In the name of God ☩
Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. Amen.
Jesus
said, “I am the light of the world.” And do we ever need some light right now. One
piece of advice for preachers is to not open a sermon by digging a hole so deep
that you can’t get out of it by the end of the sermon. Well, I didn’t dig the
hole that we’re in, but it’s certainly a deep one. And to be clear, I’m not
going to pretend that I can fix this, but I am hoping to point to the Light of
the world that has come to us in Jesus.
What
makes the coronavirus pandemic so difficult is that it’s not only a health
crisis. Yes, we want to stay healthy, we don’t want to overload our healthcare
system, we don’t want to spread this virus any further. And that’s a big enough
challenge. But there’s more. This is also a pandemic of fear, and justifiable fear.
To be clear, acting out of fear in selfish ways is not a good thing. But this
is a scary situation. There’s never been a pandemic in the age of technology
where every morning we can wake up and know how many new cases there are. Don’t
get me wrong, I’m grateful for technology and science, but you’ve heard the
phrase “paralysis by analysis?” Well, we’re there and the fear is overwhelming
for a lot of us. Life at times seems normal and at times seems unimaginable, it
sometimes feels like we’re overreacting and underreacting at the same time.
There’s
also a pandemic of grief and disappointment over the fact that we can’t worship
in person for at least another two months, that we can’t hang out with friends in a
coffee shop or restaurant, that proms are being canceled, that graduating
seniors had their high school or college careers end abruptly with no chance for
traditions they were looking forward to. It hurts, I know. In the clergy
vesting room, I’ve got a graduation gown that I bought to wear at Sewanee in
May that will go unworn. Vacations have been canceled, babies are going
unvisited by grandparents, weddings are being postponed, jobs and income are
being lost, and sadly, some businesses will end up closing.
We’re
also left grieving the undeniable fact that we all have limits. We know there is
no plan to make things return to normal tomorrow. We are realizing that we are
not in control. We have come face to face with our vulnerability. A few weeks
ago, we gathered on Ash Wednesday, we were reminded that “you are dust, and to
dust you shall return.” But if we’re honest with ourselves, for most of us,
that was an abstract idea. But now we realize that our vulnerability means that
death could come much sooner than we had imagined. Yes, we are good about saying
that we trust our lives to God, but now we’re thinking more and more about how
we trust our deaths to God as well.
We’re
also dealing with a pandemic of loneliness. Even before the coronavirus came
along, many Americans reported feeling disconnected and lonely. Social
distancing and essentially being mostly quarantined doesn’t help with that. There’s
boredom and uncertainty and it’s taking a toll on us all. And though we are
alone more often, I want you to know that you aren’t alone in Christ. I’m
thinking of you all daily and can be available for phone calls and video chats
if you just need to talk or want someone to pray with.
I
want to share with you some words from St. Paul. They aren’t in the readings
for today, but we need to hear them today. From chapter 8 of Romans, “I
consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with
the glory about to be revealed to us… What then are we to say about these
things? If God is for us, who is against us? He who did not withhold his
own Son, but gave him up for all of us, will he not with him also give us
everything else?... It is Christ Jesus, who died, yes, who was raised, who is
at the right hand of God, who indeed intercedes for us. Who will separate
us from the love of Christ? Will hardship, or distress, or persecution, or
famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? As it is written,
‘For your sake we are being killed all day
long;
we are accounted as sheep to be slaughtered.’
No, in all these things we are more than conquerors
through him who loved us. For I am convinced that neither death, nor life,
nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor
powers, nor height, nor depth, [nor Coronavirus, nor economic downturn,
nor social distancing,] nor anything else in all creation, will be able to
separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.”
My brothers and
sisters, Christ died for you, Christ was risen for you, and Christ will come again
for us all. There is a lot to grieve, so be gentle with yourselves. Know that
no one knows what we’re doing, none of us have lived through anything like
this. Though this virus is reminding us of our limits, our faith reminds us
that God is limitless in his capacity to save, to redeem, and to love. Grace
and mercy abound because Jesus is the Light of the world.
As
we heard back in the beginning of John, “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.” In his encounter with
this man who had been blind since birth, we’re starting to get a better sense
of what it means to say that Jesus is this Light of the world.
