Scripture: Genesis 1:1-3 & John 1:1-9
07/15/2018
For the past few weeks many in the nation and much of the world have been riveted by the story of the Thai soccer team that went exploring in one of the caves in Thailand only to become trapped when an early arriving rain storm that heralded the commencement of the monsoon season flooded the pathway back to the surface. And setting aside the degree to which the world invariably scratched our collective head at trying to discern what spelunking had to do with soccer and how exactly this soccer coach thought it a good idea to take a bunch of 11-17 year old boys a couple of miles into this cave and a half a mile under the earth, there was a period in which all the world came together to send thoughts, prayers, good vibes to the boys and their coach. The whole episode lasted some two and a half weeks from the day that the team ventured into the cave to the point where the last member walked out of the entrance to the cave safe and at least a fair portion of that time was spent in relative darkness. I don’t know if the boys had brought all the proper equipment. The nature of thinking that one could do a day hike into a cavern and walk back out leads me to believe that they probably did not have all the gear that was necessary to spend a little over half a month under the surface of the earth, but in the event that they did have flashlights, how precious must that light have been while they were waiting for a rescue that, for at least a portion of their time down there, they had no idea was coming. How much must they have had to ration that lighting? How much must they have had to share a handful of lights for only the most crucial of activities? How much time must they have spent just sitting with one another in complete darkness? Last summer, on our annual 4th of July trip to my in-laws house on Lake Norfork in Arkansas, it was hot and sunny and beautiful all week except one day. On the actual fourth, a cell the color of a fire engine settled down on top of all of northern Arkansas. Thunder and lightning clapped and flashed. Large branches kept getting broken out of trees throughout the forest. The rains fell in sheets and buckets with flash flooding throughout the area and there was little boating or swimming or tubing of any of the things that one does to entertain young children and so after a few hours of this the adults all put their heads together (because, really, how much kids TV can adults be forced to watch before nerves and sanity begin to be frayed) and we decided to take the boys to Blanchard Springs Caverns about an hour from where we were staying. And if you’ve never had the chance to spend much time in caverns, they really are beautiful. There are formations and cliffs and colors that you don’t see above ground and I can see the sense of wanderlust that must arise in some folks to see whats around the next turn, the next drop off, the next bend in some underground river that no human has never been down before. But on every cave tour I have ever been, there comes this time when the trip leader has everyone gather in a common area as one-by-one, the guide begins to cut off the lights so that one can experience what total darkness can feel like. On this trip, the cave had an amphitheater style seating area in which all the members of our tour had stopped to sit in front of a hundred foot drop or so and we all held our collective breaths (as I held a squirmy Seamus) as each bulb went dark, until there was a single light left and then it, too, was extinguished and we were sitting in the dark. Now, most of us prefer to sleep in the dark. At some point in your development as a person you go from liking the hall light to be on to prevent the goblins and ghouls that are no doubt hiding under your bed from coming out and getting you. As an aside, my bed was where I often stuffed things when I was cleaning up my room as a child and so any goblins and/or ghouls down there we quite smushed in the process, I am sure. But I digress. The thing is that most of us prefer to have as little light as possible when we are trying to sleep. In the cavern, this isn’t that. Darkness 400 feet under the ground is complete, total, not a single atom of light can be detected though the cones in your eyes search desperately for something to grab a hold of. For that few seconds, with my grip on Seamus perhaps describable as tight, there was no difference between my eyes being opened and and my eyes being closed. Blinks were completely imperceptible. Something could have been right in front of my nose or a million miles away and there was no ability to tell the difference. For us, this experience was controlled and absent some massive power outage from the storm that raged above us, the lights were going to (and did) come back on. In our cave, a singular light seemingly bathed the whole of the cave in a dim light, and then more followed. In Thailand, there is little chance that this was their experience. Each flickering of a flashlight must have seemed like all the light in the world. Each battery dying and extinguishing must have felt like all the darkness of the universe bearing down on each of them. And the first rescuers light to enter into the room in which they were all trapped must have felt like the first light Eden saw play, like salvation itself had come into their presence, like hope forever abided in their lives. Of course they did not all get rescued at once and a person died in trying to save them but in the end the entirety of the team stood together once again, saved and able to live out the rest of their lives.
