Sermon:  Companions Waiting in the Dark

Texts: Micah 5:2-5a; Luke 1:39-55

Date: December 24, 2007

Rev. Dee Eisenhauer, EagleHarbor Congregational Church

            We all got a little taste of darkness in the last couple of weeks, didn’t we?  The wind robbed us temporarily of the light and heat to which we are so accustomed.  Now we all have our own storm stories to tell. 

            One can kind of forget how dark the dark really is when you’re usually distracted by the yellow glow of light bulbs and the greenish light of the television screen and the blue-white glow of the computer monitor; not to mention the multicolored lights of Christmas bulbs adorning houses and trees this time of year.  When all those lights suddenly disappear, and the darkness of night wraps around you like black velvet, it gives you pause, doesn’t it?  Ever apt to state the obvious, I heard myself say more than once, “Wow, it’s really dark out.”  Did you?  Of course, that same darkness has been out there every single night; I just don’t stop and take notice of it all that often.

            We stepped into darkness of another kind in our Bible study last week.  I can’t quite remember how the topic came up, but one person in our circle said that she was having kind of a hard time sending out Christmas cards this year.  And it wasn’t just because she was too busy with other preparations for celebrating Christmas.  She is just used to sending a message about “Peace on Earth” at Christmastime, and she doesn’t have the heart for it this year.  If I am paraphrasing her correctly, it feels like a lie to write “Peace on Earth” when there is no peace, or at least when our nation is engaged in a wicked war with no end in sight.  Other heads in the study circle nodded.  And suddenly in that little room, snap, the winds of war robbed us of light as we each got in touch with our sadness about the many bloody conflicts raging around the world.

            For me, anyway, it was a moment of noticing again that wow, it’s dark out there.  In the Iraq war, we’re coming up on a grim milestone—3,000 American military deaths—which we’ll probably get to in the next week or so.  We’re spending about $2 billion per week on the war—around $350 billion so far—while at last weekend’s Christmas dinner at the Church of Mary Magdalene  homeless families flocked to a church basement to root through boxes of donated hats to ward off the cold of the streets.  It’s dark out there.

            One of the promises about the future king the prophet Micah voices leaps off the page: “And he shall be the one of peace.”  The one of peace.  You can hear the longing in those words, especially considering that Micah’s country was standing in the dark shadow of war when Micah was preaching.  The Northern kingdom of Israel had already fallen to the mighty Assyrian army, and the southern kingdom of Judah, Micah’s home, was wobbling, ready to topple into the hands of Assyria as well.  The promise of God through the prophet is that the future king, out of the line of David, will bring an era of security; “and he shall be the one of peace.” 

            Mary’s prophecy in the Magnificat doesn’t repeat that promise in so many words; but Zechariah’s, on the next page, does.  Under Holy Spirit power, just like Mary, he speaks of the day when the Messiah will “guide our feet into the way of peace.”  Aren’t we ready for that day, when we are guided into the way of peace, when writing “Peace on Earth” on a card will be just another statement of the obvious?

            But meanwhile, it’s dark out there.  It’s not easy to keep the faith that there will ever be a time of peace on earth, that there will be a time when all the surprising rehearsals in the Magnificat will come to light.  Preacher Will Willemon likes to tell the story of meeting a young college student who approached him after he preached a sermon on the Annunciation (when the angel announced Mary’s pregnancy to her) at a chapel service.  The student said he found the virgin birth just too incredible to believe.  Willemon didn’t bat an eye.  He just said, "You think that's incredible, come back next week. Then, we will tell you that 'God has cast down the mighty from their thrones, and has lifted up the lowly.' We'll talk about the hungry having enough to eat and the rich being sent away empty. The virgin birth? If you think you have trouble with the Christian faith now, just wait. The virgin birth is just a little miracle; the really incredible stuff is coming next week."  Well, that’s where we are, the week of the really incredible.  It’s hard to keep the faith that such things might come to pass in this dark world.

            Yet we recall as we encounter Mary and Elizabeth that God’s promises were hatched in the darkness in both of these women—the darkness of their wombs.  One was too old to conceive, the other too young; one barren and the other a virgin, as the story goes.  And the wonderful story tells us that God entered into the darkness of this human flesh, entered the dark core of them, and gestated hope and healing there.  Darkness is no match for the Almighty; even in deep darkness God can create a new thing.

