Love Lights the Darkness

An Advent Reflection on Luke 21:24-35The first Sunday of Advent marks the beginning of the church’s New Year. The Gospelreading for this morning begins the new year by casting a vision of the

end

. In Luke 21Jesus responds to the people’s desire to know when the end will take place. To help themanticipate this time Jesus himself offers a frustratingly simple parable.

“Look at the fig tree and all the trees. When they sprout leaves, you can see for yourselves and know that summer is near. Even so, when you see these things happening, you know that the kingdom of God isnear.”

And so you have it.When the tree sprouts summer is coming.When these things happen the kingdom of God is near.It would be hard to find more simple and straightforward language than what Jesus offershere. The trouble of course is that as long as God’s people have been in existence they, asa group, have had very little success in identifying just what that sprout looks like andfurther, what sort of summer or change it is ushering. Jesus may be the light of the world but why is it that to us his words are not always clear? This text and the Advent seasoninvite us to reflect on how we can understand and recognize our experience of God’s lightas it enters the world.Let’s look at “those things”, the sprouting leaves, which Jesus says will begin to usher hissecond coming.Jesus said that,

“There will be signs in the sun, moon and stars. On the earth, nations will be in anguishand perplexity at the roaring and tossing of the sea.

Men will faint from terror, apprehensive of what is coming on the world, for the heavenlybodies will be shaken. At that time they will see the Son of Man coming in a cloud with power and great glory.”

What is the image we are given in this passage? Something out of the ordinary ishappening in the sky, nations are confused on the earth and the sea is in an uproar.People are racked with anxiety, terror-stricken because they sense something awful iscoming. So far we have chaos, confusion, terror. Then we are told that “they will see theSon of Man coming in a cloud”. Now how many of you, when I said this, actually had an image of a man in a white roberiding a cloud? If you did, you not be alone. This tends to be my own first impressionand it was also Michelangelo’s impressions as he sketched the Sistine chapel. However,God’s presence in the midst of clouds often represents haze and darkness in the OldTestament. The image is also one of descent and covering, and if someone is descendingin a cloud from above what would you most likely see from below? . . . a cloud. Thisimage of haze or darkness is important for us to understand what may not be the reality of God’s light, but may be

our experience

of the light.

So the sprout that we are to look for includes chaos, confusion, terror, and a cloudy haze.The coming of God’s light is apparently not making things very clear for the world.Rather this light appears to be shaking things up.Does this fit with your concept of what the light of God’s presence should be and how weshould experience it? Most of us tend to think God’s revelation will make things clear,that it will be a type of

a-ha

moment where confusions and uncertainties vanish. This isindeed one experience of God. But in the Bible this is quite often the case.As the Gospel of John tells us,

The light came to his own, but his own did not receive him

How could some people have so loved the light and others sought to extinguish it?Perhaps we should think about our daily experiences with light for moment.What happens when someone turns on the light in a dark room? The moment that thelight comes on we do not really think about

seeing

the light itself we are more struck byseeing the things around us that were once hidden. This type of experience can evokemany responses. One response is indeed one of clarity where we see things that wesimply did not know existed.This may be the sense of God’s revealing himself to Gentiles where he speaks throughIsaiah saying,

I revealed myself to those who did not ask for me; I was found by those who did not seek me.

The Gentiles did not even know what it was to seek for the God of Israel as he awaitedthem in the darkness.I grew up in the Altona Sommerfeld Mennonite church where singing was led by a

vorsänger

. The

vorsänger

led the congregation in a type of monotone nasal based tone of singing. This was my primary experience for praising God in song. In junior high I began to attend a friend’s youth group. On one weekend we went to Winnipeg for alarger youth event. I remember that it was evening and all sorts of different youth groupswere gathered together with sparklers and they were singing

Shine Jesus Shine

. I hadnever experienced something like this before. The light came and revealed somethingthat I never knew existed. This is one example of love lighting the darkness.Another and perhaps more common experience of darkness is the darkness weintentionally keep around us. Many of us probably have a room or a closet we shovethings into before company comes over. We can feel comfortable letting our guests havefull access of our home so long as they do not see the mess that is hidden away.3