December 8, 2002
Sermon preached by the Rev. Donald Ng at the First Chinese Baptist Church in San Francisco.
For the past couple of months, I have had to repeatedly adjust my outdoor lighting timers. It’s getting dark earlier and earlier. December 21st is the Winter Solstice, the beginning of winter—the longest night of the year. It will be dark.
For some people, winter’s shorter days and longer nights are the cause for SAD-Seasonal Affective Disorder. Without sufficient sunlight, some people experience depression that leads to crying spells, fatigue, cravings for sweets and starches, headaches, and sleep problems. Treating SAD includes light therapy—exposure to bright light from a special light box each day. Others of us can turn our gray days into sunny days by letting more sunlight into our homes or taking a walk outdoors on sunny days.
When it is dark outside, we need lights to get around. Maybe that’s one of the reasons why we find holiday shopping so conducive to Christmas—just when the days are shorter and the nights are longer, the shopping malls are all lit up to help you to find your way to the check out counters!
Years ago when I was in college, my roommate and I was driving back to college on a Sunday night. It was already snowing in Boston but we needed to drive only 30 miles north along the coast to get back on campus. We heard the treacherous road conditions forecast but when you’re 20, no northeaster is too big for us guys. We made it half way until we came to a full stop on Route 128. The snow was accumulating as much as 5-6 inches an hour. After a couple of hours, we realized that we have been snowed in like hundreds of other motorists right in the middle of Route 128. We knew that we had to seek refuge before our gas tank was empty and there would be no more heat. Through the blinding snow at night, we saw a light off the highway so we made our way toward it. When we arrived, the homeowners had already welcomed many others who have been stranded on the road. In one room, a woman was going through labor. This was a time before cell phones so our welcoming hosts let us use their phone to call home to say that we were safe. When it is dark and cold outside, a light and a voice can tame the terrors of a winter northeaster.
Darkness in Israel
Israel was in darkness, the darkness of political oppression from Rome. And John the Gospel writer announces that a Light has dawned on these people.
But before there was a light, there was a voice. A voice in the darkness. That voice belonged to John the Baptist. All of the gospels tell about John the Baptist. But we get most of our details about John from Matthew and Luke. They tell us that he ate insects, lived in the desert, wore a camel hair coat—a really strange figure.
But John’s gospel tells us none of this. All John tells us is that John the Baptist was a voice, a witness. John makes a forceful point to distinguish John the Baptist from Jesus when he said, “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.” (1:8-9) At that time in the life of the church, there was a group of followers who claimed that John the Baptist was the light, not simply the one testifying to it. They thought John the Baptist was the Messiah.
With all of the commotion that John was creating along the Jordan River, the Pharisees sent priests and Levites from Jerusalem to ask him who he was. John the Baptist didn’t deny the fact that he was out there preaching but confessed, ‘I am not the Messiah.’
Then they asked him, “Are you Elijah?” I am not.
“Are you the prophet?” No.
Who are you?” I am the voice.
“Why are you baptizing, if you are a nobody?”
John said, “There is somebody coming after me whom you do not know but will be worth knowing. All I know is that he is so great that I am not worthy to even tie his shoelaces.”
Like Israel was waiting for deliverance from oppression, John the Baptist was also waiting. It must have been hard to be John. There he was, set apart by God to do one single thing with his life—to proclaim the coming one—and yet he did not even have a name to shout out loud. He didn’t seem to know many details. He didn’t know how this One is coming or when this One is coming. He was only a voice crying out in a darken world. He only knew that his coming will be light to the darkness; his coming will be that great advent for which people are expecting.
Dark Days
Advent is a waiting time for us when the church is sitting in the dark and leaning forward to a hope that we do not yet have, a word that we do not fully comprehend. When it’s dark out there, we can’t see our way forward. When there’s no reassuring light, we don’t know whether we are going forward or going backward.
We don’t like these long dark days when we feel so vulnerable. We like to take out our heavy-duty flashlights to see where we are going. We like to know that we are taking sure steps forward, meeting our goals, getting somewhere. But in the dark, we are not sure where we are going. We stumble, and none of us like to stumble. We feel helpless in the darkness.
Now some people speak of the Christian life as finally having light in their darken lives. They would say, “Now that I have found Jesus, I have gotten my life together, turned myself over to God. I’m safe now because I am saved.” Sounds like it’s all finished, done, complete, and fulfilled. Nothing to worry about, right? No more Season Affective Disorder here.
But so much of the Christian life is still spent on yearning and leaning forward to that which we need, but do not yet have. We say, “Christ has died. Christ is risen. Christ will come again! We are still waiting for Christ to come again. Christ has come, but there is still yearning. Christ has come, but not in complete fullness. The Light has come into our darkness, but my Lord, there is still darkness.
