SHINING LIGHT
Jeremiah 31:7-14
John 1:10-18 

One evening a few Thanksgivings ago I was driving my parents back into my hometown after a luncheon excursion.  Daylight had been erased by the darkness and we were near the farm where my dad had grown up.  He commented that he could remember when there was no electricity in that area at all and how dark it was at night in those days.  He recalled coming home from ballgames at night and there being no lights to help guide or signify where he was.  His mother put an Aladdin lamp on the table in the living room window and as he got closer to the house he could see the light.  An Aladdin lamp was a kerosene lamp with a round wick.  This was an improvement over the typical flat wick used in most kerosene lamps. 
           
Most mornings I leave my house long before daylight. At that early morning hour I’m amazed at how much light there is collectively from street lights and other lights in the area.  Have you ever experienced total darkness?  The darkest place I have ever been is in Mammoth Cave in Kentucky.  As visitors tour the cave, there is a large room where the tour group gathers and the park ranger turns out the lights.  You have not seen dark until you have been in Mammoth Cave when they turn out the lights. 
           
I heard about a family that was on one of those tours when the ranger turned out the lights and a little boy began to cry because the intense darkness frightened him.  His older sister attempted to call him, “Don’t worry, Steve, there is someone here who knows how to turn on the lights.”
           
That little boy understood that darkness is frightening, even if we who are older don’t want to admit it, and we need someone to bring light into our lives.  Steve experienced the reality of darkness and called out to be saved from it.
           
There is no doubt that the author of John’s Gospel wants us to hear the message that Jesus Christ is the light of the world, the true, genuine, authentic light that enlightens everyone. And yet, there is another message intertwined in this message and in the opening verses of this Gospel.  It is a clear, specific warning.  Beware, be careful, be very careful, the writer says, to see the difference between the true light which Jesus is and being dazzled by a bright lamp like John the baptizer who illumines the way for us to see the true light.  Know the difference, the writer urges, between the source of light and the reflection of light.  There is a difference between the sun and the moon.  It is possible to become moonstruck and fail to recognize that the moon is merely a reflection of the sun.  In a similar way, we can become so enamored with someone who dazzles us that we fail to see the authentic one who reveals God clearly to us.
           
The people of Palestine were enthralled with John the Baptist.  Many people poured out of the Judean countryside into the desert to hear John preach.  They were astonished by what he said and how he said what he said.  John was dramatic in what his message was and how he delivered the message.  As a result powerful religious leaders were challenged by him and frightened by the force of his message.  Something about John was both compelling and disturbing, so much so that Herod wanted him killed but was afraid to have the deed done, fearful that his popularity among the common people would cause them to retaliate.  John was a flamboyant prophet who was a religious celebrity in his day.  There were those who were enthralled with John the Baptist.  There is still a small sect in Israel called the Mandeans who trace their history back as followers of John the Baptist.  They never got beyond the messenger to hear the message.  The author of John’s Gospel was concerned about this, concerned that people would be drawn to this charismatic preacher, be star struck by him and not see the true light shining in and through the life of Jesus.
           
And to John the Baptist’s credit, he was not seeking the limelight nor caught up in his celebrity status.  He clearly stated that he was directing people to another who was greater than he.  Five times in John’s Gospel, John the Baptist points his followers to Jesus.
           
Light has been essential to people through the centuries.  I visited Stonehenge in England several years ago.  It is arguably the most famous example of many prehistoric sites that were designed around the idea of tracking the sun’s movements.  Almost all of these temple observatories took special care to mark the winter solstice, that day when the sun begins to rise a little higher each noon.  This was an important day for a primitive agrarian community.  It not only gave hope that winter was ebbing, but it also alleviated the fear that the sun would continue to sink, plunging the world into permanent darkness.  After discussing this early preoccupation with light, Father Matthew, a monk at Gethsemane Abbey in Kentucky, commented, “Even back then, before they knew about Christ, the people were looking for light in the midst of their darkness.  Pretty good, huh?”
           
Mark Flynn tells a story about his family at Christmas.  It is a typical story about his three year old niece, a story that perhaps most of us have seen repeated in our families as Christmas presents are being opened.
           
As Katie opened her presents, all the relatives were amazed at the drama that unfolded.  As each gift was handed to Katie, she would throw her hands in the air and shout.  Tearing the beautiful wrapping paper off the gift, she would see the unopened box and have no idea what was in it.  At once, her hands would return to the air, she would yell with great sincerity, “Thank you, it’s just what I wanted!” and then reach for the next present.  It took four adults to convince her that the gifts were inside the boxes.
           
