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7:30 and 10:30 AM

 

The
Cathedral Church
of Saint John
Ten Concord Ave.
Wilmington
Delaware
19802

voice: (302) 654-6279
fax: (302) 777-5789

Wheelchair
Accessible

Parking lot
on Concord Avenue

  

Dean’s Sermon
Christmas 2009

by the Very Reverend William B. Lane

The light shines in the darkness,
and the darkness did not overcome it.

This may seem like a strange question to be asked at a Christmas Eve Eucharist, but does the name Vera Lynn mean anything to you? Vera Lynn was a British Music Hall singer who was an inspiration to many with her singing during the Second World War. We’ll Meet Again; White Cliffs of Dover; There Always be an England: as the bombs fell on London, these songs and many more helped lift the spirits of a people confronting the fury of war.

As I was reading the breathtaking Gospel selection from John in preparation for this night, a song of hope and promise that Vera Lynn sang came to mind, When the lights go on again all over the world. The time of the Second World War was a time of darkness. In so many ways the lights were out, darkness having descended upon the earth. Some of us may still remember black outs. Each night cities were in darkness, drapes drawn across the windows in every home so that no light might escape, whether light produced by electricity or some other means. And this darkness was in a way an outward and visible sign of the spiritual, emotional and psychological darkness that enveloped the hearts, minds and spirits of millions of adults and children around the world.

The awful reality of this darkness ultimately was not able to crush the human spirit. And the hope for tomorrow came through when Vera Lynn and others sang, When the lights go on again all over the world. Not only the street lights of the world’s cities, but the light of a new dawn, a new day in the human story. The light of hope and promise dispersing the darkness of fear and despair.

In the last decade of the first century of the Common Era, a man we call John, living in another time of darkness, another time when the spirits, hearts and minds of many were tried by the oppressive darkness of human brokenness, writes a majestic account of promise, of hope, and of a new order. About that darkness and that which it represents, John says that there is a light that shines in the darkness and that the darkness did not overcome it. And this light is not the too often short term light that humanity experiences at such times as the end of war or terror. No, says John, this light is of the very stuff of creation, remember:

In the beginning when God created the heavens and the earth, the earth was a formless void and darkness covered the face of the deep, while a wind from God swept over the face of the waters. Then God said, 'Let there be light'; and there was light. And God saw that the light was good.

Now, says John, that is the light that I am going to be telling you about in this account that I have prepared for you. Darkness in all its manifestations is not normative for God’s creation, not in the beginning and not now, and we might add not ever. The word that spoke creation into being, God’s word, enlightens the world, enlivens the world, it is the light of life. And says John, that light has not vanished, has not been overcome, indeed that word of light has been incarnated in the story of humankind and I, John, am about to tell you all about it:

The Word became flesh and lived among us, and we have seen his glory, the glory as of a father's only son, full of grace and truth.

This Father’s only son, John says, is Jesus, and another John, the Baptizer, gives testimony to that. In Jesus, God’s word of light and life is incarnated. This word is not a theological concept, it is a saving reality. The word that created, is the word that saves. Luke introduces us to the incarnation with the story of the faithfulness of Mary, Matthew through the story of Joseph’s faithfulness. John introduces by interpreting for us what it means, not only in our time, but in holy time, in God’s time.

Because the meaning of the incarnation of God’s word of light and life is not bound by our time, then that meaning, the presence of the holy light, the light that shines in darkness, shines through darkness, shines despite of darkness, the presence of that light, the light of Christ, is extended through history and beyond history in the life and work of the Church. As John tells us elsewhere in his account of God’s good news for creation, Jesus breaths holy, eternal life on the Church, and the Church takes this life into the world, for the world.

What is happening this night in this celebration, is the bridging of our time and God’s time as we acknowledge and give glory to the sacred light of God in Christ. We are invited to go forth from this celebration into the world as saboteurs. That is right, saboteurs. Now you might not have come here tonight thinking that when you left you would go commissioned to be a saboteur. But we are so commissioned, to be God’s agents, sabotaging the works of darknes, that all too often seem about to take over the human story. The incarnation is not about child’s play, it is the heavy duty work of countering the darkness in the world and in ourselves. Our means for such sabotaging are not weapons, such are the means of darkness, our means are love, and compassion.

There is an approach to life that is all too often put into practice, and that is that it is all about me. Well, John tells us it is all about God and when we are enlightened by that good news we truly live; our spirits, minds and hearts no longer grieved by darkness, but alive in the light of Christ.

So, for sure, go tell it on the mountain, but live it there as well, go tell it in the valley, live it there as well, go tell it in the city, but live it there as well, go tell it to power and live it as well as telling, go tell it to the darkness and be light to the world.

Faithfully,
The Very Reverend William B. Lane

Dean’s Sermons:

Cathedral Call Letters from the Dean

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