Saying Good-bye in Order to Say Hello

This is a great season of the Christian Year to take a close look at our human dilemma – we live in the darkness while seeking the light. We want to see where we are going and find a path that leads us away from the darkness in life.

This is a great time to see the darkness we live in as we support a consumer lifestyle. I’m not taking about darkness of those who may be evil in spirit, and there are plenty of folks that would fit into that category, but about those who have a good spirit but still live in the darkness of consumerism.

I can clearly recall the early Christmases that Bif experienced. When Christmas morning finally made its way to the parsonage at Patton Chapel, I could hardly wait for him to wake up and see all the toys under the Christmas tree. As a matter of fact, I usually got tired of waiting for him to wake up and would wake him up to see all the gifts. When I was a boy we young’uns did all we could to stay away all night just to get a glimpse of Santa. No matter how late before we finally were off to sleep, we were up with the sun or a little before. I could not understand how he could sleep in on Christmas morning.

He would finally get up, waddle into the room with the Christmas tree, look around at all the gifts and toys piled on top of one another, and then turn and go back to bed. He was, I think, overwhelmed with all the toys. There was no way he could wake up and then come into the room full of toys and choose one to play with when there were so many.

I was always deeply disappointed. My fantasy was that he would walk into the room and literally shout praises for all that was under the tree and running out from under it. He never did live up to my fantasies. It took a number of years of disappointment to realize it was not by adding more toys but having fewer toys was what was needed.

I like many, perhaps most, parents overwhelm our children with what we can give materially when they are asking for us to give ourselves. Please, don’t misunderstand what I’m saying because I’m a big Christmas fan but during Advent it is time to look at what Christmas is all about.

Gifts! Sure, Christmas is about gifts. Giving and Receiving! Sure, Christmas is all about giving and receiving. Why, this time of year we celebrate the greatest Gift one could ever imagine– God comes to earth in swaddling clothes as one of us. Yet, it seems the more we buy the farther we edge away from the great Gift. The Darkness is that call to be more involved with life’s toys than with life’s salvation.

Robert Benson shares a time with his father during the last days and hours before his death. His father has invited family and friends to come visit with him.

“One afternoon, after some of his friends had just left – friends he well knew he would never see again – my father said to me, “I sure do hate saying good-bye.” He squeezed my hand.

Without thinking, which likely accounts for whatever wisdom there is in the remark, I squeezed back and said, “But if you do not say good-bye, then you cannot say what comes next. And what comes next is always hello.”

All of our lectionary readings for today have to do with expecting the end and the beginning to happen. A new age of God’s rule, that will be a time of peace and love in a radical sense. We Christians see this as the birth of our Lord. Advent is a time of being ready.

Jesus made it clear that no one, not the angels, not even Jesus, knows when the end time will be other than God. Even though we have a number of people who spend a great deal of time and energy attempting to know what this take place, we are told there is not way for us to know. However, I confess that I always purchase the National Enquirer or other tabloids when their headlines have something about the end of time. No matter how much figuring we do we will not figure this out and we will not know the mind of God.

However, we know that Jesus has come and birthed a New Age – God’s kingdom is present. God’s kingdom is already here and it is also coming. God has placed us in the Kingdom and called us to share it with others. We know God has come to this earth as a human being and we know that God will return – through Jesus.

If you listened to the last verse of the Gospel lesson, you heard another thing that we can know for sure – He will come when it is unexpected. So, we don’t know when, but we do know we can expect the return of Jesus and it will be when we don’t expect it.
We also know that Jesus brings us a new light to live by – a new light for walking our path through life.

Safety in the Light
Missionaries living in Ghana, West Africa, tell of the biblical implications of light. “On Sunday nights we met with four to six other missionary families for prayer, fellowship, and Bible study. Our meetings started at about 5:30 p.m., while it was yet light outside, and lasted until well after dark. We loved each one of those families, but always felt a bit squeamish when it was Rebecca and Gary's turn to host the fellowship.
Rebecca and Gary were assigned to a bush hospital in an area that was full of snakes -- green and black mambas, vipers, spitting cobras, you name it! When missionaries get together, eventually conversations drift toward daily concerns -- like the number of snakes killed last week, and other unmentionables. So there we were, at Rebecca and Gary's, hearing the "snake report," knowing that soon after we would have to walk through the grass, in the dark, to retrieve our cars. All of us, except Rebecca and Gary, were afraid of the prospect of disturbing a snoozing snake, so Rebecca usually walked us to our cars. I still have an indelible visual image of Rebecca directing light from a big flashlight on the path where we walked saying: "You will be all right as long as you walk in the light, walk in the light, walk in the light." During that period of my life, light became a sacred image.”
Saying Good-bye to Darkness and Hello to the Light

It is time for us Christians to live differently than those who are not Christian. In order to do this we will have to say “Good-bye to the Darkness.” This means we will need to be more selective of how we are stewards of what God provides us. How are we going to use our money? Oh, or is it actually “Our” money? How are we going to use our time? Again, is it really “Our time?” And how are we going to use our experiences with the Lord? Yes, these are our personal genuine experiences with the Lord Jesus.

We live in the light when we live in expectancy! We can expect Jesus every second of our lives and when we do, we will perk up rather than being overwhelmed. We will find ourselves excited to be living even when life is at its toughest. Do I mean that we will live with a fake smile on our faces and act as though everything is hunky-dory? I sure don’t mean that kind of stuff at all.

Living with Christian expectancy is living honestly and genuinely as we relate to others as well as ourselves. It is being who we are every day rather than pretending to be someone we are not.

Living in the Light means that we recognize that there are snakes all along the path of life and that we are incapable of producing the light needed to safely travel our path. We need a light that is greater than we are and God has provided the needed Light – Jesus.

When we try to make it on our own we do just like Bif, we look around and become overwhelmed and go back into our sleep. When we walk in the Light we see the reality of life all around us and know that there is Hope and Love. And we look within and see the Light as it shines in our lives – we want to share this with others.

Folks, Advent is all about saying Good-bye to Darkness so we can say Hello to the Light. Amen.

Between the Dreaming and the Coming True: The Road Home to God, Robert Benson, Jeremy P. Tarcher/Putnam a member of Penguin Putnam Inc., New York, pp. 36-37.

General Board of Discipleship, Sermon Helps for 11/2/07. Internet www.GBOD.org .