Like Katie, we have difficulty getting beyond the glamour to the substance. The wrapping can be so attractive and distracting that we miss or forget the gift that has been given.  We get caught up in the moment, the flamboyant, the shiny packaging that we forget to look beyond the surface to see what is really important.
           
Metaphorically, there are numerous things that happen that spread a canopy of darkness over our lives.  A tragic accident destroys the life of a friend and our lives are shrouded in darkness.  War breaks out.  We know people on the front lines and our lives are engulfed in darkness.  We react to particular circumstances by turning inward.  We experience ourselves spiraling downwardly emotionally and our lives become darker and darker.  Continually we are in need of light.  Continually we need to be enlightened.  Just as we need physical light to grow and function, we also need emotional and spiritual light to dispel the emotional darkness that threatens to engulf us at any moment depending on what is happening in the world and in our corner of it.  Worshiping with a community of faith helps get us outside ourselves and allow the light of God’s love and care to shine in our lives and dispel the darkness. 
           
The temptation comes to us individually and it knocks at the doorway of congregations as well to mistake the surface of life for the substance of life.  If we yield to that temptation, we move deeper into darkness rather than permitting the light to overcome the darkness.
             
Here is Murray Joseph Haar’s observation.
             
“Some churches have tried jazzing things up.  They have no intention of bringing back the Jesus who challenges.  They think that perhaps new liturgical rites will draw in buyers, especially young ones.  And they are right.  Contemporary liturgies do appeal.  They meet people’s needs.  They bring the faith up to date.  They are entertaining.  More people come to church.  But the new liturgies, like the ones they replaced, are still busy selling an American Jesus.  And this Jesus never threatens the status quo.”
           
Haar continues, “My observations, as a stranger to the church, are that most Christians are nice people, but as Christian spiritual consumers they seem to be inevitably caught in the American individualistic cultural consumeristic web. They want to go to church, to enjoy the benefits of God’s grace and live as Christians, but, at the same time they want to run to the mall and stand at the consumer ‘trough’ consuming all they can at the latest sales.  The church does not dare to question this contradiction.” (Murray Joseph Haar, “Self-Serving Redemptionism: A Jewish-Christian Lament,” Theology Today, April 1995, pp. 110-111)
           
Here is a seminary student’s response to a classmate’s question.  This may be typical of us at times.  As the students were leaving a seminary worship service where a very famous minister had preached, that classmate asked his friend, “How was worship?” “It didn’t grab me,” the friend said.  Just as the student heard those words coming from his mouth, he felt ashamed by his attitude toward worship.
           
He realized he had not come to seek the light, to worship God, to receive the gift of God’s love and grace conveyed through worship.  Rather he had come to be grabbed, enticed, and seduced by the beautiful setting, the elegance of the ritual, the pretty lights, the words spoken by a famous preacher.
           
In her book, Reaching Out without Dumbing Down, Marva J. Dawn draws on Neil Postman to make critical comments about culture creeping into our worship.  He asserts, “I believe I am not mistaken in saying that Christianity is a demanding and serious religion.  When it is delivered as easy and amusing, it is another kind of religion altogether” (p. 121).  We must always ask if what we do and see in worship reveals the truth about discipleship.  Perhaps our crosses are too beautiful—we forget they are meant to die on. (Marva J. Dawn, Reaching Out without Dumbing Down [Grand Rapids: Eerdmans Publishing Co., 1995], p. 270)  
           
We gather to worship because God deserves to be worshiped.  We do not come to feel moved.  We are not to come with spiritual aloofness saying, “Thrill me, make me feel good, and then I will have worshiped.”
           
We come to worship because we recognize the truth of God’s love.  We come to worship because the world is a dark and frightening place and we need someone to turn on the light of life and truth for us.  We come to worship to offer ourselves to God.  We come to be led in worship by those who have prepared and are giving their best to worship God.  The choir is not here to dazzle us with an outstanding performance or to stir up warm fuzzy feelings in us.  The Scriptures are read, not to impress us with how dramatically the lector can read, but to help us translate the words of Scripture into our lives.  Hymns are chosen to help us focus our lives toward God.  The sermon is an attempt by the minister to bear witness to God’s love and grace.  It is the minister’s effort to tell what he or she has seen and heard of God’s light in the world. 
           
There may be times when we come to worship when the flowers are drooping, one of the hymns is unfamiliar, the choir is just not up to its usual standards, and the sermon stinks.  If the glittering lamps that are to point us to the light of God that shines in the life of Jesus, do not dazzle us, well, they were not meant to dazzle us.  Their purpose is to point us to God that we might worship God.  They are to point us to light so that the light can shine in the darkness and dispel the darkness because the darkness can be troubling and frightening. We come to worship so the light of God’s love can shine in the dark corners of our lives enabling us to see how to live.  May the light of God’s love always shine in this place.