Rev. Jim Bane describes an incident that took place in 2019 as he ran a leg of a 200 mile relay race from Chattanooga to Nashville. He was part of the Disciples International Racing Team, a group of 12 folks, most of whom were members of the Disciples of Christ denomination, with several of them being clergy.
Much of the team had run together in similar races, but they discovered that one of the challenges of this course in Tennessee was that the trail was not always clearly marked. This can create challenges during the daylight, but once the sun starts to go down it can make for serious problems. Earlier in the evening in question, Jim’s team had redirected a runner from another team who was going in precisely the wrong direction.
Jim’s leg of the race took him through a wooded area of a park in small mid-Tennessee town. It was around midnight when he entered the woods. The temperature was huddling around 32 degrees. As he entered the deeper darkness of the woods, his headlamp revealed itself to be too dim to offer much help. Worse still, his flashlight started to fail. He wasn’t sure if he was on the right path and began to think that he, like the runner he encountered earlier in the evening, might be lost and going the wrong way.
He recalls, “When I had entered the woods I was ahead of one runner who soon passed me after a short time. For awhile I was able to see the light of her headlamp and run in her direction, but as she moved father ahead of me I lost sight of her light. It was about that time that my own headlamp started to fade, and my flashlight went out. The path was wide enough that I wasn't afraid of hitting a tree. But I was more concerned about missing a turn and headed in the wrong direction altogether. Since I didn't have a whole lot of options I decided to keep moving ahead.
“Thankfully after a time in near darkness, I emerged from the woods and could see the headlamp of a runner ahead of me. I decided to follow that light even if I wasn't entirely sure the runner was headed the right way. As it turns out, that runner was correct, and she helped guide me to the end of my leg where I was greeted by teammates.” [Jim Bane, “Running in Darkness: Advent Devotion, Friday, December 11,” email from Christian Church in Ohio, Dec. 10, 2020]
“The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light; those who lived in a land of deep darkness—on them light has shined.” Isaiah provides us with as good a summary of the Gospel as you will find anywhere in scripture. We just heard these words on Christmas Eve, and so may think of them as a prophecy relating the fundamental message of Christmas. But in truth, this is one of the fundamental messages of all of Holy Scripture. As the psalmist declares, God is light in the darkness; God is salvation for those in need of rescue; and God is a stronghold for those who are in danger. That message carries over into the New Testament. The light of God has broken into the darkness of our world in person of Jesus. In him shines the light of God’s love and life, the light of hope and joy. That light shines in the darkness and the darkness cannot overcome it.
Of course, Isaiah was not speaking of Jesus when he first uttered those familiar words. Our reading just two chapters after the famous prophecy we heard a month ago on the Fourth Sunday of Advent: “Therefore the Lord himself will give you a sign. Look, the young woman is with child and shall bear a son and shall name him Immanuel.” Isaiah’s words in chapter 9 address the same situation. King Ahaz of Judah is fearful because the kings of Israel and Aram (Syria) have entered into an alliance to depose him. He has refused to enter into a mutual defense treaty with them against the rising threat of Assyria, the great superpower of the late 8th century Middle East. Now they want to depose him and install a new king who will be open to the alliance. Ironically, Ahaz responds by seeking an alliance against his two small northern neighbors with Assyria, ignoring the fact that it constitutes a far greater threat.
Isaiah sought to dissuade the king from this disastrous course. Ahaz was unmoved and went forward with the alliance and war. In the view of the prophet, the king lacked faith in God and instead put his trust in Assyria, a rapacious power which would surely, inevitably swallow up not just Israel, Ahaz’s enemy, but also his own kingdom of Judah. Indeed, Judah would win the war as Assyria conquered Israel, but that victory came at a very high price. Ahaz and his “triumphant” kingdom would be reduced to the status of a vassal: he was forced to pay tribute to Assyria, making the payments from both the royal treasury and the treasures held in the Temple, and he even erected idols of Assyrian deities across Juhah.
Thus, in the verses preceding today’s reading, Isaiah delivers oracles of judgement against the fearful, faithless, apostate king.
