God Moved Into The Neighborhood 3

(We apologize that there is no video of this sermon.)

Text: John 1:1-18

Pastor Phil Hughes at American Fork Presbyterian Church, Utah,

December 17, 2023  Third Sunday of Advent

In this Advent season we are planting ourselves in this one passage that opens the Gospel of John.  This is the third Sunday we have read it.  It is worth going over again and again because it is a rich passage.

It is about the Word, Jesus Christ, who was with God from the beginning, and who was God himself.  It is about how he came to this world to show us who God is and how we can know him. It is about how that Word became flesh and lived among us.  It is about how God moved into the neighborhood. It’s not about how we reach God but how God has lowered himself and reached us.

The message of Advent and Christmas is really about God’s journey to us as opposed to our journey to God.  The good news of the Christian faith is that God comes to us.  From outside of time and history he entered the human condition in Jesus to open the way for us to become children of God.

One of the things John calls Jesus is the light. Jesus’ life is the light of all people. And that light came into this dark world.  That life came into the pain, the brutality, the suffering, the aching of this world.  There is a lot of darkness in this world. But, and make sure you know this verse, verse 5 says, “The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.”  Say that with me.  The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.

You know the Bible acknowledges the darkness.  Christian faith is not optimism.  It is not about looking on the bright side.  It is not a denial of the reality of this dark world.  The Bible tells us that this world is not as God created it to be, and the darkness of evil has invaded it.

But in that darkness a light shines that the darkness cannot overcome.  That word for “overcome” has a couple of different meanings.  One is that the darkness cannot defeat the light. It has done everything possible to eliminate Christ but it cannot destroy him.

Another is that the darkness cannot comprehend the light.  It cannot understand the way of life Jesus offers.  It is confused by the light. It can’t grasp the love, the peace, the humility, the mercy of the way of Jesus.

And this can also mean that the darkness could not put out the light.  The forces of Satan cannot extinguish Christ no matter how hard it might try.

The light shines in the darkness.  It is present tense.  Jesus Christ shines on even now.  The light shined then.  Though it looked as though the darkness had won when Jesus was left for dead on a cross.  And the light will continue to shine despite all appearances to the contrary because we live in a dark world and in dark times.

John is saying, “Into this world there comes Jesus, the light of the world; there is a darkness which would seek to eliminate him, to banish him from life, to extinguish him.  But there is a power in Jesus that is undefeatable.  The darkness can hate him, but it can never get rid of him.”[1]

It can be hard to see the light shining amidst the darkness.

It was during Advent eleven years ago this past Thursday that twenty children and six adults lost their lives in the shooting at Sandy Hook elementary school. The grief continues eleven years later.

The Sunday after that, Pastor Kathleen Adam-Sheperd stood in the middle of her congregation at Trinity Episcopal Church in Newtown, Connecticut.  When it was still raw and beyond belief she preached about the light of Jesus Christ. One of those little children who were shot belonged to that church.

Pastor Adam-Sheperd told the people in that church that Sunday eleven years ago, “I believe faith will save us.  To lose this faith is to let the darkness win. Was God absent from our world?  Indeed not.  Have we been shaken?  Yes.  Have we seen hope?  Yes, yes, yes.”

She mentioned the teachers who shielded the children, the administrators who rushed the gunman, and the first-responders who brought protection and help. She went on and said, “So many signs of hope and light in the darkness that seems to envelope us; that’s what Advent is.

“Where was God? Surrounding all the children. The 430 that made it out, and the 20 that did not….[God] was with them, is with them, and will be with them always.  God will find a way to bring comfort and hope and light.  He will wrestle it from the darkness.”[2]

God is still shining in the darkness.  Shining as we have witnessed more shootings since then. Shining in Ukraine.  Jesus is shining in the darkness of Israel and Gaza. Shining in the darkness published in our music, films, video games and books. We live in a dark world.  We find darkness in our own personal lives, in families, in our community, in things we see. It can seem so overwhelming.

After any tragedy, and in light of some of the things happening throughout our world, you have to ask, “Why all this evil if God is there?” That’s a right and a fair question to ask.  But if you ask that you also have to ask, “Why all the good? Why so much love?  Why kindness? What accounts for that?”

Why do people still give, love, pray, sacrifice, bind up, encourage, bring joy, laugh, and help? You know how I know the light overcomes the darkness?  Because the darkness comes and keeps coming, and light, hope, and goodness still keeps shining. The name of Jesus still resounds.

Jesus said this about himself: “I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will never walk in darkness but will have the light of life.”[3]

The darkness knew it had been invaded as soon as Jesus was born, and it immediately tried to put him out.  It led to another incident of children being killed, those in Bethlehem. The darkness has shown itself in wars, acts of terror, and brutality. The darkness showed itself when the Son of God hung on a cross. But the darkness has yet to, and never will, take out that light.

Have you ever been in a neighborhood that is dark?  God moved into the neighborhood because there is darkness.  Real darkness.  A choking, smothering, aggressive darkness.  And when you are in total darkness you can’t see.  You don’t know anything.  You are lost.

