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Well…
Any hopes that 2021 would provide us with a reason for optimism seem to have quickly dissipated. Kentucky has been reporting the highest number of Covid-19 cases since the pandemic began, squashing some of the optimism that came as a result of the vaccine rollout, and the positivity rate has climbed to over 12%. Nationally, we have broken record after record on the numbers of cases and, with the new strain of Covid that is now spreading around the world, overwhelming hospitals and health care systems, we are aware that we still have some distance to go before this is over. And then there is Washington, DC! I am all for free speech, but last week’s events were something altogether different, and extremely troubling. People seem to forget that speech has consequences, not only for the one who speaks but also for others, and I will say more about that in a few minutes.
With everything that has happened over these past days, weeks, and months, it seems we cannot escape from the continual cycle of just when you thought it couldn’t get any worse… It’s getting to the point that I don’t want to think about what tomorrow might bring. It seems there is much darkness around us. So much has happened in our country, and around the world, that the darkness seems to be increasingly enveloping us.
So let’s turn to this morning’s message. Last Sunday I began a new series of messages, in collaboration with five other Disciples ministers around the country, titled A New Heart for A New Year. The series comes from a Celtic prayer, titled Lord of My Heart. In the series, I am sharing five themes from the prayer – vision, light, wisdom, courage, and trust. When it comes to a new year, we are certainly an optimistic people. To think, to hope, and to believe that things are going to be better is a great testimony to our optimism. Today’s message is on the theme of light, which is especially appropriate for the dark times in which we are living. The line in the prayer is, Lord of my heart, give me light to guide me, that at home or abroad I may always walk in your way. However dark it might be, we have God’s light to guide us and it provides us with illumination both physical and spiritual.
Our Scripture text is John 8:12-18. Follow along with me as I read that passage –
12Again Jesus spoke to them, saying, “I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will never walk in darkness but will have the light of life.”
13Then the Pharisees said to him, “You are testifying on your own behalf; your testimony is not valid.”
14Jesus answered, “Even if I testify on my own behalf, my testimony is valid because I know where I have come from and where I am going, but you do not know where I come from or where I am going.
15You judge by human standards; I judge no one.
16 But if I do judge, my decisions are true, because I am not alone. I stand with the Father, who sent me.
17 In your own Law it is written that the testimony of two witnesses is true.
18 I am one who testifies for myself; my other witness is the Father, who sent me.”
This morning, I have two points to make, which come from this phrase of the prayer – Lord of my heart, give me light to guide me, that at home or abroad I may always walk in your way – and two verses from today’s Scripture text, combining them together for my points.
1. Give me light to guide me – Jesus spoke to them saying, “I am the light of the world.”
Astronaut Jim Lovell was the first person to fly into space four times. His most famous mission was that of Apollo 13, that could have ended in disaster, but thankfully, did not. If you saw the movie based on the flight, or if you remember when the flight took place, you will remember what a gripping story it is, and the miraculous return of the three astronauts. At the time, it seemed as though the entire world was watching, and praying, for the safe return of the astronauts. In his memoir, Lovell writes of his time as a Navy combat pilot. One night, he was returning from a combat mission and couldn't find his aircraft carrier. The ships lights were off due to the combat conditions and his plane’s navigation equipment was of no use because they were under total radio silence. He turned on his map light to see if he could calculate his position, but when he did, an electrical short caused all of the lights to go out. Lovell was flying in complete darkness, over the dark ocean, with no instruments to guide him, and with no idea how he would find his ship. It was then that he saw his answer. There was a glow in the water, and he realized it was the glow of tiny sea plankton caused by the wake of a passing ship, his ship. It was a miracle of God’s creation, and Lovell know he could follow the light as though it was a highway back to his ship.
I love that image. Light, to guide one home. With no idea how he was going to find his ship, there was the light to guide Lovell to a safe return.
We speak often of light as an act of illumination. Light guides us in a physical way, just as it did for me earlier during the Kid’s Korner, when I stepped into a darkened hallway behind this platform. But we also speak of light as coming to a point of understanding, such as when we say, now I have seen the light.
In the first verse of this morning’s Scripture reading, Jesus says, I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will never walk in darkness but will have the light of life. The image of Jesus as the light of the world is one of the most well-known of all the images ascribed to him. Psalm 119:105 says, Thy word is a lamp unto my feet, and a light unto my path.