But, as John Holbert points out, the darkness in which the people walk is not just the Assyrian destruction the Northern Kingdom and the subjugation of Judah. In the early chapters of Isaiah, “the refusal of the people to follow the ways of [the LORD], their continual oppression of the poor in their midst, their denial of the cause of the widow, orphan and immigrant among them, were further signs of darkness in the nation.”
I suspect that many of us can relate to the idea of dwelling in darkness. We know in various ways the gloom of being in anguish. We may walk in the darkness of disease, we may be anxious before the possibility surgery; we may be overwhelmed by inflation and economic difficulties; we may, like the author of Psalm 27, find ourselves surrounded by those who bear us ill will or would do us harm; we may fear an uncertain future.
Of course, as real as our personal darknesses may be, Isaiah is mainly focused on societal and political struggles . We too have more than enough anxiety inducing uncertainty and metaphorical darkness. Just to cite a couple examples, there has been great consternation and controversy over Greenland and Minneapolis in recent days. In the case of the former, the President has spent much of the past couple weeks threatening Denmark and our other European allies with tariffs and even the possibility of military action in an effort to force to give us Greenland. When did the U.S., which once fought against land-hungry strongmen and evil empires, this nation which has long been a champion of liberty, democracy and human rights—albeit an imperfect one—when did we become a global bully?
And here at home, aggressive, militaristic immigration enforcement by ICE has been ramping up tensions within parts of the country for months. This has especially been true in Minnesota. Just yesterday, in Minneapolis, a protester was shoot and killed by ICE agents for the second time in less than three weeks. There is still much we don’t know about exactly what happened, but, as with the shooting of Renee Good, videos of yesterday’s fatal interaction cast serious doubts on key parts of the government’s explanation of the event. Public anger is increasing; ICE seems to revel in public displays of domination, often acting with a sense of impunity and seemingly exalting in confrontation and cruelty; and many legal immigrants and some Asian and Hispanic citizens are living in fear, some are afraid to even leave their homes. Politicians and police in Minnesota are warning that events may be approaching a breaking point. Rather than trying to deescalate the situation, the President keeps suggesting he might invoke the Insurrection Act—in response to almost entirely peaceful, though sometimes confrontational, protests by American citizens exercising their fundamental rights of free speech and free assembly. For many of us, this is a dark, disorienting, disturbing time.
Yes, like the people of Isaiah’s day, we too live in a dark, disturbing, disorienting time. Yet Isaiah announces good news: in the midst of this gloomy situation, a light breaks out, offering hope and new possibilities. The borderlands which have suffered so greatly in the Syro-Ephraimite war will have cause to rejoice, for God will raise up a new king, a faithful and just king, a righteous king whose reign ushers in a long era of peace, which in Hebrew thought is not merely the absence of violence and war, but also the presence of justice, the establishment of a society in which the vulnerable are cared for and all people enjoy dignity and prosperity. Historically, Isaiah’s prophecy likely referred to Ahaz’s far more faithful son, Hezikiah. Christians since the earliest centuries have heard these verses as also pointing to the coming of Jesus, the one who proclaims good news to the poor and liberty to the captive , who forgives sin and reconciles those estranged from God and one another, the Crucified and Resurrected King who declares the coming of God’s just and peaceful Kingdom.
In Isaiah’s eighth century B.C.E. declaration of this good news, John Holbert discerns a call for us, living in the 21st century C.E. [A.D.], “We, like our forebears, are asked to dwell in the light of God, even when the darkness threatens to overwhelm us.” We are promised that the light shines, even in this present darkness, for God is with us, Christ has come among us as the light of the world and is with us always, even to the end of the world. We must trust in God’s faithfulness, trust that “God is always bringing light” into the world , and look for it knowing that the darkness cannot overcome it. We must live as those who trust in God and seek to walk in Christ’s light.
John Dear, the Catholic peace advocate, relates how Martin Luther King, Jr., in the early days of the Civil Rights movement in Montgomery, found himself walking in darkness, seemingly lost in the impenetrable gloom of a dangerous wood.