            It’s lovely that these two women could share some of the time of their pregnancy together.  I went to see the Nativity Story movie in its brief run at the Bainbridge Pavilion while it was here.  I found it a little flat over all, but the visit Mary made to Elizabeth in the film was very engaging.  Mary knew she had to confide in someone, and since the angel had told her about her cousin Elizabeth’s pregnancy, she begged her parents’ permission to go and stay with her a while.  Elizabeth celebrates with Mary, as you heard in the reading.  There is no doubting, no questioning, no blaming, no suspicion on the older woman’s part; she just gives Mary total love and acceptance.  They work together at women’s tasks, sharing the joy and excitement of pregnancy together.  Mary attends the birth of John along with the midwives.  It seems clear in the film that it is this precious time together that gives Mary the strength to face the distress of her family and the scorn of her neighbors when she goes home. 

            Henri Nouwen wrote a reflection on this story of Mary and Elizabeth that helped me see it in a new way.  He writes of being deeply moved by their encounter, saying, “In the midst of an unbelieving, doubting, pragmatic and cynical world, two women meet each other and affirm the promise given to them…For three months Mary and Elizabeth live together and encourage each other to truly accept the motherhood given to them…Neither Mary nor Elizabeth had to wait in isolation.  They could wait together and thus deepen in each other their faith in God, for whom nothing is impossible.  Thus, God’s most radical intervention into history was listened to and received in community.”[1] 

            Nouwen goes on to say that the story teaches him the meaning of friendship and community.  He asks, “How can I ever let God’s grace fully work in my life unless I live in a community of people who can affirm it, deepen it, and strengthen it?  We cannot live this new life alone.  God does not want to isolate us by his grace.  On the contrary, he wants us to form new friendships and new community—holy places where his grace can grow to fullness and bear fruit.”[2] 

            This is how we keep the faith in God’s grace when we live in a dark time.  We gather with companions in the darkness to encourage each other.  We did that during the power outage—maybe you did, too.  We wound up having some joyful meals with friends we might not have had if everything had been operating normally.  Church is not all that different as we gather around Christ’s table to the light of candles we have lit as a reminder of the Light of the World.  We gather in a holy place like this, or in twos and threes out in the world, and we affirm all the ways God’s grace is growing in the world.  We affirm the growth of grace in our own lives.  We encourage each other to nurture the growth of grace we experience in the places we live and work.

            Some of you have thanked me for being with you in some difficult times lately.  I couldn’t articulate at the moment my response to such expressions of gratitude, but I’ve been thinking about it.  I am so grateful for our wonderful community of faith.  It is a great honor and a privilege to be able to accompany you in your moments of pain and your moments of great joy.  I might get to have this honor of accompaniment a little more often than some of you because of my position in our community, but I hope you also feel the gift of bearing each other’s burdens and sharing each other’s joys. 

            Confidentiality bars me from describing the remarkable incidents of companionship I have experienced in the life of the church this year.  I wish I could lay out the beauty of the walk together I have witnessed in the last few months.  Perhaps you can think of a moment when you have received support or given support to someone else in our family of faith, gotten a hug or a word of encouragement at a crucial time, a moment when you have laughed a deep belly laugh or been moved by some beauty connected to this place.  Let’s pause a moment and think of those of those events…  Our thoughts are weaving an unseen tapestry of memory over our heads that glows with God’s grace.

            God’s promises of strength, inner healing, filling the hungry with good things, being lifted up, and peace that surpasses understanding are all unfolding right here among us.  We can be confident, even when the darkness seems at times overwhelming, that the light of God’s grace is being seen and felt all over the world, even as it is within and between our little community.  Our companionship as a community of faith helps us to remember and understand these promises.  Thanks be to God!

            We share in this blessed community the blessing Elizabeth sang out about Mary: Blessed are they who believe there will be a fulfillment of all that the Lord has spoken.  Let’s join with our companions and sing Mary’s poetry as together we celebrate the light that the darkness will never overcome.

[1] Nowen, Henri  The Road to Daybreak: A Spiritual Journey  New York: Image Books, 1988, p. 101

[2] Ibid.