The image of light in the Scriptures is very powerful, because light calms us, especially in the face of darkness, which is a symbol of so much of what is negative. After waking to the light of morning, after the nighttime brings us a frightening dream or magnifies our worries, the light makes us wonder, why was I so afraid? There is nothing about the dark that can hurt me. There is something about light that is so comforting, but when we are in the dark, it is so easy to be frightened. Darkness magnifies every fear and intensifies every insecurity, but light washes away those fears and insecurities. Wasn’t it wonderful to wake up this morning to the sunshine? After the days of the gray and gloomy weather, the light of the sun made us all feel so much better! We feel the physical difference that light makes, but in an even deeper way, we feel the difference that Jesus, the light of the world, makes to us.
When we speak of light as a force for illumination, I can’t help but wonder, how is it that people can see the same event, but see those events in such a different light, so to speak? We understand light as a symbol of clarity and illumination, but how much illumination and clarity do we have these days? Let’s think about the politics of the moment as an example. As I said some months ago, how does a disease become so political? A disease is a disease. But people see the context of the disease very differently, and come to different conclusions.
We use the word enlightened to indicate that someone has come to a right understanding of something. We say they have seen the light, but how do we know what constitutes the right understanding, or point of view, about any particular issue? In these times of great political division, for instance, how do we know for sure that we are on the “right” side?
Jesus was often critical of the leadership of his day, particularly the religious leadership. In Matthew 15:14, Jesus spoke of the blind leading the blind, signifying a willful resistance to the truth. Sometimes, we are simply unable to perceive, understand, or comprehend the truth. I used to be driven crazy by those 3D posters sold in shopping malls. I would walk down the mall and see people looking at them and I would mutter to myself about how silly it was. I did so because I could not “see” the 3D effect. It was years before I could finally see the 3D image. Sometimes, we just don’t perceive or comprehend something, but other times, it is a willful ignorance that causes us to miss out on the illumination that truth can bring to us. We refuse to see. We refuse to listen. We hold to our interpretation of events and facts and the truth and nothing will move us. This was the criticism Jesus often laid at the feet of the religious leaders of his day. To Jesus, it wasn’t a matter of misunderstanding or a failure of comprehension as much as it was an act of willful disobedience on their part.
When we look at our historical moment, it is obvious we need some light. We need some illumination. Now, I thought a lot about what to say about the events in Washington. I thought about how much to say, or whether or not to say anything, about what took place there last week. But some things you simply can’t ignore, and in the past ten months there have been many of those incidents that can’t be ignored. In my almost forty years of ministry, I cannot think of another time when so many critical events took place in such a compressed time frame and compelled me to speak specifically to them. Those of you at home who don’t like what I have to say can hit the mute button; those of you who are here in person will have to stick your fingers in your ears, I suppose, and I won’t worry about it.
To me, it is a matter of measuring our actions, and our attitudes, by those of Jesus. Jesus is the one through whom we see the world, and one way I think that is important is in this way – Jesus never hesitated to speak the truth, and to speak it very forcefully, but he never, ever advocated or used violence. In fact, Jesus rejected violence at every turn. It is impossible to equate the way of Jesus with any use of violence. Let me remind you that I said this back in the summer when our nation was experiencing so much social unrest. I was very sympathetic to the purposes of the protests and what they sought to accomplish, but I condemned the violent actions that were sometimes a part of those protests. To burn buildings, destroy businesses, or act in a violent manner is not compatible with the way of Jesus. I say this again in light of what took place in Washington, DC last week – violence and the way of Jesus are totally incompatible, and anyone who speaks or acts in the name of Jesus and advocates for or uses violence is wrong. It does not matter if they are a Republican, Democrat, liberal, conservative, or wear any other label. The way of violence and the way of Jesus are never compatible and when anyone puts them together, we must condemn such attitudes, words, and actions.
When Jesus said, I am the light of the world, that was a powerful image to the people of his day. They knew not only the reality of physical darkness – the artificial light they had was not very bright – but they knew also the darkness of the time in terms of the spiritual, economic, and political realities of the day, and he continues to serve as the light of the world, bringing that light to the realities of our day.
2. That at home or abroad I may always walk in your way –“Again Jesus spoke to them, saying, ‘I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will never walk in darkness but will have the light of life.’”
