Following The Light (Lent 5)
Exodus 34: 29-35; John 8: 12; Ephesian 5: 8-9
Roger Lynn
March 21, 2021
5th Sunday In Lent

Each week during this season of Lent we have been exploring various aspects of what it means to journey through the wilderness of our lives. To make such a journey we require a guide – someone who knows the way we must travel. The scriptures for this morning alll point to the image of light as one of the gift we need for the journey. I invite you to listen for the good news of the light which we are invited to follow.

- Light in Our Darkness -

Once upon a time, a very long time ago, there was nothing. There was no sky. There was no earth. There was no light. There was no darkness. There was only nothing, and the nothingness was vast and complete. But in the midst of the nothingness, there was God. Then God began to create, which is what God does best, and then there was something where before there had been nothing. But darkness was everywhere, so God called forth light out of the darkness, and in many and various ways has been doing so ever since. For God is a radiant God of Light, shining into the darkness, illuminating the shadows, and shining ever outward.

After the light, God’s creation continued with the shaping of persons and breathing the breath of life into their nostrils, and human history began. It is the history of a created people’s encounters with a radiant creator God.

Our story begins with one such encounter, when a man named Moses went up on a mountain and there was confronted by the living, radiant God. That encounter was so intense that Moses himself took on some of God’s radiance, his face reflecting the Light of God. For you see, one does not encounter God and walk away unchanged and unaffected.

Moses came down from the mountain, shining with the Light of God, and he came before the people of Israel. But even this second hand light, this reflected glory, shining in their darkness was more than the people could bear. It showed them their darkness for what it was, and they would rather not been shown. So Moses covered the light from them so they wouldn’t have to be reminded.

And so the story goes, time and time again. Even after witnessing the Light and seeing their darkness for what it was, the people still persisted in choosing the darkness. They had convinced themselves that in their darkness they had freedom, for there they could do as they pleased and no one would object.

For years and years the story goes on, with God shining into the darkness and the people choosing the darkness nonetheless, until finally, God sent not a beam of light into the darkness, but the Light source itself. Of course that did not go over well at all. The people had been hard pressed to endure just the shining of that Light into their world. To put up with the Light actually being in the world with them, shining out of the midst of the darkness, was more than they were prepared to deal with. They had come to prefer the darkness and had even begun to believe that it was not really darkness at all. Then along came this brilliant, shining, wondrous source of Light, like a flash of lighting in the mist of the storm which they had long since stopped even thinking of as a storm, reminding them that they were indeed living in darkness, shattering their carefully constructed illusion.

These were a stubborn people, however. They chose to see in this Light a threat to their darkness rather than an inviting warmth calling them to new life in the Light. They chose to cling to their imagined freedom rather than give themselves over to the source of all true freedom. They chose to deny the existence of the Light, and so they extinguished the flame – or so they thought.

What they did not realize, or would not admit, was that this Light had shone in their darkness and their darkness could not put it out. They could close their eyes and pretend that it was not so. They could go into their houses and shut all the doors and windows against this Light. But this living, life-giving Light of God went right on shining in the world, illuminating the darkness wherever it came.

There have always been those who recognized that their darkness could not survive. And over time their numbers have grown. They come to see that bumping around in the dark is not freedom at all, but a kind of self-imposed slavery. They begin to open up the doors and windows. They begin to open their eyes. They give themselves over to the Light and let it shine forth in their lives. And yes, they find freedom in the Light.

So for years upon countless years the Light has continued to shine in our world – but the darkness has continued as well. It can be found in a variety of shapes and forms – in the pain and confusion which comes when we have been hurt and betrayed by someone we trusted; in the loss and confusion we feel at the death of someone we love; in the sickness which strikes our own bodies; in our stubborn insistence that we have everything under control. We find it in a variety of disguises, but the darkness persists wherever it can gain a foothold.

This is, however, a story of Light. The darkness cannot endure when the Light is allowed to come in. And since this is no ordinary light, but the Light of the living, radiant God, the God of creation who called light out of darkness and continues to do so even yet, this Light does more than simply drive back the darkness. It renews and restores and transforms all those into whose life it shines. It continues the process of creation until we recognize that we are a part of the Light source itself, shining forth into the darkness which cannot endure.

Then comes the freedom which we have so often tried to find in our darkness, the freedom to be who we are always being invited to become – daughters and sons of the Light.

And so begins OUR story!