In 1955, Rosa Parks’ refusal to give up her seat and move to the back of the bus sparked the Montgomery Bus Boycott. King emerged as the leader of the boycott and became a reluctant national figure. This was on top of his duties as pastor of a local Baptist church and his responsibilities as a husband and father.
King became a lightning rod for white anger, especially after the boycott didn’t fizzle out or reach a resolution within a short time, as many on both sides had expected. As the boycott stretched on, King and his family got more and more threatening phone calls and letters. By early in 1956, he was receiving as many as 40 threatening calls a day. At one point, he was arrested and taken to jail for speeding and he seriously thought he might be lynched. The darkness was descending upon him and his fear was palpable.
Dear says the pressure and fear reached built up until King reached his lowest on the night of Friday, Jan. 27, 1956. “King slumped home, another long strategy session under his belt, and found Coretta asleep. [He tried to go to sleep himself, but] his nerves still on edge. And presently the phone rang, a sneering voice on the other end: "Leave Montgomery immediately if you have no wish to die." King's fear surged.”
King described what happened next in his 1958 book Stride Toward Freedom:
I got out of bed and began to walk the floor. Finally, I went to the kitchen and heated a pot of coffee. With my cup of coffee sitting untouched before me, I tried to think of a way to move out of the picture without appearing a coward. In this state of exhaustion, when my courage had all but gone, I decided to take my problem to God. With my head in my hands, I bowed over the kitchen table and prayed aloud.
The words I spoke to God that midnight are still vivid in my memory. "I am here taking a stand for what I believe is right. But now I am afraid. The people are looking to me for leadership, and if I stand before them without strength and courage, they too will falter. I am at the end of my powers. I have nothing left. I've come to the point where I can't face it alone."
At that moment, I experienced the presence of the Divine as I had never experienced God before. It seemed as though I could hear the quiet assurance of an inner voice saying: "Stand up for justice, stand up for truth; and God will be at your side forever." Almost at once my fears began to go. My uncertainty disappeared. I was ready to face anything."
Dear says this was a turning point for King: “Three days later a bomb blasted his house and his family escaped harm by a hairsbreadth. ‘Strangely enough,’ King later wrote, ‘I accepted the word of the bombing calmly. My religious experience a few nights before had given me the strength to face it.’
“News of the bombing drew a crowd A mob formed within the hour, all clenched jaws and closed fists. And they pressed up against the shattered house and shouted for vengeance. King mounted the broken porch and raised his hands. "We must meet hate with love. Remember, if I am stopped, this movement will not stop because God is with this movement. Go home with this glorious faith and radiant assurance." And thus the mob dissipated, their mood disarmed and their ears ringing with the message of gospel non-violence.
“Some 11 years later, King spoke before an audience of his epiphany in the kitchen. "It seemed at that moment, I could hear an inner voice saying to me, 'Martin Luther, stand up for righteousness. Stand up for justice. Stand up for truth. And lo, I will be with you, even until the end of the world.' I heard the voice of Jesus saying still to fight on. He promised never to leave me, never to leave me alone."
Lost in the woods of hatred and fear, the light of God shone upon Martin Luther King, Jr., leading him to the right path, and giving him the strength to walk it, the strength to struggle for justice and righteousness. God comes to us in Christ as a light shining in the darkness. Christ is a light shining to lead us out of the dark, confusing woods of selfishness, out of the tangle of violence, out of the thicket of hurtful words and deeds, out of the misdirection of our desires for power and domination. Christ is a light shining to lead us through the dark woods of anxiety, grief, and uncertainty. He is the light of God’s help and guidance leading us in the right direction, down right paths of compassion, justice and love. Let us put our trust in God. Let us look for the light, no matter how dark the night. And let us commit to following that light, for in Christ, God strengthens us so that we might run with perseverance the race of life that is set before us, trusting in God’s graciousness and goodness, knowing that we are never alone, and glorifying God for the light of Christ that leads us through the darkness to the glory of the Kingdom of God.