There is still sin. So, what is it that John has to offer us who are looking for good news?
These first verses of John remind me of two of my teachers. Dr. Hoeffler was my professor of preaching in seminary. He was a great lover of the arts, and to step into his home was literally to step into a museum. A friend of his was the curator of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. He would invite Dr. Hoeffler to attend various auctions, and he had acquired quite a collection of rare artifacts and paintings by famous artists.
When I hear the prologue of John’s gospel, I remember Dr. Hoeffler because he was fond of referring to it in the language of art. He described the gospels not as snapshots, but as portraits of Jesus -- and each of the writers an artist. Just as if the gospel writers had each painted a portrait of Jesus, he is unmistakably the same person in each of them; yet in each he is surprisingly different.
Mark, for example, is the minimalist. His picture of Jesus is factual with no frills.
Matthew is the realist. Looking from a slightly different angle, he sees Jesus as the new Moses. The boy born in Bethlehem of the house of David is the giver of the new law.
Luke is a romantic and sees Jesus in a softer light and catches his gentle compassion. Jesus is concerned for all people. He is the Good Shepherd seeking to save and to heal all the lost and broken people of the world.
But John is different from the others. If we are to think of the gospels as portraits, then John is an impressionist artist.
Dr. Hoeffler writes: "John paints his picture with big bold strokes. Before the world began, Jesus was. Before anything was created, Jesus was.
After beginning with before the beginning, John’s canvas explodes with a blazing rainbow of colors crowding one vibrating image on top of another. Jesus is the truth, the active process of reason and thought within the brain of a creator-God that gave shape, form, and order to all that exists.
Jesus is the light, not simply from the sun, but the light that existed before the sun, moon, and stars, the glorious radiance of God himself that pierces the darkness of chaos and fills the emptiness of the vast spatial world.
Jesus is life, not just possessing life, but the source of all life, the very breath of God which formed from the dirt of the earth all that exists." I can’t hear the prologue of John without thinking of what Dr. Hoeffler said. He died nearly thirty years ago now. His teaching ended. His art collection scattered. But the light keeps on shining in the darkness.
I also immediately think of Dr. Sigel when I hear this passage -- my professor of Greek and New Testament. You know, of course, that the New Testament was originally written in Greek -- so what we have are translations of the Bible into our own languages. A single word often cannot capture the full meaning of another word that it is trying to describe. Such is the case with the prologue of John. "The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it." The darkness has not OVERCOME it. That word "overcome" is accurate, but it doesn't express the full meaning of the Greek. Dr. Sigel showed that the Greek word literally means: to master -- as in to conquer or understand."
Really what John is doing is something like a play on words. The word he uses is similar to our word "grasp" -- which has both a physical and a mental or figurative application. To grasp is to lay hands on and to control something physically -- and the darkness cannot wrestle-down and overpower the light. But it also means to mentally comprehend. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness is bewildered by it. It has not grasped it. It cannot understand it.
What God has done in the birth of Jesus is so radical that the darkness simply cannot grasp it. It cannot lay hands on it and conquer it. It cannot make sense of it mentally -- Because it doesn't make sense. The Word -- the living fullness of God -- the author of life -- the creator of all that is -- comes to become a helpless human child. The creator makes himself vulnerable to the creation. It makes no sense at all.
EXCEPT -- only one thing can make sense of it. Only love can explain what God has done. And love simply doesn't make sense to the darkness. For the darkness of sin has everything to do with selfishness. It divides one from another and sees people and things as objects to be used for selfish gain.
But love is entirely concerned with giving to the other. It has everything to do with relationship and binding together. The light keeps on shining in the darkness -- and the darkness cannot grasp it. It cannot conquer it. It cannot bury it. It cannot make sense of it.
That’s what Dr. Sigel taught me. The most remarkable scholar I have ever met.
He has gone blind now. It happened during my internship year -- about 35 years ago now. A scholar who can’t read anymore. He has long since retired in his old age. But the light keeps on shining in the darkness.
They canceled Christmas in Bethlehem this year because of the Israeli invasion and curfew. Christmas was literally a time of darkness for those who live there. Today, the curfew is partially lifted, but the strangle-hold on the town remains. The streets of Bethlehem are empty. There were no tourists this year, no pilgrims. On Star Street many of the shops are closed. The market where the neighboring villages brought their produce to feed the town is deserted. The Israeli apartheid wall is cutting through the town’s edges. The closures imposed by the Israeli army mean that farmers cannot come into Bethlehem and the people of Bethlehem cannot leave the town. The Monument to Peace built to celebrate Bethlehem 2000 has been demolished by Israeli tanks. The Church of the Nativity bears the scars of bullet and artillary attack. The pictures of children shot by Israeli snipers are nearby.
Perhaps there is no greater example of how the darkness of the world has opposed the light, than that in the very place where Christ was born -- in the place where the light first began to shine -- the people of Bethlehem live in fear of rocket attacks and bulldozers and starvation.
Bethlehem is literally filled with darkness. But the light still shines.
The Christians who live there gathered for worship on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day. And they gathered there again this morning.. Some in their churches. Others behind shuttered windows. But they gathered to worship the Word made flesh, who is the light of the world.
And in this place too, Christians gather in the midst of a culture that is not overtly hostile toward our faith -- but does not comprehend it. We gather in the midst of a culture of confused priorities and personal gain. We minister to the aged, the young, the poor. We reach out to the world to listen and learn, and to share our own faith -- our hope in Jesus Christ. We are not perfect people, and we each personally own many of society’s troubles. But in the great struggle between the light and the darkness, our hope is in the light.
And in our own hearts, John’s words come to be heard: The light shines in the darkness. The light shines in your own darkness. And there is good news. The light shines, and the darkness cannot prevail against it.
We live in a world where there is much darkness -- we live lives where there is much darkness. We cannot master it. The darkness would swallow us up. Except for a small child in a manger who is the light of the world. We would be swallowed by the darkness, except for love.
Darkness is dispelled, not because we have mastered it, but because Jesus has come to conquer it. As Christians, we must remember that if we are looking for the light, we will find him in the darkness -- the darkness in our own hearts is where he goes to work. The darkness of the world is where he goes to work.
And he sends us into the darkness, too. “Let your light so shine before others that they may see your good works and glorify your Father in heaven.”
Maria Skobtsova (D. 1945), the light in Block 27 at Ravensbruck, wrote: “I am Thy message, Lord. Throw me, like a blazing torch into the night, so that all may see and understand what it means to be Thy disciple.”
The light shines in the darkness. And beyond the dark’s ability to reason, the light will prevail.
John proclaims good news to you today. The light shines in the darkness.
AMEN
Comments