Where in your life are you seeking for more light? Maybe you want more light on your sense of life’s direction. Perhaps you want a spotlight on your work so that you might be recognized and get a bonus. Maybe you’re waiting for more light to show you the right person to come into your life and move into a promising relationship. Or maybe you’re seeking light for peace and justice in the world, or for a green earth, or light to reveal that our enemies have the same wants and goals that we have in life. Maybe we want more light to shine in the thinking of our country’s leaders to make decisions that would lead to peace and not war.
Whatever it might be, the future belongs to those who are seeking for the light, for those who know that we are meant for something better. If we are feeling the darkened world is all around us, know that the present darkness is not our final destination.
And that’s the great part of John the Baptist’s message. His was a voice, a voice spoken into our darkness, telling us that there was light coming. He is like a watchman, standing on the hill, looking toward the east, telling people that it’s almost dawn. We know that the white Christ candle will be lit for Christ is coming.
No Need for Light
John the Baptist told the religious leaders of his day, “Among you stands one whom you do not know.” Some religious people today think they know everything—even the time of the day of judgment. John knew that he did not know. He was waiting. To not know the exact shape of his hope showed the great depth of his hope and faith. John was waiting for deliverance, for something greater than his own efforts could deliver.
Sometimes we act like the religious leaders of John the Baptist’s day. We think we know everything already. But we also know that we have dark days that remind us that we are frail, vulnerable, and needy. We really are those who need deliverance. And our deliverance got to be something beyond ourselves, someone greater than our own abilities to deliver.
John did not know the complete shape of that hope but he was a prophet of hope. He was a voice, a voice in the darkness, telling people not to give up hope, telling people that their yearning was not wishful thinking, that their longing was an act of faith, a deep and abiding faith that God cared, that God would come and deliver.
In these days before God’s fulfillment, and at the beginning of John’s gospel, nothing is given in much detail. Eventually, we will know more about our hope. Our hope will be given a face, a name. We shall hear him speak. Our hope will be embodied in one from Galilee. Our hope will be demonstrated by God’s unconditional love of forgiveness and salvation on the Cross. But not now. Now, there is only yearning, waiting, expectation of what’s to come.
For now, John the gospel writer is saying to us that the way to fulfillment is first to know that you are not fulfilled. The way to see the light is first to admit that there is darkness. It takes a great deal of courage for people like us who feel that we know everything already to admit that we have needs. Do we dare to hope for and expect the advent of something better is to come?
Victor Frankl
Many of you have read Victor Frankl’s classic account of his experiences in a Nazi death camp, Man’s Search for Meaning. Frankl was taken to a camp. He had been a successful therapist. While in the camp, he spent his time observing himself and his fellow inmates. In fact, his curiosity and his inner determination to learn and to grow even in this horrible setting were major factors in his survival. Frankl noted that some of the prisoners just wasted away and died rather quickly, even though they had no discernible physical ailments.
He recalls a man who one day was doing reasonably well, considering the deplorable conditions of the camp. The man often talked of his dream to get out of the camp and be united with his dear wife.
Then the man received word that his wife had died in another prison camp. And in just a couple of days, the man died. Frankl concluded that the man died, not because of some bodily ailment, not because he lacked food or water, but because he lacked hope. He lacked hope that there was anything worthwhile beyond the darkness of the bleak prison camp, that there was anything beyond the present anguish of the Nazis and their brutality. We can live, said Frankl, longer without bread than we can live without hope.
We must have faith—faith that there is some light that shines in the darkness.
Luminaries
I don’t see this in California. But in Pennsylvania, we would line luminaries along the path to our front door. These are little candle votives in white bags filled with sand. On Christmas Eve, luminaries would be lit all over the neighborhoods. On these long winter nights, we place candles on our windows, string lights on our trees, and place luminaries along the walkways to light up the darkness. We do this every year to be a voice in the darkness that the true light is coming into the world.
John the Baptist was a man sent from God as a witness to testify to the light. The word, “witness,” in the Greek, martus gives us the English word, “martyr.” When the early Christians witnessed to their faith—those willing to offer testimony about Christ in chaotic and hostile, and even life threatening circumstances, they often gave their lives for Christ.
Like John the Baptist, we also confess that we are not the Messiah. We are not Elijah or the prophet either. We don’t know the time of deliverance. Rather, we are only a voice crying out in the wilderness to make straight the way of the Lord. Let us not forget to point others to Jesus Christ during this Advent season. And if our testimonies lead us to costly discipleship, we pray when the light breaks into the darkness of the world, we shall see, and we shall know, and we shall be filled.
Let us pray.
Almighty God, shine your light among us today in our lives, in our homes, in our communities, and especially around the world. Let us be your witnesses of Christ who is coming–pointing others especially those who have lost their ways to know you. We pray that we would not be mute but become a voice crying in the wilderness of the world that Christ the Lord is coming. Amen.