Leave the light on
Sermon for the First Sunday of Advent (November 27, 2022)
View the scripture readings and the Collect of the Day: First Sunday of Advent, Year A
Preached at St. James’ Episcopal Church in Hyde Park, NY. A video of our whole 10 am service is available here.
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You know what time it is, how it is now the moment for you to wake from sleep. For salvation is nearer to us now than when we became believers; the night is far gone, the day is near.
Romans 13:11
Edited Transcript
May only truth be spoken here and only truth be heard: In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Please be seated
On the Sunday, after Thanksgiving, when all of us are maybe still a little bit in Turkey coma mode... I definitely feel like I'm still in Turkey coma mode. And isn't it funny that all the readings are about: "Wake up," though? Wake up, something is about to happen, right? Our hymns and our readings are prodding us to come to life and wake up. But we're in this season, in this hemisphere, where the days are getting shorter and shorter and colder and colder, and a lot of us are... You know, if you're in an office, by the time you leave the office, it's dark. You're already n the middle of the night. The sun is rising later and later. And yet the exhortation is: Stay awake!
When everything in my body is getting ready to hibernate and slow down, I'm ready to slow down and get quiet.
The tabernacle light burning at night in the sanctuary of St. James’ Episcopal Church in Hyde Park, NY.
To understand what's happening here... there was an image that came to me last week, Tuesday evening. The vestry met here in the sanctuary and we wrapped up our meeting around nine o'clock and the last of us to leave turned off all the lights, and we left the last light under the choir loft. And so as we were going out the doors, I switched off the lights under the choir loft and the church was completely dark and completely quiet, except there was one small light.
There was one small light, and that's the light that burns in front of the tabernacle where we keep the reserved sacrament. And this light reminds us of the presence of Christ, the real presence of Christ in this space. And as long as the sacrament is there, the light burns. So there we were, in the church that was dark and still, with one small light burning.
And that to me is the image of this beginning time of Advent, because we hold together the deepening darkness and the rich depth of dark and quiet that I think invites us into a time of peace and reflection.
And yet it is not sleep that we're invited to! There's a part of us that remains awake and present and attentive, and that is the light that's still burning. That's the tension we hold in Advent: both to let quiet and peace make space within our spirits, to allow the shortening days and the lengthening nights to give us a little bit of slowness in a time that in North America can be a time of ramping up and increased busyness, but to feel that invitation, to slow down and find quiet. And yet that quiet is purposeful. Because it's in that quiet that we turn back to the presence of Christ that's glowing within us, that's glowing at the heart of our lives, that really is shining at the heart of all we do.
And we find it in the quiet, in the dark, sometimes in suffering, but sometimes just in that peacefulness that steals in. If you're the last person in your house and you turn off the lights, but you leave that one candle burning and you can let yourself sit with it just for a moment. Or if you wake up before dawn and light one candle and see the eastern sky begin to turn pink...
We light one candle today on the first Sunday of Advent. And then every Sunday, we as a church light another until it comes to Christmas when we light the Christ candle and from that candle, we light many candles, right? Until we are all holding one on Christmas Eve.
We begin in the deepest dark, in quiet and peace, with that attention to what burns unceasingly within us, with that attention to Christ. And in that quiet, we let it grow, and we grow and it grows, and we share it. Until on this holy night of Christmas, it's enough to light us all up and set us all on fire and to share the love of God.
So do not be afraid with these short days. Don't be afraid of the dark, but let the dark point the way to the presence of Christ that glows in you too. And that will only grow with the attention you pay to it. Amen. Amen.