A Light, An Attraction, and a Power

Jon Burnham preached this Lent 4A sermon from Ephesians 5:8-14
on March 2, 2008 at St. John's Presbyterian Church in Houston.

Even in this post-modern, scientific world, our lives still revolve around light and darkness. We have not transcended the animal aspect of our human nature to the extent that we may disregard the circadian rhythm of our bodies. We must still sleep in the darkness of night and rise in the light of day. This basic aspect of existence has been well understood for thousands of years and often used against the human species by priests and nobility. Our human nature is a yin and a yang of light and darkness. As we read in our text today, "For once you were darkness, but now in the Lord you are light." That progression from past darkness to present light in the Lord is what we will explore in our time together this morning. Far beyond a mystical, esoteric mystery, the interplay of light and dark within us defines how we experience ourselves, others, God and our very existence in this world in which we live and move and have our being.

An ancient priesthood ruled the world for hundreds and thousands of years by manipulating the human perception of light and darkness. They knew astrology in minute detail and used that knowledge to scientifically manipulate the commoners into paying them big bucks to keep the sun rising each morning. The sun, in ancient times, was believed to sail across the ocean of the sky. The only way to guarantee that the sun kept sailing was to pay the priests to perform ceremonies that would resurrect the sun each morning. For you  see, the priests told the people that the sun died each night and must be raised from the dead each morning. The job of the priests, according to the priests, was to resurrect the sun each morning and thus provide light to the land and the people. But if the priests were not well paid, they could not guarantee the people that they would continue to perform this valuable service of raising the son from the dead each morning so it could sail across the ocean of the sky. Now the priests knew this was a great hoax they were playing on the people but it worked for them for thousands of years. The common people were kept in ignorance and were illiterate. All they knew was what the priests and the royalty told them. Thus did the priests and the royalty live good lives at the expense of the downtrodden people whose minds they controlled. In ancient mystery religions the term "the dead" referred to people who did not know the sacred truths which was considered the real reality.

The phrase "raised from the dead" is still used in today's secret societies. For instance, the often discussed Skull and Bones Society at Yale University has been brought to our attention over the past decade as two of our Presidents and one nominee for President are members of that secret society. I am referring to President Bush Senior and Junior and Senator John Kerry. The defining ritual in the Skull and Bones Society finds the candidate for membership laying inside a casket. He must tell the other boys in the fraternity every sexual experience he has ever had including names and dates. The candidate for membership is then raised from the casket, symbolically raised to new life or resurrected from the dead. This is the society's ritual to signify being born again as a member of the Skull and Bones. So whenever a member of the society is asked if he has been born again he can honestly say he has been born again, although it may not be in the way in which the person asking the question is thinking.

Our culture also is obsessed with light and darkness, even now, when our technological advancements allow us to flip a light switch to "on" any time of day or night so that we no longer have to restrict our activity to the hours of daylight. Even so, we want more daylight to conserve energy. The purpose of the Spring time change is to lengthen the amount of light. The highest levels of our Federal Government voted to change the schedule of daylight savings time in order to squeeze more light out of the day. So this coming Saturday we will move our clocks forward by one hour for Daylight Savings Time. We want more light for more energy. Futurist and Inventor Ray Kurzweil, who has received 15 honorary doctorate degrees and been recognized by three presidents, says 20 years from now most of our energy needs around the world will be provided by solar energy. He thinks the break even point between solar energy and oil is only five years away. After that break even point, solar energy will begin to become cheaper than oil year after year after year. Kurzweil claims the sun provides enough energy to earth each day to provide all the energy needs of every human being on the planet 10,000 times so if when we are able to use nanotechnology to proficiently extract solar power we will need to extract only one ten thousandth of the energy of the sun each day in order to meet the energy needs of every human on the planet. The point Kurzweil is making is that the sun provides 10,000 times more energy than humans need. In a similar way, the light of Christ provides 10,000 times more energy than we need to propel us forward in our spiritual journey. The question for us spiritually, as for the solar engineers, is how we secure the light of Christ and use it for spiritual energy. That is the question that is raised in our text today. Children of Light is the phrase used here. Children means we are growing, evolving, developing, dependent, and trusting. Light means we are reflectors of our source as the moon reflects the light of the sun. As Joni Mitchell so beautifully sings, "We are stardust, we are golden, and we've got to get ourselves back to the garden..."

