The Gift of Darkness: Sermon for the Second Sunday of Advent (December 8, 2024)
Sermon for the Second Sunday of Advent (December 8, 2024) at St. James’ Episcopal Church in Hyde Park, NY. View the scripture readings and the Collect of the Day.
Listen:
Like what you hear? You can subscribe to the podcast on Apple Podcasts or Spotify.
Transcript
This is probably the kind of thing I'm not supposed to tell you, but when my alarm went off this morning, I did not want to get out of bed and usually on Sunday I'm like, let's go. Alright, it's Sunday, it's time for church. And today I was like, I had rather lay here. It was very dark and I kind of put one arm out of the covers and I was like, oh, it's cold, but it was time to get up and I just felt tired and I put my feet on the floor and I try to do what I actually learned from some of you, which is when my feet hit the floor, I say thank you to God.
I was not feeling it. I put my feet on the floor and I was like, okay, here we go. I got up and I walked through the dark house and I just felt heavy and I lit our Advent wreath. I lit two candles today and it was very quiet. It was very dark. The sun hadn't even started to come up yet, and I did what I usually do on Sunday morning, which is I get out the scriptures for the day and I read them again and I read the gospel and I thought, I don't really have an excuse for not wanting to get out of bed. I'm not the one who has to pronounce all these names and places in the gospel this morning. I read the gospel and I got to that last line which says, and all people shall see the salvation of our God.
I was still grumpy and tired and a little sad, a little heavy, but when I read that line again, I heard Handle's Messiah and “all flesh shall see it together”. And I was a little bit glad that I got out of bed. I thought, oh, there is beauty, there is light. Humans can do good things that endure. Beautiful things. In Advent, this is maybe the one time that our church sets aside for a whole season to sit with darkness and to sit with heaviness and to sit with times that feel quiet; times that feel hard.
We have the season of Lent too. Lent is a season that can feel heavy. Lent is a season of introspection, but there's something about Advent, in Advent as the days get shorter and shorter and they physically do. As we move toward Christmas, we have less light. We have time to sit in the darkness and to contemplate these words. We don't have to pretend that it always comes easy to put our feet on the floor and say, thank you, God, for another day, because sometimes life doesn't feel like that. Sometimes the world seems to gather darkness and heaviness. And Advent is a season when we take time to tell that truth too and acknowledge the darkness of the world, the darkness that can maybe gather within, especially in the winter.
And we remember “and the glory, the glory of the Lord and all flesh shall see together”. We remember the people who walked in darkness have seen a great light. The people who dwell in deep darkness upon them, light has shined. We remember the song of Zechariah and the tender mercy of our God. The dawn from on high shall break upon us to shine on who, to shine on those who dwell in darkness and in the shadow of death, the long shadow of death. Sometimes I think we might think that if we find ourselves in darkness or if we might dare to talk about it with one another, the darkness is a sign that something is wrong, that we're doing something wrong. But Advent, this season of shadow and light of darkness and brightness, I think Advent is trying to teach us that when we find ourselves sitting in the darkness and when we find that things are quiet, maybe too quiet, when things feel heavy, when we don't want to put our feet on the floor, that God comes to us there too. And so this morning as I was praying, God said to me, I give you so many gifts and God likes to talk to me this way. Like, girl, I give you so many gifts and you don't even want to put your feet on the floor.
But God said to me, I give you comforting, restful darkness, and I give you encouraging fortifying light. The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light. It is not necessarily that darkness is not of God and light is, it may be that when we find ourselves in the darkness, that that too is a gift from God. There's a beautiful prayer in the New Zealand prayer book for night. Lord, it is night. The night is for stillness. Let us be still in the presence of God. It is night after a long day, what is done has been done. What has not been done has not been done. Let it be.
The night is quiet. God, let the quietness of your peace enfold us, all dear to us, and all who have no peace. The night heralds the dawn, let us look expectantly to a new day, to new joys, new possibilities. I love this prayer because it teaches us, it shows us that darkness can be our friend, can be our comfort, giving us the gift of quiet and stillness, of waiting for God. Darkness has the gift of giving us time to sit still. Look to the east. Christopher told me the other day, did you know this? Traditionally in graveyards, including our own people are buried so that they face the east.
So that even in the deepest darkness and the shadow of death, we teach ourselves and we are taught by God that the sun will rise again. Even on the last day when we gather and the darkness gathers around us. I think that we are invited in Advent to experience the darkness as a gift from God, to teach us how to be quiet, how to be still, how to rest, how to wait for the dawn from on high. How to practice, hoping and believing that God is there and that the glory of God will be revealed and that we will all see it together.
And when things are going real ducky for me, I don't always remember to reach out for somebody else, to lift my soul up to God in prayer, to wait for God. But it's in the darkness that I start reaching out my hand to see if there is someone there to take it. And the prophet says it's the people who walk in darkness who will see a great light. Because when we are in darkness, we reach out our hands and we find one another's hands in the embracing and folding, quiet still darkness. We are together. We are waiting for God, and we are taking care of each other.
We are showing love to one another, and we wait and hope because we know it is the God who said, let light shine out of darkness. Who has caused the glory of Jesus Christ to be revealed not just 2000 years ago and not just at the end of time, and not just at Christmas, but to shine in our hearts here where we wait together for God. Light is already starting to glimmer in our hearts. And so even as the days get shorter and the darkness is deeper, more candles are lit day by day as one hand clasps another more hope springs forth more love is kindled. So I want to invite you in this season, in this week ahead, if you find yourself having a day like I was having, befriend the quiet and the stillness, befriend the darkness as though it were a gift from God to you, as though it God, were giving you exactly what you need. Some time, some peace, some space to nurture confidence and a desire to reach out your hand. Amen.