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Fourth Sunday of Lent
March 2, 2008
Delivered by Reverend Raynor Anderson
Are you afraid of the dark?
When I was a boy in New York City it never got dark at night. Street lights, lights in apartments, headlights on cars, spotlights on playgrounds--night time was very much like the day. We would often play outside after supper when it got dark. After all it was the Big Apple, the city that never sleeps.
For 2 months every summer I went to Lake Delaware Boys Camp in the Catskill Mountains. This is a very high-church Episcopal camp run on
a military basis for underprivileged boys from the streets of NYC, of
which I was one. All the campers (boys of the light from NYC) had
flashlights and we kept them in our cots at night for protection
against the darkness. There were no electric lights. Our flashlights
were valued treasures. We made sure we packed spare batteries. I
always envied the boys who had large spotlight flashlights. At night
after angelus rang and the last notes of taps died away, it was
lights out. Pitch black. Couldn't see your hand in front of your
face. We big city boys were scared of the dark.
Most of us here while not necessarily being afraid of the dark, are
wary in it. In ancient times it was believed that evil spirits came
out in the dark. In the movies creepy crawly things jump out from
the dark to scare us. We all have a natural fear of falling and
that can happen in the dark.
Before the Petitt family tragedy here in Cheshire our street wasn't
very lit up at night. Karla and I did have 2 motion detector lights
on the house to help us come in from the garage and get up the stairs
at night. Now it's a different story. Most homes on our street are
very much lit up at night. We now have to close the blinds on our
windows at night to keep the light out. The Management in my house,
who it is my job to keep happy, issued a memo for more motion
detector lights and we now have a total of six. Ironically it's now
the sudden presence of light that worries Karla, not the dark absence
of light. Management often gets up and goes to the window to see if
the "boogeyman" is out there. So far it.s only been cats or skunks.
Being from the Bronx, I never wake up.
Every summer we go tent camping for 2 weeks in Bar Harbor to scrub
our brains clean and it is very dark at night. We like to have a
campfire and it brings back images of early peoples who lit fires not
only to keep warm but to be safe, to keep away predatory animals
lurking out there in the darkness. Of course in Bar Harbor the only
predatory animals are the "no-see-ums". Sometimes the presence of
total darkness is a blessing. Karla and I often walk away from our
campfire down to the water's edge (trying not to trip in the
darkness) and we look up to see a million stars shining. There in
the pitch black darkness you can see the entire Milky Way above you.
Sometimes it is so bright you can read by its light. It makes you
feel tiny, insignificant, humbled, and yet blessed. But you can only
see it if you leave the light and go into the darkness. Darkness can
be a wonderful gift.
Jesus is called "The Light of the world". John says, "The Light
shines in the darkness and the darkness has never been able to put it
out". Light is good and darkness is evil. We are encouraged to be
children of light, to live in the light, to boldly proclaim Jesus as
Lord in the bright light of day. Our lesson this morning says it is
light that brings a rich harvest of every kind of goodness,
righteousness and truth.
That's all true and good; but I always like to stick up for the
underdog.
We need see the positives in darkness. Overcome our strange
fears. Darkness is a time of rest. A time to gain strength for the
next day. It's a time of coming home. A time of family sharing: a
meal, conversation, experiences of the day, soothing pats on the
back, letting one another know they're loved, homework, hobbies,
projects or time with pets, our other loving family members. Night
time brings intimacy, loving touches, blessed peace, the peace that
passes all understanding. The darkness, the coming of night,
provides these wondrous gifts.
It may be that we live more fully as children of the Light, children
of our Lord, during the hours of darkness.
See the interplay of light and dark in the blind man of today's
gospel. In his darkness, the blind man could see quite clearly who
Jesus was. Perhaps it was his blindness that enabled him to seek
Jesus not with his eyes but with his heart; perhaps because he was
comfortable in his darkness, he could trust Jesus. And when his
darkness vanished and he was living in the light, he knew he had
already seen, known and trusted Jesus in the darkness. And Jesus
was now his Lord in both light and dark.
In my more pessimistic moments I often say the light at the end of
the tunnel is the headlamp of an oncoming locomotive. But it is more
true to say this: when you and I are in the dark, in trouble of some
kind, we need not panic or try to flee the darkness. We need to
embrace it, to trust our Lord to be with us, and that trust will
bring light.
Jesus is Lord of all our hours and provides us with the blessings of
the day as well as those of the night. Rejoice in the hours of day
light and rejoice also in the hours of night darkness.
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