Advent Series: Days of Light and Darkness

When I was a little boy, we lived on Pike Hill, on Green’s Run Road a mile outside of St. Marys, WV off of Rt 16. Our home was 600 feet above the Ohio River valley, on the very top of the hill, and on cold December nights we could look out our front window and see the moon reflecting off the river, or perhaps it would make the fog that had formed in the valley from the warm river air glisten in white, while patches of snow sent moonbeams into our eyes. Out back, there was a hollow we looked down upon with a pond at the bottom under maple trees empty of leaves since the wind and rain had come in November. And across the hollow, beyond the next hill several miles, on top of King Ridge, there was a microwave relay tower that the phone company had installed years before, and on top of that tower was a blinking red light.

And that blinking red light was my Hope. On Christmas Eve, I thought that light was Rudolph the reindeer. I’d stand by the back door, looking out the window, and there was that blinking light! And then, the grownups would ask me to come back into the main room, where we’d watch a show and the lights on the Christmas tree would be flashing, but I knew…I knew!... that Rudolph and rest of the reindeer were bringing Santa.

And you know, sometimes I’d be awake, and the big man in the furry red coat would arrive while I was still awake. At that time we didn’t have a fireplace, so we’d hear a thump on the back porch and THERE HE WAS!

Isaiah 64:1-9; Psalm 80:1-7, 17-19;2 1 Corinthians 1:3-9; Mark 13:24-37

But other Christmases, we’d set out cookies and milk, and he must have come during the night, because in the morning my sister would run into my room, blast me in the face by turning on the bright overhead light, and wake me up when I put the pillow over my eyes to stay in the darkness, because “the cookies and milk are gone and there are toys around the Christmas Tree that say ‘from Santa’ on their tags!” She did not want me to miss Christmas!

Those nights waiting for Santa, I remember the light. And I remember how dark the days were as I waited for Christmas. OH how dark the days after Thanksgiving were, with rain and snow and heavy clouds. Not enough snow to cancel school…just enough to melt on your clothes and make you cold. And when we sat in kindergarten and elementary school, we’d look outside and see rain, and dreary clouds and darkness came soon after we got home from school. For you know, the longest night of the year is just days before Christmas, the day Jesus arrives.

And, you know, this is the way the Christian life is.

The early Christians met Jesus in the flesh. They heard Him teach them for three years. They saw the brilliant, beautiful day, filled with light when they marched down the Mount of Olives into Jerusalem as he rode in on a donkey’s colt. All that week, they heard Him teaching in the Temple, surrounded by adoring crowds.

And then the night came when He told them He would be leaving them, and they watched and ran as the guards arrested Him, and some followed that terrible night to watch Him beaten and bloody. And the next day, when His death sentence was pronounced for simply claiming to be God…and He was executed on the cross, killed for telling people who He was. And they saw Him die as the darkness descended upon the earth…it is there in Matthew’s Gospel, chapter 27 verse 45 ”From noon until three in the afternoon darkness came over all the land.” And that evening as the sun was setting, they buried Him and the darkness fell.

But Sunday morning, as the sun rose, so Jesus rose and announced Himself to the women and to Peter and the men on the road to Emmaus and then to the assembled disciples and it was a bright, glorious day!

And soon thousands had believed and as they each came to believe, their darkness fell away from them, they had Hope and they joyfully told more people and their light became the light of thousands of candles, then of hundreds of thousands, then millions of people and the world was changed because they KNEW that Jesus was returning soon.

And slowly, surely, people began to die as we waited for Jesus, we waited…and we waited…and we waited…

Mark was the first one to doubt that he would be around when Jesus returned, and so he put the Good News on paper. Then Matthew and Luke and finally John, His best friend, put down on paper what had happened that had lit up their lives and taken them out of the darkness. They wrote the Gospels, the first four books we find in the New Testament. Perhaps you might want to read a Gospel each week as we wait for Jesus, as we wait for Christ to return, as we wait for the light that shines on Christmas. Perhaps you might want to read these short books to your children or grandchildren or other children or to each other. It will make the waiting easier.

For this is Advent, the time of preparation and waiting.

What are you waiting for?

Are you waiting for baby Jesus to arrive, to lie in the manger in Bethlehem again?

Although we can remember that story, about how He arrived the first time, He will never be in that manger again, for He has grown up.

Are you waiting for Santa Claus, St Nicholas, the modern vision of the great Greek Christian saint who gave money to three girls so they could survive honorably and is still honored as the one who gives gifts to children?

Or are you waiting for Jesus the King, who will return “in clouds with great power and glory”?

