I want to take a poll: how many here like summer better than Winter? Why? I assume that most like summer because of the length of days and warmer weather. I actually appreciate winter more, and I’ll tell you why. Among other reason I will not explain here, the winter is a season of contemplation and longing. The cold weather causes everything to slow down. The long, dark days force people to stay indoors. We huddle together to gain warmth from one another. We gather around fires and tell stories from our past…tales that yearn for earlier days…times of nostalgia and happiness from a previous era, and the days of promise that lie ahead of us. Winter reminds us that we are to be thankful for what we have, and that we have promising days ahead of us. It is no mistake that we celebrate the coming of our Christ around the time of the Winter solstice, the longest day of darkness during the year, because it is on this day that our bodies communicate most fully a longing for light. This longing is hardwired in us: to flee the darkness for light. This is what John communicates to us in the epilogue to his gospel: “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning. Through Him all things were made; without Him nothing was made that has been made. In Him was life, and that life was the light of all mankind. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.” Two weeks ago, I spoke of the inevitability of Christ’ coming, as the dawn follows the night. Troy reminded us last week of God’s promise of love and redemption in light of Christ’ coming. This morning, I simply want to reflect on the gospel as John states it at the beginning of his gospel. Our battle with darkness ends as the light of life shines into the darkness and overcomes it.
What does the beginning of John’s gospel resemble? (Genesis 1) And what does God create first in the creation poem of Genesis 1? “And God said, ‘Let there be light,’ and there was light. God saw that the light was good, and he separated the light from the darkness.” Light is directly tied to creation, to life. Imagine the first moments of creation: the world lay formless, void and dark. Like the void of space…no life, no movement, no warmth or activity…and then, all of a sudden, the whisper of a Word and light gushes in the midst of the darkness. It is separated from the dark…the order of creation begins. As John begins his gospel, he uses language that would be familiar even to the novice readers of the Torah. We see that the coming of Christ is the coming of new creation. In the midst of chaos…in the midst of disorder, and cold, and darkness, we have a light that shines down and brings order, warmth and new life.
When winter comes, I always think of the Greek story of Persephone. Persephone was the daughter of Demeter, who was the goddess of the earth. Hades was lonely, and wanted a wife to keep him company in the Underworld, so he broke free to the surface and took Persephone to be his wife. Demeter was so devastated, that all of the flowers and trees withered and died. The people of the earth couldn’t live off of dead vegetation, so they pleaded with the gods to cheer Demeter up, so the gods decided to rescue Persephone from the Underworld. However, before they rescued her, Hades tricked Persephone into eating the food of the Underworld, so that she had to return to the Underworld each year. According to the tale, when Persephone leaves for the Underworld, Demeter’s sorrow causes the earth to grow cold and lifeless and thus, we have the season of winter. You see, the Greeks expected a perpetual winter…they felt that the gods were at war…that the gods wrestled over life, and that the earth would fall into disarray and death year after year. John’s story tells exactly the opposite: that life came in the midst of death…that light shone in the darkness. Just as light broke through in creation, the promise of new life breaks through in the midst of our winter. We no longer live in desperate expectation of death. We now live in hopeful expectation of new life because of the coming of our Christ.
I love how John describes the interaction between light and darkness in this passage: “The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.” The word “overcome” can also mean “understood” or “grasped”. On the one hand, the darkness has no power over the light…the dark cannot affect the light. You cannot go to the hardware store and buy a flash-dark. Dark simply settles over everything like a film of dust until the light comes to clean it up. On the other hand, the darkness cannot even comprehend the light. They are made up of completely different substances. The darkness cannot fathom the light anymore than a human being can fathom the width or depth of God’s greatness. In the battle of darkness and light, light always has the upper hand.
One of the oldest known hymns outside of Scripture itself is called the “Phos Hilaron” or “Hail, Gladdening Light”. In the early days of the Church, Church leaders kept a candle burning in Jesus’ tomb, and at dusk, they would bring the flame of the candle to light their lamps for evening worship. As they brought out the light, they would sing this hymn. The perpetual light of Christ came out into the world night after night to shine light into the darkness. I love the term “gladdening”, which comes from the same root as “hilarious”. When the world becomes sick, and begins to mope around, Christ beams light and warmth, and brings laughter into our depression.
This morning, I am not bringing a new message. In fact, I am bringing one of the oldest messages in the Church…a metaphor that has been passed down and celebrated for centuries. And yet, as old as this message is, it contains more power than any story the world has to tell. I believe this message resonates so strongly because we have the same battle which rages on inside of us: a battle between darkness and light. John declares to us the age-old message: in the battle between light and dark, light always wins. George and I have been reading John Steinbeck’s novel, “East of Eden”, and I recently read a passage from the novel that I would like to share with you this morning. Steinbeck writes, “We have only one story. All novels, all poetry, are built on the never-ending contest in ourselves of good and evil. And it occurs to me that evil must constantly respawn, while good, while virtue is immortal. Vice has always a new fresh young face, while virtue is venerable as nothing else in the world is.” I think that this is a hopeful, and important point to make when thinking about the battle between good and evil: evil never endures. Even though evil always seems present to us…it is only temporary. Goodness will always outlast evil, because the darkness cannot overcome the light. A shadow cannot snuff out a candle. And when we find ourselves in darkness, all we need to do is call upon the light, and the light will outshine the darkness. As we are gathered together this morning, I want to spend a few moments calling upon the light. Would anyone like to share their light…a testimony, a song, or a prayer that reminds us of the hope of our coming Christ? When we share our light, we light a candle in the midst of the world’s darkness. As we anticipate the coming of Christ in this Advent season, remember to light your candles so that the world can feel the warmth that we feel, and see the hope that we see.