I was blessed in my childhood in that the food I ate was mostly vegetables from my father's back yard garden. Those vegetables were eaten straight from the garden in the Summer and plenty of them were put in the freezer for the Winter months. Those vegetables kept me going even through the high energy sport of football. When I was in high school I played quarterback on the football team. Our team had some good receivers and I was a decent passer but our offensive line was small and skinny. Beyond that, we were a small school and most of the teams we played came from schools that were at least three times the size of our school, so they had much larger, stronger and faster players on their roster. No wonder then, that on the Friday afternoons before home games, when we players would lay around the gym resting and mentally preparing for the game, I spent my time in fervent prayer, praying that I would not get killed or paralyzed during that night's game. I was smart enough to know that injuries were part of the game. I knew that all it would take was a broken neck and I would be dead or paralyzed. I felt this fear acutely as we took the field each Friday night. I knew this could be my last game. It gave each moment of the game a highly intense, almost surreal quality. During the game, I would calm down only after being hit for the first time. Then I could settle into the game. On the day after the game, on Saturday morning, I awoke early to go bag groceries at the grocery store. That was my weekend job, and although I may have been sore, I was always happy to be there at the grocery store because it meant I was still alive. When I awoke each Saturday during the football season I felt as if I had risen from the dead and I gave thanks to God for my life. I felt Christ shine on me each Saturday as I bagged groceries and delivered them to the cars of friends, neighbors and strangers in the small town in Mississippi where I lived. Each Saturday during football season was a time when I seemed to rise from the dead. As our text this morning puts it: "Rise from the dead and Christ will shine on you."

We are much more powerful and capable than we ever imagined. As Marianne Williamson wrote, "Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness, that most frightens us." (Beyond Change Management Advanced Strategies for Today's Transformational Leaders, Dean Anderson Linda S. Ackerman Anderson, 96)  Our text tells us how to turn on the light of Christ within: "Try to find out what is pleasing to the Lord." Traditionally, Christians have tried to find out what is pleasing to the Lord through Bible reading and prayer. When we read the Bible we find we are encouraged to immerse ourselves in prayer. Paul said, "Pray without ceasing." Jesus said, "Seek and you will find the kingdom of God within you." When we immerse ourselves in prayer, we notice the Spirit starts shining a search light into the darkest recesses of our being. The Holy Spirit's search light shines on our selfish motivations and reveals that we are seeking God for our own gratification. We find we are filled with spiritual pride. We notice lust and greed that we thought we had put aside. The light of the Spirit makes us notice how we treat other people and encourages us, as it is put earlier in Ephesians, to put away from us all bitterness and wrath and anger and wrangling and slander, together with all malice, and to be kind to one another, tender-hearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ has forgiven us." (Eph 4:31-32) This process is called spiritual purification and while it is not a pleasant experience it is a necessary one.

French contemplative Lucie-Christine experienced Christ as a light, an attraction, and a power. She envisioned Christ as a light that showed her how she belonged completely to God alone in this world. She saw Christ as an attraction by which her heart was subdued and delighted. And she experienced Christ as a power which inspired her with a generous resolution that somehow placed in her hands the means to carrying out her desire to live as a child of light. (Journal Spirituel de Lucie-Christine, p. 11) During this Lenten season, which may be for us a season of spiritual detoxification, may we too experience Christ as a light, an attraction, and a power. Therefore it says, "Sleeper, awake! Rise from the dead, and Christ will shine on you." May we join the azaleas and budding trees during this Spring season as we unfold on the inside light, the attraction, and the power of Christ at work within us. Then we will live as children of light— for the fruit of the light is found in all that is good and right and true.