Advent 3 B

Are your Christmas lights up yet?

You may or may not be aware that there is some controversy about when Christmas lights should go up. Some folks say that Christmas lights everywhere should be reserved for the Christmas season which technically begins at Christmas and goes for 12 days. So all the beautiful decorations already up are incorrect in that thinking. Same thing goes for other Christmas decorations and Christmas songs. I read this week of one theologian who refuses to put up her Christmas tree at all until Christmas Eve. (I don’t even suggest such a thing to my wife!)

As joyless as it might seem, abstaining from Christmas celebrations before Christmas does have some benefits. For one, we get to experience the season of Advent — which is not so much a mini-Lent as we used to think of it, but its own season… one of hope and renewal. Not too mention the cool Advent hymns that we only have four Sundays to sing! Advent, in the grand scheme of the church year, is the beginning of the dim, small light that grows into the glow of Christmas, and finally the bright star of Epiphany bright enough for the whole to see. It all starts with the little light shining in the darkness at Advent.

Even if you maintained a liturgically pure Advent household, you’d walk out into a Christmas world filled with artificial lights and holly and music and most of it announcing not the Incarnation of Jesus Christ but announcing the same old same old, but this time with a Santa hat on.

And the trouble, I think, is not that we’re breaking some rule about the proper celebration of Christmas and Advent; the trouble is that there can be so much noise, and so much light that it becomes hard to tell what’s real light and what’s artificial light.

The history of Christmas and Advent celebrations is that they developed during a time in the Northern Hemisphere when the days get shorter and shorter. And the nights — and the darkness — get longer and longer. Until finally, right about Christmas, the light returns and the days start getting longer again. You can see how the Christmas and Advent seasons fit the earth’s season. Which I kind of notice as I drive home in the evenings, I guess, but really, there are lights in the parking lot, lights on my car, (so many construction lights at Bryan Dairy and Starkey that it feels like daylight), and, as soon as I get home the lights are on, and I hardly notice the darkness at all.

So much for the seasons. I wonder if our spirituality is the same way? There are so many artificial lights in our world…so many well wishes and holiday cards and nice sentiments… and none of them are bad…but maybe there is so much this time of year that we can ignore the darkness that is not only beyond the bright lights of the parking lot, but the darkness that is in our hearts, too.

That’s when we need someone like John the Baptist in our lives to tell us some truth about light and dark.

“He came as a witness to testify to the light, so that all might believe through him. He himself was not the light, but he came to testify to the light.” (John 1.7–8 NRSV)

And he wasn’t testifying about Christmas lights. The Light that John was talking about was of a different sort. John, in the true tradition of God’s messengers before him, told the people about the difference between what is from God, and what is not from God. He told them that a lot of what passes as light in this world is actually darkness. And he told them the surprising truth that the Light from God looked nothing like what the people expected.

“Among you stands one whom you do not know” (John 1.26 NRSV)

In other words, the light of God was already shining among them, but they didn’t yet see it.

Wherever you fall in the Christmas/Advent debate, whether you have gone full force into the Christmas spirit, or whether you are trying to tune out those same Christmas songs playing over and over again, the truth is that the light that we are waiting for is already here, standing among us, and we haven’t noticed it. Maybe because the artificial lights are too bright, or maybe because we’ve shut our eyes closed because we can’t take it anymore, but either way we often miss the light of the One who is already standing among us.

You know where you won’t miss him? You won’t miss the light of God in your life when it gets really dark. When the things or the people that thought you could depend on burn out; when you yourself feel burnt out. And you come face to face with some darkness that you wished wasn’t there. Some darkness that you hoped you could keep away with a little extra eggnog, or Christmas music, or holiday shopping…but there it is, the darkness underneath all the light and maybe a gnawing sense that you can’t live up to your own expectations for this season; to your family’s expectations for this season; to God’s expectations for this season.

And once again, John the Baptist is our friend. Because in the face of all the artificial light and real darkness underneath, John says something that we need to hear, and we need to repeat… you know what it is? John says:

“I am not the messiah.” Will you try saying it? “I am not the messiah.” Maybe one more time? “I am not the messiah.”

Do you believe it?

Not that I think any of you are crazy, and would claim to be the messiah, but we so often place the expectations of the whole world on our own shoulders. We expect of ourselves and others what really belongs to God. We start to think that all these lights around us, on our homes, on our trees, in stores, and on TV… we start to think that these lights are the Light. We start to think that our rules and traditions and festivities and holiday to-do lists are what saves us. We start to think that we are what saves us. When I do that, it becomes liberating to remind myself that I am not the messiah.

Whatever lights you put up and whenever you put them, I hope you enjoy them. I enjoy them. And we’ll remember together that they are not the light, that they can only, like John, point to the true Light.

And we’ll remember together that when the Holiday anxiety rises, or the darkness shows up in our lives — we’ll remember that we are not the messiah.

But you know what we are? One last time, John tells us: We are baptized. We are joined to the One true light. We are claimed by the one who does save us. We are baptized. There is light for us, as the Gospel says:

“What has come into being in him was life, and the life was the light of all people. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it.” (John 1.3–5 NRSV)

Amen.