It’s been a while since I posted one of my Sunday sermons here. Below is what I preached this morning, the Second Sunday of Advent, on 2 Corinthians 4:1-6.
Until recently I’d forgotten that the sun could even set before 5:00. Last night the sunset was at 4:08 p.m. 4:08!
My six-year-old asked me this week if it was true that there were only four hours of daylight each day in December.
Not quite, but it feels like it.
These short, dark, cold days seem to linger on. We await a later sunset, the buds of spring, and warmer days.
What are we to do with all of this in-between time?
That’s the question of Advent. Christ has broken into our world, but so much remains untransformed by his power. We are waiting. We are hoping. We are longing for Jesus to come again and make everything right.
The stand-up comic Mitch Hedberg once disparaged instant oatmeal. He said:
I get up in the morning, and I make myself a bowl of instant oatmeal, and then I don’t do anything for an hour… which makes me wonder why I need the instant oatmeal… I could get the regular oatmeal and feel productive!
Advent calls for our patience in dark days where God’s kingdom (still) isn’t here. It doesn’t come in an instant.
But it’s not a passive waiting that we do. And there’s nothing hopeless about Advent. It’s not a season where we throw up our hands and say, “Welp, I guess we just hang out until Jesus comes back.”
On the contrary, in Advent we remember and re-activate that hope within us that believes—that knows—Christ will come again. We proclaim with Zechariah:
Because of God’s tender mercy, the morning light from heaven is about to break upon us, to give light to those who sit in darkness and in the shadow of death, and to guide us to the path of peace.
In these dark, cold, in-between days, “the light shines in the darkness.”
And the light shines right into our inmost beings.
That’s what Paul says to the Christians in the city of Corinth:
The [same] God who said, “Let light shine out of darkness,” has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.
There’s the miracle of God’s love… the all-powerful creator of the universe who could bring light from darkness, has sent his light right into our hearts, so that we could know Jesus. The one who created worlds could be bothered to shine light into my dark heart, and yours. God even delights in shining light into our hearts.
What does the light do?
The light shines in the darkness, and that includes the darkness of our inner world.
I think Paul has something in common with us. None of us wants to just talk in platitudes or generalities. The light shines in our hearts, yes, so now we want to know: what exactly is the light doing in us? What does the light-of-Christ-in-our-hearts do?
Paul suggests a few things. As it shines in your heart, here is what the light does.
First, he says, the light illuminates what is hidden.
Here is the first part of verse 2: “We have renounced the shameful things that one hides.”
That’s because Paul and his fellow believers have the light of Christ in their hearts. That light has illuminated what is hidden—shameful things.
Paul models a response to the shameful things the light has shown him in his heart. “I renounce them.”
It’s a line you’ll hear in the baptismal liturgy: “I renounce them.” The light illuminates my hidden, shameful things, shows me what and where they are… and I renounce them.
I’ve always been glad no technology exists to Google our brains. Think about what that would be like. All our memories, experiences, hopes, wayward desires, and hurts. Your search for envious thoughts toward others returned 13,849 results.
Thank God we can’t Google our brains. But in a sense, that’s what the light of Jesus does. As the Psalmist David put it, “Search me, O God, and know my heart; test me and know my thoughts. See if there is any wicked way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting.
The light of Christ in us illuminates what is hidden.
Second, Paul says the light of Jesus is a floodlight on lies. The light of Christ shows lies for what they are.
After verse 2 says, “We have renounced the shameful things that one hides,” it goes on: “we refuse to practice cunning or to falsify God’s word.”
Because the light of Christ shines in his inmost being, Paul and his co-laborers in ministry commit to be truthful, especially when it comes to the revealed word of God. “We refuse to practice cunning or to falsify God’s word.”
The light shines on lies in the darkness. It points at them and calls them what they are. Where the light of Christ shines, there can be no lies.
I’m reading a book right now by James Clear called Atomic Habits. The author describes a process that train conductors in Tokyo practice. It’s called “Pointing-and-Calling.” He says:
As each operator runs the train, they proceed through a ritual of pointing at different objects and calling out commands. When the train approaches a signal, the operator will point at it and say, “Signal is green.” As the train pulls into and out of each station, the operator will point at the speedometer and call out the exact speed. When it’s time to leave, the operator will point at the timetable and state the time. Out on the platform, other employees are performing similar actions. Before each train departs, staff members will point along the edge of the platform and declare, “All clear!” Every detail is identified, pointed at, and named aloud.
