Pointing to the Light
 Rev. Patricia L. Liberty
First Congregational Church
Madison, CT

When the rug is ripped out from under our lives and we are left standing on a bare floor of a reality that doesn’t make sense, this is where we show up. On the Sunday after September 11th little church is served just outside of Worcester was full; in every community where unspeakable tragedy has intruded into the world we create to make life manageable, the pews of places worship are the place we gather.

Thank you for being here …for honoring the primal hunger that is fed only by gathering in the place where promise is spoken to the shattered and fragile illusions we create that allow us to function in the world. 

We have a need to know we are not alone.  Sitting together in this space is an unspoken language of shared truths.  Know that what you bring is welcome here.

There is a part of us looking for answers, particularly to the why question…and as you might guess…there are no answers available.  At least none that make sense; none that honor the enormity of sadness and shock; I will spare you the empty exercise.  I am fresh out of answers.  While I believe there are no “right” answers to the questions that weigh our aching hearts and minds, there are plenty of wrong answers.

Chief among the wrong answers is any notion what so ever that this has anything to do with God’s will.  Let me be as clear as I possibly can. 

This is not God’s will.  There is nothing in this tragedy that lives anywhere in the heart of God except the pain that is left in its wake.

It is only a matter of time before some religious wing nut makes an outrageous statement that furthers a narrow agenda that has nothing to do with God.  It is blasphemy of the first order. 

Take this with you into the world and speak it loud and speak it often; this is not God’s will. Take this into your heart and hang on to it when religious garbage subverts the truth of the God and the word we so desperately need in these days.

Rather, I believe that the value of being here today is that it is easier to live the questions together than it is to be alone with the silence that is left after the question mark.

But that silence is not to be interpreted as emptiness.  We hold the questions together, we share the sadness and in this gathering we hold on to the hope that comfort is found not in answering unanswerable questions but sharing unspeakable darkness and pointing through it to the light that shines in our midst.

Our model is John, not the John we met last week.  He was ranting and hollering calling those who gathered a brood of vipers while he picked bugs out of his beard. 

The John we meet today proclaimed and pointed to a path through the wilderness.  He announced the God who meets us in the darkness and bids us put one foot in front of the other.

In this gospel he is not called the Baptist or the baptizer but simply John, yes he happens to baptize folks, but that is not his primary claim to fame. He is quite clear about who he is and who he is not.  When the goon squad comes to interrogate him about what who he is and what he’s up to he spends more time talking about who he isn’t than who he actually is.

No, he’s not the messiah, no he’s not Ezekiel, no he’s not a prophet. 
And when he finally DOES answer who he is, he quotes someone else…Isaiah…the spirit of the lord is upon me…anointed to preach the good news. 

He is John Evangelist, the one who brings good news.  And he is a unique figure in our Advent cast of characters. 

When it’s John’s turn to talk about the coming of Jesus there is no manger, no shepherds, no wise men, no star and no angels singing Gloria in Excelsis Deo.  There is simply this man and the only way WE know his name is that the narrator of the story tells us. 
John is a witness, no more and no less.  And he takes his place in the long line of witnesses who in one way or another pointed beyond themselves to the God they believed in.

He suggests a role for us that we might otherwise overlook; we can point to the light.  In this present darkness we can point to the light. 
The darkness had other names before Friday proclaimed it the community down the street.  The darkness we journey with has many names…loneliness, addiction, uncertainty, bitterness, anger, sadness, helplessness.  The darkness was not invented on Friday in Newtown; it deepened exponentially. 

The witness of John is that light shines in the darkness and the darkness does not overcome it.  If you think about it, it means the darkness is every bit as real as the light and it hangs in our presence demanding that we take it seriously. 
Any true faith begins with what is, not what we wish for, not what we want and not what was in a previous moment. Any true faith begins in the present moment.  Dag Hammarskjöld former secretary of the United nations said, “the one thing we can do when everything else we have tried ahs failed, is to not run away.  It may be the only thing we can do because to not run way is to show others how much you believe in that for which you stand.

As witnesses to the light we stand up to our eyeballs in the present darkness, not running away or shying away from any of it.  And like John we point to the light and proclaim that the present darkness has not and will not overcome it.

Not running away means we voluntarily wade into the darkness to stand with those who are thrown into by no choice of their own. We stand with them, not running away, and point to the light…no matter how faint or how far it hangs in the distance.
John tells us the light was the light of all people, a word that became flesh and entered the world in a specific time for the people of all time.  And the word is first a finally the word of love.

In the days to come it will be a challenge to witness to the light that says love is stronger than hate.  It will be a challenge to sort through the hyperbole and stand as people of faith. 

Last night, Robbie Parker, father of one of the six year old children killed came on TV to remember his daughter, and in a mark of tremendous fait hand compassion, to reach out to the family of the shooter.  He said, “I am not angry”.  He is pointing at a light that shines in the darkness.

And the value of being together is that when we can’t quite make out the light at the edge of the darkness, there is someone beside who can.  We need one another in these days. 
Today, in the journey of Advent, the candle for today, the pink one, is for joy. 
Admittedly it seems like a bit of a stretch from this day to that promise.

Much of this season is marked by hopes for something different that this present moment.  It is one thing we share with people of all times and places, a restless search for meaning and purpose in the midst of our days.  And like them we often seek it in places that will disappoint us. 

If we are to speak of joy this day, let it be with the reminder that it is not to be confused with happiness. 

Frederick Beuchner writes, “happiness turns up more or less where you’d expect it to….a good marriage, a rewarding job, a pleasant vacation.  It’s a wonderful thing.

The problem is that it’s pretty fickle. And much of the disappointment of this season comes when happiness disappoints us and we are left with what is and not what we wish for. 

Joy is of much stronger stuff, because it is not about what is happening in the moment, but who holds the moment.

The joy we so desperately crave is found not in what we create, what we hold in our hands, what we get or even in what we give but rather in what we are promised. 

John’s words assure us that wherever the wilderness of our days has taken us that God is still there and we can bush whack our way back to life that matters.

John the Evangelist is out there one voice calling out.  His message survives on the bare certainty about who God is and what God has sent him to do. 

While we are reminding others we are reminding ourselves that life is bigger than this present moment…that our shared human existence has meaning and possibility beyond our present experiences and that the limits of our lives are not nearly as narrow as we experience them to be.

The candle we light today symbolizes joy, we remember that the other candles are hope and peace…advent is a cumulative journey and if we are to find our way we need all the hope, all the peace and all the joy that is found at the intersection of the present darkness and the light that defines its limits.   Experience tells me that those who are the strongest witnesses to the light are those who have known the deepest darkness; those who have suffered and still hope understand far more about life than those who have not.

Maybe that is what hope, peace and joy is really about: a way to live, not just to survive, but to live authentically amidst all the problems of life with a Faith that continues to see possibility when there is no present evidence of it, just because God is God.

The light shines in the darkness and the darkness has not over come it.