Hope in the Darkness
Readings: Mark 13. 24-37
As I mentioned at the start of the service, Advent is a season of waiting. Not waiting around for something to perhaps happen, sitting idly hoping it will happen soon but expectant waiting, eager waiting, indeed busy waiting. Not busy with all the things it’s so easy to be busy with, especially at this time of year, cleaning, shopping, planning, cooking, tying up loose ends at work before a short break. But busy with the things of God, busy in prayer, busy in studying God’s word, busy in sharing the good news of Jesus Christ. Advent is a time to slow down yes, but not to a halt, instead it’s a time to slow down from the things that don’t last into eternity to focus on the things that do.
At Christmas we celebrate the dawning of God’s light into the world, the light shining in the darkness. Advent prepares us for Christmas, but if that’s all it does we’ve missed something important. At Christmas the light dawns, in Advent we await expectantly the noonday, when the light drives out all darkness, when not a shadow will be left.
Advent then is a wake up call, an annual klaxon blast to jolt us awake if we’ve dozed off, Jesus is coming soon.
And he tells us in our Gospel reading for today that no-one, not even he knows the time or date of his return, only the Father, so we shouldn’t go trying to predict it. It’s easy after 2000 years of waiting to assume things will go on forever and he won’t return for another 2000 years. We don’t know, but we do know this, he’s 2000 years closer to his return than he was when he spoke these words.
And how much do we long for that day at the moment. We feel the darkness of our world at the moment don’t we. With wars raging in Israel & Gaza, in Ukraine. The horrors unfolding in those places filling our screens, and even with 24 hour rolling coverage there doesn’t seem to be enough time to cover the awful horrors unfolding around the world at the moment. As we switch on the news we feel the darkness pressing in.
Indeed as the days grow shorter we feel the darkness more acutely. Everything always feels worse in the darkness, at night. With so much awful happening across the world and as the nights draw in I know many people have already put on their Christmas music, decorated the house and put up the lights in an attempt to keep the darkness both physical and that we feel at a deeper level, at bay.
But when the darkness feels overwhelming Christians have cause for hope. When everything is going wrong and the world is a mess, Christians have cause for hope. When all seems lost, and all hope seems to have vanished, the light still shines in the darkness and the darkness has not overcome it. The darkness may have its day now, but it’s nights are numbered, the forces of darkness may have their time now, but they know that their time is short. The light that dawned 2000 years ago is coming and the darkness is destined to lose.
So we have hope, not an empty, somehow this will all work out sort of hope, but hope in the promises of God much like those Patriarchs who first heard God’s call. And we have hope in the promises of Jesus, the Saviour they longed for, that the present earth and the present heaven are passing away, that at Jesus’ return they will be renewed and restored. That evil will be driven out from our world, that we will at last be cleansed from all our sin, no longer torn between our fallen nature and our Spirit filled lives. That God will dwell with his people, ruling over all things as King. That he will bring an end to death and pain and suffering, indeed that he will wipe every tear from our eyes. God will at last satisfy our deepest longings, quenching our thirst with the waters of life. That God will draw to himself, to his city, people’s from every tribe and nation and tongue, that the gates of the city will never be shut, for there is nothing to fear any longer.
Sound too good to be true? Sound like a dream? Sound impossible? This isn’t a new work of God, something he’s said he will do with no proof, rather it’s the fulfilment of the work of Jesus, the work that begins in the manger.
At his second coming evil be driven out completely, just as in his first coming evil is driven out by the mere sound of his voice, at his word darkness and demons flee. In his second coming we will be cleansed from all our sins, restored to innocence, just as in his first appearing he went about both rebuking and forgiving sin. And through his death on the cross our sins are washed away, flung as far from us as East is from West and we are strengthened by the Holy Spirit to do the will of God. Just as Jesus left the glory of heaven to join us in our humility, so too at his second coming we will be lifted from the dust of our mortality to share in the glory of heaven. Just as God in Jesus entered into the pain and suffering of our world, even to the point of death, to suffer alongside us as our brother, so too he will bring an end to all suffering and death. Just as here in this age God fulfils our longings in him, so in the age to come they will be completely satisfied.
God isn’t planning a new thing, he’s finishing what he started. It’s the shape of all of Scripture, from Genesis where God speaks into darkness let there be light, to the darkness and desolation of Good Friday, bursting forth in glorious Easter Dawn.
So in the darkness cling to Christ, the one who has begun his work, the one who will bring it to fruition. This Advent look not just to the dawning brightness of Jesus’ birth but to the dazzling glory of his return as we await the promised hope. All of creation is destined for light, the darkness banished forever.
As spoken word poet and evangelist Glen Scrivener once put it:
‘this is the nature of shadow and gloom, in the gleaming of glory there can be no room. What force is resourced by the echoing black, when the brightness ignites, can the shadow push back? The forces of darkness, if such can be called, are banished by brilliance, by blazing enthralled. The triumph is not with the armies of night, it dawned with the one who said, I am the light.’
Our Lord Jesus says I am coming soon,
Amen, come Lord Jesus.
Amen