My dad served in the Army during the Korean War. He was a paratrooper, and I used to look at the pictures he had of their jumps, with the sky full of airplanes and parachutes. That was back in the day when they had the large chutes, not like the much smaller ones of today. They were much harder to manage and when the sky is full of parachutes, the winds could make it very dangerous. He had a portion of a chute he kept, a chute that was badly torn when the wind brought him down in a tree on one jump. I just can’t imagine jumping out of an airplane with a piece of clothed strapped to your back, but my dad loved it. Can you imagine being the first person to do so? Who would volunteer to jump out of an airplane, thousands of feet in the air, with a piece of cloth to bring you safely to earth? I asked my dad one day how he found the courage to take that step out the door. I just assumed you stood there until you gathered up enough courage, but he said, you didn’t have any choice. You’re in a line and you attach your rip cord to a cable in the plane. The commanding officer was in the back of the line and he starts pushing. You didn’t jump out as much as you were pushed out. As you go out the door, the cable pulls your rip cord and you hope and pray that it works. At one point, he was stationed in Alaska, and really enjoyed it. I know it’s a beautiful state, but that darkness. Wow. Barrow, Alaska (the name of the city was changed to Utqiaġvik in 2016) is 320 miles north of the Arctic Circle. The sun sets in Barrow on November 18th, and it doesn't rise until January 23rd. For 66 consecutive days, the sun never rises above the horizon. 66 days! I don’t think I could manage that kind of environment. We talk about SAD, Seasonal Affective Disorder, where we feel the effects of the dark, gray days of winter. Imagine what 66 days of no sunshine would do. When you couple that with the cold, it must be a very tough place to live.
Again, we remember and we proclaim that the light of the world, Jesus, in a very real way – not just a symbolic way – brings light to the darkness in which we have found ourselves for so long. It has been many months now as we have been overwhelmed with so much – the pandemic, the social unrest, political unrest, economic struggles – and we think what’s it going to be tomorrow? It has been an unparalleled stretch of time, with much darkness. I don’t know that anyone living can think of so much struggle in such a compacted period of time. Absorbing so much difficulty takes its toll on all of us. I try to be an optimistic person, but I’ve found myself more and more recently to be expressing an increasing amount of pessimism. I feel the darkness seeping into me and I feel it in a physical way, an emotional way, and a spiritual way. But I remind myself, Jesus is the light of the world.
The French have a word, ennui, and one of the definitions word ennui is the inability to move forward. I call it the feeling that your feet are stuck in the mud. Do you ever feel that way? It’s not so much a spinning of the wheels as it is an inability to move the wheels at all. You can’t move your feet. You feel as though you are up to your knees in mud. You feel hopelessly stuck in place. You’ve been so stressed out with the weight of all that has happened that you don’t know where to begin in terms of taking a step in any direction. If you could take a step, you don’t know what direction to go, and you are frozen in place. I think we have all felt that level of ennui over the past ten months. That is when we must remember that Jesus is the light of the world. The light of the world dispels the darkness, gives us direction, gives us illumination, gives us understanding, gives us guidance, and all that we need.
On Friday morning, I was surprised to wake up and find snow on the ground. I think we had an inch and a half of snow, which is a good snow in recent years. I’m not much of a fan of winter, but I will admit that the beauty of the snow does bring a welcome respite to the gray of winter. On Friday, I am generally not in the office, so I do not go out and walk as early as I do on other days. I go out to walk at 6:30 in the morning on most days, and this time of year it is quite dark at that time of day. I would have skipped walking outside on Friday if I had to go out at my usual time. The darkness made it impossible for me to see the slick spots on the street and the sidewalk, but when I went out in the daylight, I could clearly see the places I needed to avoid. What a difference the light makes. I could clearly see where to step and not to step, whereas just a short time before, when it was dark, it would have been unsafe to be out walking.
I know that we have all felt as though we’ve been through so much over these months. And while we have increased hope as the vaccines are now being distributed, it’s been a long, tough haul, and we are not yet at the end. We still feel that darkness encroaching upon us, and that is when we must remember, Lord, give us light to light our way. Jesus, in response, says, I am the light of the world. Dispelling the darkness, helping us to see the way forward, and showing us the way. Jesus said, I am the light of the world. Indeed, he is!
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