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Lamppost in the Woods


Isaiah 9:2-5; John 1:1-9
December 2, 2018
First Presbyterian Church, Sterling IL
Christina Berry

Our first reading today is from the prophet Isaiah, words of comfort and light that have illuminated the lives of people for more than two thousand years. The prophet sought to bring God’s message to a suffering people, people who were living amid the ravages of war, in a kind of dark ages in which there seemed to be little hope. In these words, the prophet recalls the day of Midian, an historic battle in which the Israelites triumphed, not because of their superior skill and strategy, but thanks only to the power and might of God. For the battle of Midian, Gideon gathered 32,000 men. But God said that was too many, and that if they had an army that strong, the victory would be attributed to Gideon and the army, not God. So God winnowed them down to 300 soldiers, 300 men who were not the best, strongest, and most alert. And then God delivered the Midianites to the Israelites. The God who shines light in the darkness is the God of Israel, who will bring us into the light. Let’s listen for the promise of God in Isaiah 9:2-5

The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light;
those who lived in a land of deep darkness—on them light has shined.
You have multiplied the nation, you have increased its joy;
they rejoice before you as with joy at the harvest,
as people exult when dividing plunder.

For the yoke of their burden, and the bar across their shoulders,
the rod of their oppressor, you have broken as on the day of Midian.
For all the boots of the tramping warriors
and all the garments rolled in blood shall be burned as fuel for the fire.

God’s word for God’s people.
Thanks be to God.

Our gospel reading comes from the beginning of John’s gospel, and echoes the beginning of the Bible itself in Genesis 1:1 – “In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth…” 

So we begin, in the beginning, 
the word WAS, eternally pre-existent before creation, 
and the word was WITH God, the relationship of the Trinity 
and the word WAS GOD – fully and completely one with God. 
Then, as in Genesis, God said, “Let there be light, and there was light.” That light is the light of the world, shining in the darkness, uncreated and unending, surprising, like a lamppost in the woods, guiding people to God.

Let’s listen for God’s word to us in John 1: 1-9

In the beginning was the Word,
and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.
He was in the beginning with God.
All things came into being through him,
and without him not one thing came into being.
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.

There was a man sent from God, whose name was John.
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.
The true light, which enlightens everyone, was coming into the world.

The word of the Lord.
Thanks be to God.

“[Lucy] began to walk forward, crunch-crunch through the snow and toward the other light. In about ten minutes she reached it and found it was a lamppost. As she stood looking at it, wondering why there was a lamppost in the middle of a wood, and wondering what to do next, she heard a pitter-patter of feet coming toward her.”

In those three sentences, C. S. Lewis introduces us to the lamppost, the light shining in the darkness, the light which had been shining in Narnia for generations, and had never been extinguished.

Lucy had come away from London, with her sister and two brothers, to live in this country house, away from the bombs of war-torn London. Like the Israelites in the time of Isaiah, like the Israelites in the time of John’s gospel, the Pevensie children were living in a time of chaos and conflict. They needed physical safety, and their spirits needed light.

C. S. Lewis used the lamppost to represent the light of God. Lewis was no stranger to that light, nor to the darkness. In fact, his conversion to Christianity took place near dawn, after a long night of wrestling with the claims of faith which he had encountered in reading George McDonald and G. K. Chesterton, and which had been shared with him by his dear friend, J. R. R. Tolkien.

"You must picture me alone in that room at Magdalen,” he wrote, “night after night, feeling, whenever my mind lifted even for a second from my work, the steady, unrelenting approach of Him whom I so earnestly desired not to meet. That which I greatly feared had at last come upon me. … I gave in, and admitted that God was God, and knelt and prayed: perhaps, that night, the most dejected and reluctant convert in all England"[1]

In writing the Narnia Chronicles, as with his other works of fiction, Lewis departed from his previous writing of Christian apologetics, in which he sets out brilliant and beautifully logical arguments for the beliefs of Christianity. Central to the story in The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe is this symbolic lamppost at the entrance to Narnia, an odd thing to find in the middle of a snowy wood, and an outdated object even in the 1940s.

This lamppost will play an important role in the story.
It helps the Pevensie children to see which way to go.
Its light helps them believe in what they have seen,
and, eventually it is a beacon pointing toward home.

Imagery of light in the scriptures is pervasive, from the beginning of all things in Genesis, through the books of history, in the prophets and the wisdom literature, and in the description of Jesus as the light of the world.

In Psalm 139, the poet describes the light of God’s presence, saying,
“Where can I go from your spirit? Or where can I flee from your presence?
If I ascend to heaven, you are there; if I make my bed in Sheol, you are there.
If I take the wings of the morning and settle at the farthest limits of the sea,
even there your hand shall lead me, and your right hand shall hold me fast.
If I say, “Surely the darkness shall cover me,
and the light around me become night,”
even the darkness is not dark to you;
the night is as bright as the day, for darkness is as light to you.”
The metaphor holds for us today.
The colorful lights of Christmas, on trees and in windows,
the sparkle of sunshine on snow, the glow of candlelight on Christmas Eve,
all bring to mind the astonishing power of light
to transform our world and our perspective.

Christ as the light of the world, a light to the nations,
is the truest expression of God’s light.

It is so unexpected, to find a lamppost in the woods.
It is even more unexpected to encounter God in human form,
the Word made flesh, in whom there is no darkness at all.

Christ gives us the power to expel the darkness,
not only in the shadowy, war-torn world around us,
but also the darkness deep within each one of us.

In another of the Narnia books, one of the characters says,
“To defeat the darkness out there,
you must defeat the darkness in yourself.”

But we cannot defeat the darkness alone.
Like Lucy, who needs help from Mr. Tumnus,
and like Mr. Tumnus, who needs forgiveness from Lucy,
we are incapable of doing this on our own.
We need one another, and we need God in Christ.

So we come to the lamppost,
seeking the source of the light,
and we come to the table,
seeking the host who has set it,
and we come to this place and this time,
awaiting the light of the world that is coming to us! to US!

Like the unexpected lamppost in the woods,
Christ our light illumines our world.
That light invites to come away from the darkness and the shadows,
away from the bleak world’s sorrows, divisions, and wars and hatred,
into the radiance of love and grace.

That light guides our feet, to see which way to go.
That light shines into our hearts, so we believe in what we have seen,
and focuses our eyes on the God of all creation, rather than on self,
and, eventually, that light is a beacon that points toward home.

Christ himself is our light,
a lamppost shining, improbably, in the woods.

Amen.








[1] Lewis, Clive Staples. Surprised By Joy, ch. 14, p. 266.

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