Good Overcomes Darkness: A Sermon for the Third Sunday After Advent

 

photo Sandy Hook Elementary students evacuating/CNN

I have such a long drive between my home in Tallahassee and St. Barnabas in Valdosta. The upside is that it gives me time to decompress and listen to NPR shows such as 1a. I've even been known to send in comments to the program and get that listener buzz when I hear them use my question or read my comment on the air. "Susan" has been cited at least a couple of times. :-)

This past Wednesday, the first hour of the program was dedicated to talking with the producers and participants in a podcast called Still Newtown. It was one of those must-listen radio moments. And it became a large contributor to my thoughts for this sermon. 

Texts: Is. 35:1-10; Ps.146: 4-9; James 5:7-10; Matt 11:2-11

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Good morning!

Welcome to Gaudete Sunday… or Rejoicing Sunday… or Pink Candle Sunday. The Church declared this a special day in Advent to give us a chance to step off the path of preparation and self-examination… and bask in the joy and wonderment of God’s love.

At least…that’s what the scholars say.

I would rather believe that after a couple weeks of preparation and probing of our hearts and minds…maybe we’ve been led to some new revelations…ones that might have raised some questions.

And it has been my experience that God rejoices at our questions…and taking us a little further along the path of faith and relationship…all leading to more joy and wonderment of God’s love.

Sometimes…it’s in those moments in our lives when we are feeling adrift…or out-of-sync with God…or even doubtful of God… that we’re ready to be found…in that Amazing Grace sort-of-way.

I recently learned of a podcast called “Still Newtown.” This coming Wednesday will mark the 10^th anniversary of the mass shooting that took place at Sandy Hook Elementary School, and this podcast is a multi-part series looking at the community today.

It was such a devastating event for the whole country…but especially to the parents and that town of 30-thousand people.

And while the podcast looks back on what happened…it’s main focus is on what has happened in the intervening time and how the community has pulled together.

There was an interview with the producer and one of the Sandy Hook parents talking about the show.

Jenny Hubbard’s daughter…Katherine… was six years-old when she was killed at school that day.

In the episode featuring her story…Jenny describes how her daughter always had a deep innate connection to animals.

Katherine loved every type of creature and would regularly go to the local pound and bring Milkbone biscuits for the dogs.

Jenny had to make a rule in their house that any creature Katherine brought home… worms… frogs… butterflies… would have to be released at the end of the day.

The little girl would enjoy her temporary pet…and when she’d take them outside to let them go… she’d ask them to “tell all your friends that I am kind.”

When Katherine died… and Jenny was filling out the obituary form… she had intended to have donations go to the Animal Control Center of Newtown… the pound that her daughter loved to visit with dog biscuits.

But Jenny left out the word “Control.”

Her mistake led to thousands of dollars in donations going to a small animal rescue outfit called “The Animal Center of Newtown.”

The women who ran the center met with Jenny Hubbard to ask what she would like them to do with this sudden extraordinary gift of cash.

And from that…the Katherine Violet Hubbard Animal Sanctuary was born… a place where children…adults…and animals can safely be together… and see the goodness of God’s creation in each other.

The motto of the sanctuary: “Tell all your friends that I am kind.”

Out of such a dark and tragic place… joy and the love of God’s creation has emerged.

It doesn’t erase the hurt of that day.

But the memory of Katherine isn’t that of a tragic victim.

She lives on as a child who loved all creatures beyond measure.

It’s that recollection of better memories… the joy of life… that presents itself in Jesus’ answer to John’s lament as he sits in prison.

Think about how last week…John was the prophet out at the River Jordan ready for change to happen.

He was promising the people that there was one even greater than him coming.

So great, in fact, that he wasn’t even worthy to carry his sandals.

That’s how sure he was that Jesus was “the” one, the Messiah.

Now John is in prison.

Prisons are places where hope goes to die.
Prisoners lose all their liberties.

They have no say over when they eat…or what they eat for that matter.

Doors clang open and shut all the time.

Their world is shrunk to the size of a 6-foot by 9-foot cell.

It’s just misery.

And it’s in this place where John is left to wonder: is Jesus really the Messiah?

We can hear in his questioning that nagging doubt:

“Did I get it wrong? I know that for him to increase… I must decrease. But I wanted a Messiah who was going to set things right…get us back to the purest religion… call the Sadducees and Pharisees “brood of vipers!”

When we’re in the belly of the darkest places of our lives… that’s when those voices of doubt seem to turn up the volume.

And for John… the stereo is all the way up to eleven.

Jesus hears about his concerns, his doubts and his fears.

But notice that he doesn’t answer the Messiah question.

Instead… Jesus goes back to the words of our poet and prophet Isaiah.

Isaiah is writing at a time of exile…when the people are scattered and in a type of wilderness moment in their lives.

The prophet is encouraging the people to remember that the God who delivered them out of bondage and oppression in Egypt will once more bring relief to their suffering.

Waters will flow in the desert…eyes will be opened…the deaf will hear and the lame will be able to walk.

Jesus draws upon this imagery and these words to speak to John’s anxiety.

Important to bear in mind: when Isaiah and Jesus talk about the blind being able to see and the deaf to hear… they aren’t talking about actual physical disabilities.

Like with so many other Bible passages that some have taken literally… these words have been used to harass people with physical differences… and to ostracize them when faith healings don’t work.

This is about spiritual blindness and deafness… giving strength to those who… for whatever reason… find that their circumstances are causing their faith to crumble.

Jesus is reminding John and us to not lose sight of the light and the joy even when we’re in a place of sorrow and despair.

Allow for the stirring of our memories of a God who doesn’t abandon us… and will be with us to end of our days.

Those memories get captured in the growing light of our Advent wreath.

It serves as the reminder of something Jenny Hubbard said in the Still Newtown podcast.

She talked about discovering hope in her grieving process. When asked what she hoped for, she said that when we become stagnant in our grief or complacent, we might miss out on the next blessing.

In her words:

“Goodness will always come out of darkness…regardless of what the darkness might be.”

In the name of God… F/S/HS.