The author concludes:
Pointing-and-Calling is so effective because it raises the level of awareness from a nonconscious habit to a more conscious level. Because the train operators must use their eyes, hands, mouth, and ears, they are more likely to notice problems before something goes wrong.
This is great for habit development. But good habits aside, here is the light of Christ, practicing the same method of Pointing-and-Calling in us! That’s what the light of Jesus does!
The light of Christ illuminates what is hidden, even shameful things. And it’s a floodlight that shows lies for what they are. The light of Jesus points-and-calls in our hearts.
Eugene Peterson translates verse 2 this way:
We refuse to wear masks and play games. We don’t maneuver and manipulate behind the scenes. And we don’t twist God’s Word to suit ourselves. Rather, we keep everything we do and say out in the open, the whole truth on display, so that those who want to can see and judge for themselves in the presence of God.
Paul also says more generally: the light of Jesus guides our inner life.
The word Paul uses for light is more expansively defined as “illumination for the inner life.”
Are you confused, or torn up inside? The light of Christ can guide you.
Are you anxious, scared, uncertain of what the coming days and weeks will hold? The light of Christ doesn’t make all your problems go away, but it will illuminate your inner thought life, as you try to make sense of it all.
Things become more visible, clearer by the light God gives us.
The light of Jesus guides our inner life.
Finally, and most important, the light that God shines in our hearts reveals “God in the face of Jesus Christ.”
This is more than just your run-of-the-mill illumination. Verse 4 says it’s the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ. Verse 6 says the light God shines in our hearts is the light of the knowledge of his glory.
Paul is not talking about “the light within” or whatever light or goodness or hope you can generate yourself.
There may be a place for that, but it will only take you so far.
The Episcopal preacher Fleming Rutledge says, “(I)f Christian faith is going to have any guts, it simply cannot be satisfied with exclusively human hope.”
This isn’t just any light. It’s Jesus light.
One poet put it like this:
It gets so dark it stays dark,
Even when I turn on the light.
We need more than ourselves to turn on the light. We’re prone to error, prone to despair, prone to exhaustion if we try to face and fight the darkness all on our own.
Thank God, we don’t have to.
The [same] God who said, “Let light shine out of darkness,” has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.
For light to truly shine in our hearts and illuminate our paths, it needs to come from an external, inexhaustible source.
That light source is Jesus. “In him was life, and that life was the light of all people.”
As Dietrich Bonhoeffer waited in prison for a release that would never come, he wrote, “Only the coming Lord can prepare the way… the end (goal) of all preparing the way for Christ must be the recognition that we ourselves can never prepare the way.”
To that let’s add: we ourselves never shine enough light to dispel the darkness.
The light persists
Paul begins this passage thus: “Therefore, since it is by God’s mercy that we are engaged in this ministry, we do not lose heart.”
Paul and company knew deep in their bones that the mercy and love of God were essential to their doing ministry.
We show mercy, he would say, “just as we have received mercy.”
And that’s how the light works—it’s received, it’s given, just like grace. It’s not all up to you to do the shining.
You know that your light alone, will burn out. Maybe it already has.
Your batteries will expire.
The flame will extinguish.
The wick will run out.
And you’re not just contending with yourself here: Satan will try to keep you from living in the light.
But as Paul says, “the god of this world” may try to keep people from “seeing the light of the gospel,” but he can’t actually touch the light itself. The so-called god of this world can’t stop or prevent or even reduce the shining of the light of Jesus.
Jesus’s light is eternal… limitless; it forever burns bright.
And that light is yours. It’s ours.
So with the beleaguered apostle Paul, “we do not lose heart.” We wait in hope; we wait in power.
We have the light of Christ already in part, and lean forward, eagerly awaiting the day when we’ll have Christ’s light in full.
God has shined the light of Christ in us.
NOTHING can darken the light of Christ.
May God shine that light, brighter and stronger and warmer, in our hearts this Advent season.
Words on the Word 
So great I’m going to forward it to some friends here. May you feel God’s light shining in these dark December afternoons so that you can have power and hope to continue in the ministry God has given you!!