Dawning Light 2025

Welcome

This evening we welcome you into an ancient story that never grows old. This is the story of the Christian faith that we remember and retell every year during Advent. This is God’s story and he invites us into it.

The creation of God’s world. The invasion of sin, death, and evil into God’s world. The redemption of God’s world brought about by the Messiah, Jesus Christ, our Redeemer. And the ushering of God’s world into the New Creation, the renewal of all things in Christ - and this is what we wait for during Advent.

When you go to a show on Broadway they invite you to “sit back, relax, and enjoy the show.” But we’re not on Broadway. So, I invite you to sit up (maybe even stand up at times), participate, and praise our God.” - Welcome

Thank you for inviting us into the story of this ancient and yet future faith.

The Light Shines in the Darkness

24 years ago Disney released the movie Monster’s Inc. The monsters powered their city by harnessing the energy produced by children’s screams. They had a power plant with a seemingly unlimited number of doors that led directly into children’s bedrooms all over the world. Of course, the monsters only worked at night. No monster was going to try and scare anyone during the day. Why? Because children aren’t afraid of the light, they’re afraid of the dark. It’s the darkness that scares us. It’s the darkness that troubles us. The darkness is chaos, uncertainty, the unknown.

Our evening began with the opening words in the Bible, Genesis 1:1-4

Genesis 1:1–4 ESV

1 In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. 2 The earth was without form and void, and darkness was over the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters. 3 And God said, “Let there be light,” and there was light. 4 And God saw that the light was good. And God separated the light from the darkness.

In the last chapter of the Bible, we find these words about the New Creation in Revelation 22:5

Revelation 22:5 ESV

5 And night will be no more. They will need no light of lamp or sun, for the Lord God will be their light, and they will reign forever and ever.

Darkness is not just a problem to children. Darkness is a problem to God. The story of the Bible from beginning to end is in story of God’s light breaking in, breaking through to conquer darkness.

And so, when Jesus Christ comes on the scene, John says this in the first words of his Gospel book, John1.1-4

John 1:1–5 ESV

1 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. 2 He was in the beginning with God. 3 All things were made through him, and without him was not any thing made that was made. 4 In him was life, and the life was the light of men. 5 The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.

I want to share two thoughts with you this evening. First, God is not afraid to look into the heart of darkness. Secondly, God calls us to look into the heart of darkness.

God is not afraid to look into the heart of darkness

Flemming Rutledge, in her book Advent: The Once and Future Coming of Jesus Christ, writes,

Advent: The Once and Future Coming of Jesus Christ Looking into the “Heart of Darkness”

It might be said of Advent that it is not for the faint of heart. To grasp the depth of the human predicament, one has to be willing to enter into the very worst.

Do you understand that this is what Advent says to us? The very worst of the human predicament - war, genocide, injustice, murder, oppression, abuse, disease, and on and on the list goes.

Advent tells us that God looked right at al of it and did not blink. As the right time, the time that he appointed, God the Son became a human being. Coming into the world as vulnerably as it gets - naked and poor. The Bible says, Philippians 2:6–7 “though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men.” God’s word tells us that Jesus, the founder of our salvation, was made perfect through suffering. Indeed, it says he learned obedience through what he suffered. Jesus let the darkness of world take him to the cross for our sake. He was born naked and he died naked, hanging on a cross.

Advent tells you and I that, even though we still experience the darkness of this world every day in our news feeds, in our communities, on our jobs, in our homes - Advent says to us that the darkness does not and cannot win.

God calls us to look into the heart of darkness

If John is right that the light shines in the darkness and the darkness has not overcome it, then those of us who are connected to that light can also live in this world looking right into the heart of darkness.

The first place that the light shines is right in on the darkness within us. Jesus shines his light into the darkness of our hearts. Friends, Advent says to us stop trying to cover up your mess. Stop trying to excuse your faults. You know that you think wrong things. You know that you do wrong things. And you know that it keeps happening. Stop trying to justify your mess by saying, “I’m not perfect, but I’m not as bad as her!” Jesus Christ, the light of the world, says “I came to give you life. I went to the cross so that you would not be condemned by your own sin and the darkness within.” Turn to him by faith and live in his light.

In his beautiful hymn, And Can It Be, John Wesley put it this way,

Long my imprisoned spirit lay Fast bound in sin and nature's night; Thine eye diffused a quick'ning ray, I woke, the dungeon flamed with light; My chains fell off, my heart was free; I rose, went forth and followed Thee.

That invitation to freedom is still extended to you tonight.

And when we begin to walk in the light as he is in the light, he delights to use us as instruments of light in this dark world. In that same paragraph on Looking into the “Heart of Darkness,” Rutledge writes, “Entering into the very worst means giving serious consideration to the most hopeless situations.”

You and I can travel as tourists to sites like the Cape Coast slave castle on the coast of Ghana and see the “Door of no return,” where African image bearers were boarded onto ships never to return home. You and I can tour Auschwitz concentration camp where Jewish image bearers were starved, tortured and murdered. Rutledge rightly says, “The tourist can turn away in relief and go to lunch.”

Advent invites us into the darkness of the world, not as tourists, but as light. We get to carry the light of Jesus Christ into the broken places as instruments of love, grace, and mercy, as messengers of justice and righteousness. We are able to do so without fear because we don’t carry this light alone. He is Emmanuel, God with us.