For our days can be dark with wars and rumors of wars, with the deaths and illnesses of friends, with the coughs and pains and loneliness of old age coming upon us. Hear the words of Jesus Himself, as reported by Mark in the 13th chapter of his Gospel:

3 As Jesus was sitting on the Mount of Olives opposite the temple, Peter, James, John and Andrew asked him privately, 4 “Tell us, when will these things happen? And what will be the sign that they are all about to be fulfilled?”

5 Jesus said to them: “Watch out that no one deceives you. 6 Many will come in my name, claiming, ‘I am he,’ and will deceive many. 7 When you hear of wars and rumors of wars, do not be alarmed. Such things must happen, but the end is still to come. 8 Nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom. There will be earthquakes in various places, and famines. These are the beginning of birth pains.

9 “You must be on your guard. You will be handed over to the local councils and flogged in the synagogues. On account of me you will stand before governors and kings as witnesses to them. 10 And the gospel must first be preached to all nations. 11 Whenever you are arrested and brought to trial, do not worry beforehand about what to say. Just say whatever is given you at the time, for it is not you speaking, but the Holy Spirit.

12 “Brother will betray brother to death, and a father his child. Children will rebel against their parents and have them put to death. 13 Everyone will hate you because of me, but the one who stands firm to the end will be saved.

14 “When you see ‘the abomination that causes desolation’ standing where it does not belong—let the reader understand—then let those who are in Judea flee to the mountains. 15 Let no one on the housetop go down or enter the house to take anything out. 16 Let no one in the field go back to get their cloak. 17 How dreadful it will be in those days for pregnant women and nursing mothers! 18 Pray that this will not take place in winter, 19 because those will be days of distress unequaled from the beginning, when God created the world, until now—and never to be equaled again.

20 “If the Lord had not cut short those days, no one would survive. But for the sake of the elect, whom he has chosen, he has shortened them.21 At that time if anyone says to you, ‘Look, here is the Messiah!’ or, ‘Look, there he is!’ do not believe it. 22 For false messiahs and false prophets will appear and perform signs and wonders to deceive, if possible, even the elect. 23 So be on your guard; I have told you everything ahead of time.

24 “But in those days, following that distress,

“‘the sun will be darkened,
and the moon will not give its light;
25 the stars will fall from the sky,
and the heavenly bodies will be shaken.’

26 “At that time people will see the Son of Man coming in clouds with great power and glory. 27 And he will send his angels and gather his elect from the four winds, from the ends of the earth to the ends of the heavens.

And then Jesus tells us to always watch for His return. “Don’t fall asleep,” Jesus says. Be ready for His return.

Now this doesn’t mean you can’t sleep, but it DOES mean to not give up on Jesus. We are always to be ready. Are you ready, or have the passage of years made you treat Jesus as a fairy tale, a myth, just another story, a nice idea? Do you read your Bible regularly? Do you join with other Christians a couple times a week, do you talk about what you’ve read or heard about in the story of Jesus? Are you actively telling every person you meet about the light that lit up your life years ago, the part of God we call Jesus Christ?

Or are you sleepily allowing people to doze in the darkness, never bothering to wake them up to see Christ, to know who Christ is, to experience the joy of meeting Christ?

Can you imagine a child growing up without ever hearing about Santa? Would you let them miss Christmas? Yet St Nicholas himself would never let a child grow up without understanding Jesus.

Yet there are many about us still in darkness. The people who walk in darkness, when will you bring them a great light to awaken them? Will you wake them up in time that they will not miss Christ’s Return?

Yet, the bright light of Hope is yet to come in its full intensity, waking us up, for one day Jesus will shine His face upon us, God Himself will be the light in our new home of New Jerusalem, and it will be time to go home with Christ.

And for those who don’t know Christ, who haven’t chosen to follow Him, who think He is simply a story told about a made-up character….there will be darkness. Eternal darkness lit only by fires. Eternal darkness without God.

By my count, it has been about 725,000 days since Jesus left Planet Earth. During that time, more than 10 billion people have lived. About 7 billion are now alive and about 2 billion of them are followers of Christ. In this county of roughly 60,000 people, two-thirds, or 40,000 don’t have a home church. As Isaiah said,

7 No one calls on your name
or strives to lay hold of you;

That means that most of them will be left behind in the darkness with no Hope when the Christ returns.

You can bring the light to them. You can simply talk to all the people you meet in the check out lines, in your neighborhood, at your school functions. You can say, “what church do you attend?” and then listen. If you find they don’t go to church regularly, if you find they don’t believe, if you find they offer excuses such as “I don’t have a way.”, you’ll have an answer this year, for you have learned to speak of Christ to people.

Our task is to simply talk to people, make friends, and talk about Jesus and what He has done for us. It all begins with saying two simple words, “Praise God”.

And the light switch flips on. For God shows up when people praise Him.

Let us leave no one in the darkness, no one. Not one soul left behind.

Bring the light of Christ to their dark night.