But if light comes, darkness flees.  Put just the littlest candle in the greatest darkness, and that darkness can’t put out that light.

A candle shines brightest in the darkness.  Put it outside in the middle of day and it doesn’t shine quite as bright. But in the dark… Does the life of Jesus become greater for us when it is hardest? Is he with us in a stronger way?

Maybe it’s a little hard for you this Christmas.  Maybe it’s a lot hard.  I know, even if I don’t know specifically, that more than a few people in this room feel darkness.  Maybe depression.  Maybe fear.  Maybe physical illness.  Maybe some other burden.

Maybe you find it hard to sing, smile and be joyous this time of year.  Jesus knows that. He came for us, to light our darkness, to overcome the darkness.

Our world is grieving.  We are all grieving in one way or another. In an article called, “Where Shall We Put This Grief?”  by Kathleen Nielsen, she said

“God can not only hold our grief, God can heal our grief. Not in a little quick way, but in a huge, eternal way---a way that matches the extent of it. God sent his Son that first Christmas to take on the darkness, to invite into himself the whole universe-sized wave of sin and pain and brokenness and grief. Jesus the Son of God held it all, on the cross, suffered it all for us, with an eternal capacity for suffering that we cannot imagine. Jesus paid it all, with his death. Because he is God, he could suffer so, and he could pay perfectly, and he could rise victorious. "The light shines in the darkness," John writes, "and the darkness has not overcome it”. I will speak those words, even in the darkness.”[4]

I’ve spoken before of a man named Dietrich Bonhoeffer.  He was a pastor in Germany during the Third Reich.  He spoke out against Hitler and the Nazi movement.  He was arrested, put in prison, and eventually executed.

His fiancé, Maria von Wedemeyer said this in a letter to Bonhoeffer in December of 1943 while Bonhoeffer sat in a German prison:

That is what I pray for you and for all of us, that the Savior may throw open the gates of heaven for us at darkest night on Christmas Eve, so that we can be joyful in spite of everything.

“joyful in spite of everything.” When you know that Jesus Christ shines in the darkness and the darkness cannot overcome it you can be joyful in spite of everything.

This time of year there are mornings where I go running up on the trails above where we live.  I often leave when it is dark and start on a trail right as dawn is coming.  The dawn says that night is over.  It is not yet the full light of day. One might even say it is still dark. But in the dawn the light is seen even while it is still dark.  It’s kind of light but not totally light. I still have to wear a headlamp to see where I am going on the trail but it is getting lighter as I go. The coming of dawn is a process.

So we do things which are of the light, that reflect the light of the Lord Jesus Christ.  But we are not free from the remnants of darkness.[5]

Someday it won’t be dark. In Revelation 21 we read of God bringing his new heaven and new earth. A loud voice from the throne of heaven says, “See, the home of God is among people.”  That word “home” is the word “tabernacle” which is the same word in John 1:14 that says the Word became flesh and “tabernacled” or “made his home” with us.

When God finally establishes his kingdom and we are with him forever death will be no more.  Mourning and crying and pain will be no more.  And it says the city, the new Jerusalem, will have “no need of sun or moon to shine on it, for the glory of God is its light, and its lamp is the Lamb.”[6] The Lamb is Jesus Christ, the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world.  He is all the light we will need.

Next Sunday evening this room will be full of people who will all hold small candles.  We will light those candles and fill this room with light in the darkness. There is something about doing that that stirs us, isn’t there?  It’s more than just because all those candles lit are pretty.

When we hold those candles we are bearing witness that Jesus Christ is the light of the world,

…the light who shines in the darkness that the darkness

…did not,

…cannot

…and will never be able to overcome.

So keep hope, people of the Lord.  Keep shining for the Lord. Jesus shines in the darkness when his church lives out its mission in faithfulness. When we love, serve, do good and bear witness to the light.

“Into this dark world comes Jesus.  The darkness is hostile, and seeks to eliminate Jesus.  It wants to banish him from life, to extinguish him.  But Jesus is a power that is undefeatable.  The darkness can hate him, but it cannot get rid of him.” [7]

Prayer: Jesus Christ, Light of the world, Joy of the Father, reach through the darkness
Shine across the earth, send the shadows to flight.

Light of the world, crown in a manger
Born for the Cross, to suffer, to save
High King of Heaven, death is the poorer
We are the richer, by the price that you paid.

Jesus, you are the light of the world.  Shine in the darkness.  Amen.

[1] Barclay, p.47

[2] http://religion.blogs.cnn.com/2012/12/16/god-will-wrestle-the-light-from-darkness-pastor-tells-heart-broken-congregation/

[3] John 8:12

[4] http://thegospelcoalition.org/blogs/tgc/2012/12/16/where-shall-we-put-this-grief/

[5] This reflection really comes from Gregory the Great, Moral Reflection on Job, Lib. 29, 2-4: PL 76, 478-480

[6] Revelation 21:23

[7] William Barclay, Gospel of John, p.47