The
world began in darkness. Genesis tells us that “In the beginning when God
created the heavens and the earth, the earth was a
formless void and darkness covered the face of the deep, while a wind from God swept over
the face of the waters.” These two passages, John 1 and Genesis 1 reassure us that
God works with the raw materials of darkness, uncertainty, and chaos to bring
light and life to all. God knows how to handle the chaos we’re experiencing. This
darkness is embodied in the man who could not see – for him, it was all dark. Sometimes
it seems to be the same for us – that because of sin, death, doubt, and fear we
can’t see our way out of the darkness.
Jesus’
disciples ask him a common question, “Who sinned that this man was born blind?”
Notice that Jesus is having none that question. The grammar of our translation
betrays what’s going on here. Ancient Greek manuscripts didn’t contain verses
or punctuation, so sometimes, when we add those in, we can change the meaning
of a text. Some scholars suggest that Jesus’ answer is best read as, “Neither
this man nor his parents sinned (period). He was born blind (period). But so
that God’s works might be revealed in him (comma), we must work the works of him
who sent me.” What this makes clear is that the Incarnation of Jesus into the
world is about showing the glory and power of God to save us. The man was born
blind because that’s how it happened, not because God was punishing anyone.
Notice
that Jesus doesn’t talk about sins, repentance, or forgiveness before healing
the man. He puts some mud on his eyes and tells him to then go wash it off. And
he’s healed. The great 20th-century theologian Karl Barth wrote, “The
people who Jesus heals are not sinners, but sufferers. Jesus doesn’t start with
their past and then interpret their tragic present in light of it, rather from
their present he creates a new future for them.” You see, the thing is that Jesus
isn’t concerned about worthiness, because none of us are worthy, rather he’s
concerned about neediness, because all of us are needy. Remember this during
the coronavirus. This virus is not God’s revenge because of anything. Yes, there’s
a chance the virus started in another species and came to infect humans because
of what we’ve done to the environment and natural habitats. But that’s the
cause and effect of human sin, not divine punishment. Just as God did not cause
this man to be born blind, nor did God cause the coronavirus. And just as God’s
glory shined through this man’s life, so too will God’s grace and glory break forth again and again in our world.
What
this story in John is doing is to help us open our eyes so that we’re able to
see that the light is shining. In John’s telling of the Gospel, there are no
miracles, but there are signs. And this miraculous healing is a sign that
points us towards the living, loving, and liberating God. The Pharisees in this
story weren’t ready to see the light, and so they didn’t. This is why Jesus
says that those who think they can see might, actually, be blind. They got
stuck on the “how” of the healing. But “how” is the wrong place to focus;
instead, it’s the “why” that Jesus points us towards. The why of this healing
is that God loves us, that God wants us to know that through Jesus, all will be
redeemed.
When it comes to
recounting what happened to him, the healed man has a very simple response, “I
don’t how he did it, why he did it on the Sabbath, or whether or not he’s a
sinner, all I know is that I was blind, but now I see.” Sometimes that’s the best
posture for faith, especially when things are difficult. I heard the story of a
group of choir members who were at a party and the topic of faith came up. What
made the conversation unique was a few choir members were atheists, but were a
paid singers in the choir. While there was a lot of back-and-forth about
questions of faith, eventually someone asked Fred about what he thought and he
said, “Well, all I know is that Jesus was killed, and then three days later he
was alive again, and I’ve got to deal with what that means for my life.”
Everyone was silenced by his humble and sincere faith.
My friends, in these
days ahead not many of us will have answers or be able to answer the question
of how we fix the financial market, how we stop the virus from spreading, or
how we keep our sanity amidst all of these changes. And even if we get some
answers, we might not like them. But what I can tell you is that God’s love
abides. I can tell you that Jesus is the Light of the world, and even after the
darkest of days, the sun will rise. I can tell you that, in the words of CS
Lewis, “I believe in Christ as I believe that the sun has risen: not only
because I see it, but because by it I see everything else.” In the midst of the
darkness of this pandemic, there’s a lot of light in the tireless work of those
in the medical field, in the compassion of school staffs still caring for their
students from afar, in the generosity of the public to support small businesses
and non-profits, in the tenderness with which we are caring for one another
from a distance. My prayer for us all is that our hearts be warmed as the Light
of the world shines into them, that our affections burn with love for those in
need, and that our lives might be mirrors which reflect the grace of God in our
world. Jesus Christ is the Light of the World, and so all shall be well, and
all shall be well, and all manner of things shall be well.
