Rise and shine (or, watching the morning news) -- sermon from Jan 5, 2019 (last day of Christmas)

Reading:  John 1:1-18

Each of the 4 Gospels begins the story of Jesus in their own way.

The Gospel of Mark, the first-written of the 4, says nothing about Jesus’s birth and childhood and starts into his story with the ministry of John the Baptist and Jesus’ baptism by him at about age 30.

The Gospel of Luke goes back to the birth of both John and Jesus, detailing both as miraculous and heralded by angels.

Matthew goes further back, outlining Jesus’ lineage all the way to Abraham, showing Jesus as the fulfilment of the original promises to Israel.

The Gospel of John goes back even further to the beginning of creation itself, echoing the first verses of Genesis 1, connecting Jesus with the meaning and life of all the world.  Genesis 1 says that in the beginning a Word, capital W, came from God, and by that Word came light and the successive proper ordering of all things in creation.   It is this Word – the Logos or Blueprint of all creation, John says, that became flesh in Jesus.

A week ago yesterday a terrible thing happened in Hamilton.  Around 5 pm a 68-year-old man and his 89-year-old mother, both using walkers, were struck by a motorcycle as they were attempting to cross Mohawk Road on their way home with a few groceries they had bought at the Food Basics.  The 68-year-old man was pronounced dead at the hospital, his mother at last report was in critical condition, and the 54-year-old motorcyclist was in critical but stable condition.

Japhia and I first learned of the accident as we watched “Morning Live” Monday morning on CHCH-TV, and it’s there we heard what I later read in the morning paper – that as the three people lay critically injured across three lanes of the five-lane roadway, people in cars drove around them without stopping, in some cases almost running them over again.  Others stopped to take groceries and personal effects, even sifting through the debris to pick out lottery tickets.  We heard someone took one of the two walkers.

I was repulsed.  I felt sick and depressed.  I wondered what we have fallen to in Hamilton.  What darkness have we wandered into?  Is this the kind of city we have become?

It’s one thing to hear about terrible things happening elsewhere – everything from the almost-apocalyptic blazes raging through Australia for months now to the almost-500 shootings in Toronto last year, from the terrible decline of civility and rise of tribalism among our neighbours to the South to the latest severe destabilization of global politics by the assassination of Major General Qasem Soleimani.  It’s another thing, though, to hear of such callous inhumanity and insecurity on our own city streets.

And I have to admit, as I lay in bed last Monday morning and saw the report about the accident scene, I wanted someone to blame.  I thought about the effect Donald Trump has had on us all.  I blamed the weight of all the bad news we absorb every day about political devolution, economic collapse, the pressures of mass immigration, climate change, and who knows what else.  Just a few days before – the same day the accident happened, The Spec featured an opinion piece by Hamilton’s Citizen of the Year for 2019, which lay the blame for “civic sadness” at the personal outrage many have felt about City Council over the past year.

I wondered, how can we not devolve into something less than we used to be, how can we not just begin to act out our most base and inhumane impulses, when that’s the world we live in?  How can we not in the end be overcome by the darkness, and “go to the dark side” ourselves?

But then, come the next day, in Tuesday morning’s paper, I read the rest of the story that was coming to light.  A story about Abbie MacLachlan, a 28-year-old nursing student who saw the three bodies lying on the road when she pulled into the Food Basics parking lot with her young daughter and mother, and who ran from her car to help.  While two other passersby went to the mother and the motorcyclist, Abbie went to the 68-year-old James Wood, the most critically injured, to try to help and comfort him.  She saw his injuries were “catastrophic” so she cradled and stabilized his neck with one arm while she applied pressure to a head wound to try to slow the bleeding.

He was in excruciating pain, so “I kept the conversation very light,” she says.  “In a few minutes it seemed like we were best friends.  I told him to transfer the pain to me so I could bear it and make it a little easier for him.  He must have thanked me a thousand times.  He asked if I would hold his hand.  I grabbed it and I didn’t let go.” 

When paramedics arrived and he was loaded for transfer to the hospital, she tried to eliminate any fear he might be experiencing.  And his last words to her before he was driven away were, “No.  Why should I be scared with my Abbie angel at my side?”

And then I also learned that even though the reports of people driving around the victims, yelling at their helpers to “get out of the f--- way!,” even almost hitting a police officer who had arrived at the scene were true, it turns out a number of people who picked up groceries and personal effects were doing it only to keep them from blowing away or being taken by others, and were later returned.

It was not, and is not all darkness.  The light – the light of life and self-giving love still shines.  And can it be – is it still possible to say, that the darkness has not yet overcome it?  Has not yet extinguished it?

That’s what the early church felt emboldened to believe and proclaim in the light of their experience of the resurrection of Jesus.  In him they saw the light of true life.  They saw in him the acting out of God’s ancient and unending design – what they called the Word, for how life was to be made good.  And even though they saw him unjustly imprisoned, cruelly killed and sadly buried, on the third day and every day after that they also heard and saw and felt in themselves the resurrection of the kind of life he brought to light – a kind of life that lies like a seed planted in every human heart, that sits like a blueprint etched into every human soul, and that Jesus awakened and brings to life within us.

Mr. Rogers is on our radar a lot these days, and many tell the story of something his mother apparently told him as a little boy.  One day, apparently overwhelmed at bad news he was hearing about, he asked his mother where God was when bad things happen, and why God doesn’t do anything about it.  To which his mother replied, “Whenever something bad happens in the world, look for the helpers.”  Maybe what you see and what you make of the world, depends on where you look.

Like in Australia, at the hundreds and thousands of  firefighters and other volunteers from all over the world lining up to do whatever they can to help, and even the pop star Pink who just yesterday pledged $500,000 to help the Australian firefighting and relief efforts.

And like on Mohawk Road a week ago Saturday, at Abbie MacLachlan who cradled and comforted a dying man, two others so far unnamed who helped the other two victims, the neighbours and other passersby who did what they could to save what belonged to James Wood and his mom, and who knows how many others who called 911, who prayed, who helped to shield the victims from the unthinking traffic.

Every day and wherever we are, we walk the line between darkness and light in the world – and darkness and light within ourselves.  Because really it’s not the fault of Donald Trump, of American politics or the weight of bad news these days.  The border between dark and light is one we all walk, and at different times along the way the light is awakened in us or not.  And we act it out, or not.

And the world is waiting and wanting and needing to see it when it happens.  Like the first followers of Jesus who saw the light of God’s life shining in him, the world looks to see the light of his life and God’s life shining in us and in others.

And we know how to do it.  We know how to be it.  We know how to show it.  Because what he does is awaken the light of true life that lies like a sacred seed and sits like a holy blueprint deep in all of us.  It’s why we thrill to the story of Abbie MacLahlan like we do.  It resonates with something deep inside us all as human beings.

On Christmas Eve our worship bulletin included this quotation from Martin Luther:

"See to it that you do not treat the gospel only as history, for that is only transient; neither regard it only as example, for it is of no value without faith.  Rather, see to it that you make this birth your own and that Christ be born in you.... Of what benefit would it be to me if Christ had been born a thousand times, and it would be daily sung into my ears in a most lovely manner, if I were never to hear that he was born for me [and in me] and was to be my very own?"

And a fellow minister -- Beth Johnston, serving a United Church in Nipawin, SK will be finishing her sermon this morning with these words:

“We have come here today to seek a light for our darkness; because the good news of Jesus has become such a part of our lives that we want to bring this light to others, in spiritual and in very tangible ways. 

“Like John we are tasked with the mission of pointing to the one who has given us light for our darkness and hope for our despair. 

“Arise, your light has come!”