Sermon by John J. Clabeaux, Ph.D.
The Third Sunday of Advent
December 11, 2011
Audio - Download mp3 (length: 19:49) |
Darkness and Light - a sermon by John J. Clabeaux, Ph.D, Third Sunday of Advent, December 11, 2011 |
All Saints Parish
Brookline, Massachusetts
Isa 61 1-4, 8-11; Ps 126; 1Th 5:16-24; John 1:6-8, 19-28
"And the light shines in the darkness. And the darkness has not overcome it."
It's a delight and an honor to be invited to speak with you
on this day with these readings
especially the Gospel reading from the Gospel of John about John the Baptist.
There is a clear and lucid thread in the readings for today
and it has to do with the inter-relationship between sorrow and joy
In Isaiah we hear:
"He has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted ...
To proclaim liberty to the captives ... to comfort all who mourn ...
To provide for those who mourn in Zion ...
the oil of gladness instead of mourning ...
They shall build up the ancient ruins,
they shall raise up the former devastations."
How many of us have our own ancient ruins, our own former devastations?
Psalm 126 picked up that theme:
"May those who sow in tears reap with shouts of joy.
Those who go out weeping carrying the seed for sowing,
shall come home with shouts of joy, carrying their sheaves."
Side by side – weeping and rejoicing!
And then there's Paul's famous:
"Rejoice always, give thanks in all circumstances ...!"
To appreciate that you need to recall the terrible lists of sufferings
that Paul endured, the longest one is in 2 Cor 11
that speaks of labors, imprisonments, floggings, beatings, a stoning
being without food, being cold, being naked
I will never forget the day we translated this passage in Greek and one of the students burst out with the words "What a terrible life!"
And I had to respond –
That's the amazing thing – if you read Paul carefully you see a man
who exuded JOY. He exuded other things too – but I get the sense
Paul took great satisfaction in his work – and would do it all again.
If we look for this mixture of sadness and joy in the Gospel of John, we see it as early as the fifth verse of the first chapter: "The light shines in the darkness and the darkness has not overcome it."
The mixture of sadness and JOY is manifest yet more clearly in John16:20
"I solemnly assure you, you will weep and mourn but the world will rejoice. You will have pain, but your pain will be turned into joy."
And only a chapter earlier Jesus had said:
"I said these things to you so that my JOY may be in you,
And that your JOY may be complete." (15:11)
But even in chapter 1 – our Gospel reading for today we see this mixture,
but it is very subtly presented in the literary artistry of John.
John chapter 1 is a theologian's delight and an historian's nightmare.
But it is a remarkable literary accomplishment.
We'll start with the problem of John the Baptist's crystal clear declaration of
Jesus' identity. "Behold the lamb of God."
The historian is right to ask, "What would such a title mean 2.5 years
before the crucifixion and resurrection?"
An even larger problem is the fact that in the other Gospels
we hear that John the Baptist sent disciples to ask Jesus:
"Are you the one who is to come, or shall we expect another?"
And we learn in Acts of the Apostles and other literature that after Jesus' death and resurrection there were still followers of John the Baptist.
Why, if John had been so clear that Jesus was the one?
Finally, we have about a third of a page on John the Baptist from the Jewish historian Flavius Josephus of the First Century
and what he tells us about John's message is remarkably close to what we see in the Gospel of Luke.
But Josephus says nothing about John telling people to go follow Jesus.
So what is John the Evangelist trying to do?
A hint is given in John the Baptist's two statements "Behold the Lamb of God."
In chapter 19, in John's Passion Narrative, Pilate will say
"Behold the man." and a little later "Behold you King."
Both statements are ironic – since Pilate doesn't have a clue.
But in John chapter 1 we need to examine this dialogue between John
and those who questioned him.
The most important Response of John is: "I am not the Messiah?"
But he was not asked "Are you the Messiah?"
That question does appear in the other Gospels only in the Passion Narrative.
It's the question of the high priest at the trial of Jesus.
But that question is not asked at the trial of Jesus in the Gospel of John!
All we hear is that Annas (father-in-law of the high priest) asked Jesus about his disciples
and about his teachings.
And that is very important,
because at that very time Peter was being asked
if he was a disciple of Jesus and he answered
three times with the same words as John the Baptist in chapter 1
"I am not." The opposite of Jesus' multiple "I Am" statements.
But from John the Baptist, it was the truth. From Peter, it was a lie.
So what is John the Evangelist trying to do
here at the beginning of the story of Jesus in John 1
with all these questions and answers that appear in the Passion?
According to John the Evangelist, John the Baptist is testifying.
Now, you testify at a trial. Testimony is taken at a trial.
What John the Evangelist is saying
is that his whole Gospel is about the "Trial of Jesus."
But by "the Trial of Jesus" he does not mean
the trial in which Jesus was the accused;
but the trial of the WORLD by the Word of God.
And so throughout this Gospel we hear from a veritable procession of witnesses
beginning with John – but including THE WORKS of Jesus
and individuals like the Samaritan Woman, the man born blind
Mary, Martha, and Lazarus
and even such unlikely witnesses as Moses and Isaiah.
But it all starts with John's first witness – John the Baptist.
Now let me return to the John the Baptist of History.
I think it unlikely that John the Baptist, in history, used these
precise words, "Behold the Lamb of God."
Ancient writers normally composed dialogue. They had no tapes.
But John was an apocalyptic prophet –
who saw a great deal of evil and darkness in the World
and who knew that God was about to intervene – radically – ultimately.
Apocalyptic preachers, you have to understand, were not obsessed with evil,
punishment, and destruction.
They were obsessed with the contradiction
between the goodness, justice, and love of God
and the state of the WORLD as we experience it.
And they had an insight that the time had come for God to intervene.
And here is where John the Baptist is a witness to this inter-relationship
of suffering and JOY.
I may be wrong – I have a strong sense that if you asked someone
"Was John the Baptist a joyful person?"
the vast majority would say "no!"
He was intense, driven, angry ... JOYFUL would be far down on the list.
I would like to suggest – that John the Evangelist has perceived
the truth about John the Baptist – that John the Baptist testified to the LIGHT,
And one does not testify to the LIGHT with such conviction
with absolutely no experience of the LIGHT?
I think it far more likely that John the Baptist had a profound conviction, I would go so far as to suggest and experience of the nearness of the LIGHT
And because of that he could see how deep was the darkness.
And if he had such a conviction and such an experience,
I should expect he experienced profound consolations.
A great black preacher once said about King Herod and John the Baptist:
"Herod in his palace – John in his dungeon –
Which man was really free?" (REPEAT)
Now what about you and what about me?
My final word is that if we are worried about our sadness or anxiety
in these dark days – as somehow preventing us from receiving
the JOY that God is promising,
we need to think again.
Joy is not the mere absence of sorrow – rather
in the words of Louis Evely: "JOY is a sadness overcome."
The promise is that all sadness will ultimately be removed,
but even now in our ordinary lives we can look back to times in which
deep grief, and deep sadness – suddenly unexplainably melted away
and there was LIGHT and there was JOY.
From our experiences of JOY,
we can learn to accept the promise of JOY in the future.
And the recognition of our sadness – and of "the dark all around us"
is not a betrayal of JOY or an obstacle to JOY,
but is the very preparation for the JOY that is promised
and that we celebrate in these Mysteries and in the Christmas season.
THE LIGHT SHINES IN THE DARKNESS.
AND THE DARKNESS HAS NOT OVERCOME IT.