SEATTLE MENNONITE CHURCH
Third Sunday of Advent, December 15, 2002
Sermon: Weldon D. Nisly
TITLE: True light
THEME: Receiving gladness…..With outstretched arms
TEXTS: Psalm 126
Isaiah 61:1-4, 8-11
1 Thessalonians 5:16-24
John 1: 6-8, 19-28
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Hear the Gospel according to John [John 1: 6-9, 19-28]
There was a man sent from God, whose name was John.
He came as a witness to testify to the light, so that all might believe through [the light].
He himself was not the light, but he came to testify to the light.
The true light, which enlightens everyone, was coming into the world.
This is the testimony given by John
when the Jews sent priests and Levites from Jerusalem to ask him, "Who are you?"
John confessed and did not deny it, but confessed, "I am not the Messiah."
And they asked him, "What then? Are you Elijah?"
He said, "I am not."
"Are you the prophet?"
He answered, "No."
Then they said to him, "Who are you? Let us have an answer for those who sent us.
What do you say about yourself?"
John said, "I am the voice of one crying out in the wilderness,
'Make straight the way of the Lord,'" as the prophet Isaiah said.
Now they had been sent from the Pharisees. They asked him,
"Why then are you baptizing if you are neither the Messiah, nor Elijah, nor the prophet?"
John
answered them, "I baptize with water.
Among you stands one whom you do not know,
the one who is coming after me;
I am not worthy to untie the thong of his sandal."
This took place in Bethany across the Jordan where John was baptizing.
This is the Gospel of Jesus Christ.
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p. 2 8-10 minutes & 2 minutes of silence…
The Lord be with you.
And also with you.
Let us pray.
God of Incarnate Love, you gather us in your presence to seek your face again this
morning. Open our eyes and ears and hearts to your Light coming again in Christ
this Advent worship and this Christmas season.
Amen.
Baptism and
Light
“This took place in Bethany across the Jordan where John was baptizing. “
Last week Isaiah the prophet and John the Baptist were the voices who recognized
God’s coming to earth and becoming human, Incarnate, one of us.
This third Sunday of Advent we encounter God who comes in Jesus as the True Light.
“The True Light that enlightens everyone is coming into the world” John 1:9.
It is John’s way of proclaiming God’s coming into the world in Jesus. God’s
Incarnation is in the Light of Christ.
These are the darkest days of the year in our part of the world. We are fast approaching
the winter solstice. Light is a premium these days. These are days when darkness seems
to prevail in a multitude of ways. It is a season when it can feel like dark and light seem
to vie for their way in our lives and world.
Probably more in the Advent-Christmas season than at any other time of the year I
sense and see the clash of anticipation and despair. Everywhere we see signs of
preparation and celebration for Christmas. And everywhere we see struggles from
personal to global, from depression to war.
Is this a season of dark or of light? Do you know and I what it is to live in darkness?
Do you and I know what is light? Are we “enlightened by the True Light coming into
the world?”
Some years ago, I was in Colombia. I had left behind the stone-cold dreary winter of
Elkhart, Indiana, and arrived in the long warm sunny days of Bogota, a few days after
Christmas. I will never forget my first venture into another culture and basking in the
Colombian sunshine. It was a great place to travel, study, and do research for my
master’s thesis on liberation theology.
One night in Bogota, I was on my way “home” to the family with whom I lived for 6
Weeks. I got off a bus on a main route and instead of waiting for a cross-town bus,
I started walking. It was several miles back to the house but it was a beautiful night.
I knew my way around reasonably well by that time. And I always carried a map of
Bogota and a bus map with me.
Suddenly, all the lights for as far as I could see went out. Bogota was immersed in
blackness. I couldn’t see anything. I couldn’t read my map or the street signs.
I felt panic rising from the pit of my stomach up into my throat.
I was never so glad to arrive “home” in my life. The candlelight there looked warm
and bright. What I hadn’t counted on that night was Bogota’s system of saving
electricity by cutting off lights in whole neighborhoods from time-to-time. Bogota
electric’s time and my time did not mesh.
John is speaking his Gospel message to hearers living in darkness. It is a long darkness
and waning hope. In this darkness, John, the Gospel writer, like John the Baptist and
Isaiah the prophet, promises that God is coming in the darkness. They further promise
that God comes in unexpected ways and unexpected times. God is coming as True Light.
This Sunday I had intended to talk further about God’s coming in the darkness of empire.
A book I am reading during Advent is called The Liberation of Christmas by Richard
Horsley. Horsley, in the mode of John Howard Yoder’s The Politics of Jesus, puts
Jesus’ coming in political context. God sent Jesus as Liberating Light into the
darkness of Empire and injustice and suffering.
Jesus’ coming makes it possible to see the empire, the injustice, the suffering. When
we see it by True Light, we must name it for what it is and faithfully stand against it as
God’s enlightened people.. This twenty-first century is much too much of a mirror of
the first century. We are greatly in need of True Light.
We have not the time to say more than that this morning. What I do want to hold
up this morning is a reminder that God comes as light in unexpected times and
unexpected ways. In the 21st century as in the 1st century, God surprises us by appearing
in unlikely ways and places and people.
I want to bring this home to Seattle Mennonite Church this very Sunday of Advent.
On Thursday morning Walter died. Walter is now dancing with God in ways
that he could never imagine or accept in his almost 96 years on this earth. Life was
way too much empire and injustice and suffering for Walter.
My first encounters with Walter were in his coming to church quit regularly in 1995.
He started attending about the time Marg and I arrived at the beginning of Lent that year
and came most of the year. All of a sudden in Advent he quit coming. Only sometime
later did I get a deeper sense from Walter of his struggle with the darkness of life and the
joy of Advent he saw here at SMC. He couldn’t live with that so he quit coming to church
for the most part.
Last night as I talked with Pat about Walter and about our remembering Walter in this
Advent worship service. Pat reminded me of how she saw God’s Light in Walter.
I can hardly imagine a more unexpected sighting of God’s Light come into the world
than in Walter. No Walter is not the True Light. But like the unlikely person of John the
Baptist, and in as equally unlikely a way, Walter bore witness to the Light. True Walter
was a more reluctant witness than John, but he was a witness nevertheless.
In a few minutes we will have a time of remembering and prayer for Walter and for
us. In the coming moments I want to invite us to a time of silence. In the silence hold
in your heart and before God a way or the many ways in which God has been and is
being revealed in our midst through this extraordinary, amazing, and even difficult
person that God brought into our midst.
We will have a couple of minutes of silence and I will close with prayer.
Ever-coming God, our hearts join the song of promise and prophesy sung by your
servant Zechariah so long ago:
By the tender mercy of our God,
the dawn from on high will break upon us,
to give light to those who sit in darkness and in the shadow of death,
to guide our feet into the way of peace.
God we seek your Incarnate Light again this day and this season as we worship you
and as we eagerly await the Coming Christ who has already and is always coming. Amen.