Our scripture from the gospel according to John tells a similar story to the boys who find themselves trapped in a cave with the darkness subsuming everything around them. It tells the story of a people who find themselves dwelling in darkness, though of a different kind. Of a darkness of sin and brokenness and oppression and a lack of control over their world. The community to whom John is being directed is both the Jewish ancestors of those earliest followers of Jesus who, having lived for hundreds of years under Roman occupation had lost anything that looked like hope for a future freedom. Indeed, much of the story of Judaism is one of living on a sliver of land the size of a postage stamp in the grand scheme of things, but being blessed with location and resources that make it highly coveted by other countries and empires surrounding it. So it was that empire after empire took their turns occupying, imprisoning, exiling the Jewish peoples until it began to feel as if something supernatural were going to need to happen if they were ever going to be released from these cycles of struggle that had been too often the foundation of the Jewish experience. To use the language of the prophets, to use the language of John, they were the people who dwelt in darkness and yet their eyes remained darting from one side to the other searching for anything that could be described as light. The Gospel of John is also written to people who are living in a time after the appearance, the life, the death, the resurrection of Jesus and yet even in the midst of a world redeemed there is the struggle that comes from being in the midst of broken and corrupt human power systems. These earliest followers of the way find themselves struggling to remain faithful in the face of the response by the Roman authorities to anything or anyone who might challenge the power of the Caesar. God wasn’t the Father of the world, the Caesar was the patre orbis terrarum, the father over the world. Jesus wasn’t the king, Caesar was. And any challenge to that kingship, to that patriarchy, to that power was dealt with swiftly, harshly, systemically. And yet, those earliest followers of Jesus kept the faith in spite of all that because they were reminded that, “what has come into being in him was life and the light of all people. The light shines in the darkness and the darkness did not overcome it.” John is reminding his readers of the end of the story before they have even read the beginning. He is reminding them that Jesus, the bearer of light to a world swallowed up in darkness, experienced the worst of that darkness and shines forth nonetheless. Shines forth in spite of people, powers, principalities doing their very worst to him, beating him, and crucifying him, and killing him. Shines forth even in death to bear witness to the power of resurrection for all people. The power of a life that emerges from death. The brilliance of the light of God. The light that came into being when the spirit of God brooded over the waters of chaos at the beginning of time and “darkness was upon the face of the deep” and from the silence of the darkness, “God said, ‘Let there be light:’ and there was light. And God saw the light, that it was good: and God divided the light from the darkness.” No sun, no moon, no stars above, nothing but the pure, unadulterated light of God emitting out from its divine origins and finding and filling every crack and crevice throughout the entirety of the chaotic universe and bringing with it order and calm and purpose and peace. Bearing the goodness of God as a gift for all the cosmos. A gift that will outlast every other thing within the whole of the universe. Light. And yet, it is not always easy to see that light beaming around you, even as it is the one constant in each of our lives. It is not easy to see the light gifted to the people of the planet a second time as Jesus came and showed us how to see it. It is not easy because darkness still exists. It still swallows. It still consumes. It still provides the cloak for monsters and ghosts and things that go bump in the night. It still blinds us to the movement of God, to the redemption of the spirit, to the goodness all around each of us.
Asa Hamish Earles McLeod came into this world a little over 10 weeks ahead of schedule. On Monday evening everything was fine. As anyone who is friends with me on facebook knows, I was on my back porch listening to the crickets and cicadas and Lucinda Williams, waiting for my wife to get back from work so that we could enjoy the week without kids for which we had waited a decade. As Lesley walked onto the back porch she said that she had gotten a call from the doctor, some of her lab work had come back abnormally and we needed to get her admitted tonight. In the moment it is hard to make sense of gathering darkness like that. She felt fine. She felt more than fine—she felt great. This made no sense and yet here we were driving back to UAB late in the evening. What followed was a number of events in which our situation grew more dire as it became clear that the health of my wife and my son where now increasingly in peril. In a matter of a couple of hours we went from everything being great to we are admitting you tonight to you are going to stay here for the next 6 weeks until this baby can be delivered full-term to we are delivering this baby in the next 24-48 hours. When darkness begins to descend like that it causes you to lose any degree of awareness of positioning or placement in this world. Like the bottom of a cave in which any light particles have long since been swallowed by the darkness, you lose any sense of anything around you. Like I said, things could be in front of your nose or a million miles away and it doesn’t make a difference. And I walked around like that for a couple of days. Completely overwhelmed. Completely subsumed. Completely swallowed. And then something happened. I was on an elevator with another gentleman, both of us staring at our phones, me trying to think about anything other than what was coming over the next few days, weeks, and months. The elevator stopped and another lady got on and honestly I barely noticed her except that the elevator had stopped on her floor to pick her up. We, now three, continued on our way and the elevator stopped again for her to get off and in passing she said, “y’all have a blessed day.” And it was like the entirety of my world had blown up. And any front of strength that I had been placing in front of my face crumbled under the weight of light piercing in. I don’t often think of angels as walking around among us but at that moment this woman who was seemingly on the elevator to bring this message of blessing to the two of us was as close to Jesus as I’ve ever stood. And I just wept. All of the past couple of days events washed over me and out of me and I could begin to see again. It at least started there. The darkness had not been full overcome. There were still any number of things to fret over, to be fearful of, to lament, to dread. Asa’s next couple of months will not be easy. And there is no way to predict what’s around the next corner. There is a fog of uncertainty that has descended on the whole of our family. But fog is not darkness and from that moment in the elevator, the darkness has been eased by the tiny little pinpricks of light that keep on showing up in the most unusual of places that I can finally see again. A smile. A kind word. A simple greeting from the lady at the Au Bon Pain who sold me my coffee every morning. People from all over the country sending greetings and thoughts and vibes and offers of help. People from this church showering Asa, Lesley, and all of us in prayers. The nurse who said to my wife, call me, even if you just need to cry over the phone, call me. Every little moment all bearing witness to the light that still shines in the darkness that the darkness is never, ever able to overcome it. I am increasingly convinced that the secret to seeing the light is possessing a willingness to recalibrate your vision in the darkness. Your eyes can adjust to even the darkest of situations because the light shines in the darkness and the darkness is never, ever able to overcome it. And, we each are blessed to share in that light because the light shines in the darkness and the darkness is never, ever able to overcome it. We can be conduits for the light because our spirits, our souls remain little sparks of light and the light shines in the darkness and the darkness is never, ever able to overcome it. We can be the light because the light shines in the darkness and the darkness is never, ever able to overcome it. And that is our call to depart from this place and take even the simplest greeting, overture, act and infuse it with the light of Christ until all the world, each of us, has eyes to see that from now until forever the light shines in the darkness and the darkness is never, ever able to overcome it. Praise be to God, the source of light, now and always. Alleluia, amen.
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