Good Friday Sermon

Good Friday - 2010
April 2, 2010

Artificial Light

It doesn’t really work – does it? This elaborate ritual, devised centuries ago, which has aided the faithful in every generation. This wonderful service of transformation into darkness hits a snag in our day, tonight, here.

Symbolically we have moved to darkness – symbolically. But not in reality. You can still see me, can’t you? I can still read my sermon notes – almost. This wonderful ancient liturgy, designed to transport us from light into dark doesn’t really work.

One of the culprits is day light savings time. If we were still on standard time, it would be dark. But we decided (“we” being the wise, technologically advanced persons we are) we decided to adjust our clocks and re-arrange our workday thus giving us one more hour to play on the lake or manicure our English garden type front lawns. “We” decided, and “we” could do it, so we did. And then we tell everyone – everyone, including those with religious interests that the clock we have decided to adjust will rule the day and not the movement of God’s sun.

It is amazing what we can do. We become so amazed with ourselves that we cannot avoid the temptation to do that which we are capable of. And so we strap a Timex on our wrist or invest in a Rolex, and we follow the methodical clicks of spinning wheels and no longer allow our lives to be governed by the movement of God’s sun.

Amazing, isn’t it?

What some would call amazing is that a flock of folks would set their alarms in order to gather in a specially crafted building in order to try to pretend that “we” haven’t already figured out a way to take care of all this fear of darkness stuff.

Everyone knows, right? That all we have to do is walk back there to that panel of switches and start to flip a few and pretty soon this whole charade falls apart. Heck, forget the switches. If all of us took out our cell phones and opened them up they would give off enough light to perform minor surgery.

Darkness? What darkness? There is darkness in the world ONLY IF WE CHOOSE to turn off those switches. You have to work at it, in order to find a place – or - be in a place where there is no light. There is darkness only if we choose.

The same can be said for silence.

Good Friday is all about darkness and silence. The darkness swirls all around Jesus. Part of the story is the acknowledgment that darkness over takes Jerusalem from noon till three in the afternoon.

God remains silent – even as Jesus cries from the cross, “My God, My God, why have your forsaken me?”

Darkness and silence. We do a great job pushing them back; denying their existence.

All we need to do is flip a switch. And if I turn my head the wrong way this wireless mic is likely to give us that annoying screeching noise. Annoying, but reassuring, to those who have grown uncomfortable because of the silence.

We have created for ourselves a world bathed in light and sound. Forget the stereo on my shelf at home, I have a boom box in my office, an MP3 player in my book bag and two iPods loaded down with music and radio news shows. We have not just one but three of those handy gadgets which make the flood lights come on as you move from our driveway to our backyard to my woodworking shop. Darkness? What darkness? Silence? What silence?

There is an adjective sometimes used for the lights which illuminate our footpath and makes it possible to see the threatening thing in the yard which has the dog upset and barking. I think, technically, the word still applies, though I would admit that it has gone out of vogue. Isn’t it appropriate to call this kind of light “artificial lighting.” Is that phrase still used enough that you are familiar with it? Are there still references to incandescent, or florescent, or CFL, or LED lighting as “artificial lighting”? We do remember that this is what it is – don’t we? Do we remember that when it was first installed in our homes we called it “artificial lighting”?

It might take some reminding. This is the kind of light we are most accustomed to. This is the kind of lighting which we use the most. Even during the brightest of days, we go inside a building and flip on a switch and we can’t tell or don’t even remember whether the sun is bright or shielded or set. We love our artificial light.

And our love affair with artificial light allows us to ignore the dark, to push back the darkness and to flood every minute of our lives with lots of bright and glorious – artificial – light.

It may be artificial, but if it is all we know. And the danger is that pretty soon we start to believe that it is the real thing – don’t we?

Our love affair with artificial light and artificial sound encourages us to ignore the reality of darkness. Encourages us. But those of us who know darkness knows that all the encouragement in the world won’t overcome the fear and the horror associated with that darkness. Of course I am not referring to physical darkness, but the kind which is much more insidious – the darkness associated with brokenness and heartache. The world’s artificial light can do nothing to push these back.

The true Light has come into the world. Some will turn away from this Light because it exposes their evil deeds. Others will turn away from the Light because they are encouraged to trust the artificial lights sold to them at their local Walmart.

The true light, as fragile as it may appear, is the only hope we have of overcoming the darkness.

Amen.