Light in a Dark Place: An Easter Sermon

Preached on Easter Sunday, April 16, 2017
by Rev. Robin Bartlett at
First Church in Sterling, MA
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The stone-cold guarded tomb Jesus was sealed in, like the world after he was crucified, was very dark. As the stone was slowly rolled away on Easter morning, I imagine just a crack and glimmer of light illuminating the darkness inside as the women realized he was no longer there. Like moonlight on water. God said let there be light; and there was light!

The smallest of lights can illuminate the deepest darkness.

Though the dark sometimes gets a bad rap in scriptures, it is not all bad. God creates in darkness. God spoke light into the darkness. Darkness is where seeds are planted and regenerate new growth deep in the earth. God resurrected Jesus out of the darkness of the tomb. Life is created and re-created in darkness. And darkness is where we begin, intricately woven in the depths of the earth, knitted in our mother’s wombs, fearfully and wonderfully made. 

Once they are born, we try to recreate the darkness and warmth of the womb for our babies for at least the first three months they are alive, sometimes longer. We swaddle them, we put light canceling curtains in their nurseries. We carry them around close to our bodies. This darkness helps them to eat and sleep and grow. The darkness is as generative as it is safe.

Some of us don’t necessarily get over this desire to cocoon in the safety of darkness as we age, either. For those of you who, like me, have been hiding underneath a blanket all winter wondering if it will ever be safe to come out again, you know what I mean.

We long to retreat into the warm safety of the womb, in order to shield ourselves from the darkness all around us that is cold and frightening like the tomb. 

It’s no wonder we are afraid. The world has gone very, very dark. And the still-approaching, encroaching darkness is threatening to plunge us deeper into despair. According to social scientists, the nation is as divided as it was immediately following the Civil War. We are not sure if we are on the brink of another major World War, but we do see increased military actions lately that make us wonder. We have lost faith in our institutions: our democracy, our healthcare system, our free press, our corporations, our schools, the Church. Hate crimes are at an all-time high, and radical hate movements from Isis to the KKK are celebrating victory. We know at the very least that we have entered an era of enormous rage. We feel as though we have been plunged into the tomb with Jesus on Good Friday, and we wonder if we will ever emerge victorious. 

At an interfaith watchnight service this year, civil rights lawyer, award-winning film-maker, interfaith leader, and Sikh activist Valarie Kaur said:

“Yes, the future is dark. But the mother in me asks: what if. What if this is not the darkness of the tomb, but the darkness of the womb? What if our America is not dead, but a country that is waiting to be born?.....What if this is our nation’s great transition?”

Valarie Kaur finishes her speech on that watch night by asking “What does the midwife tell us to do? Breathe. And push. Because if we don’t, we’ll die. Tonight we will breathe. Tomorrow we will labor…for revolutionary love.” 
So on this glorious Easter Sunday, breathe. And tomorrow, you and I will get back to laboring for the creation of God’s kingdom here on earth. Because the alternative, Jesus reminds us, is death. It may be scary, but there is no going back. This is the great transition. All we can do is breathe and then PUSH.

Because God doesn’t call us to safety, God calls us to life.

First, we have to follow the glimmer of light at the crack of the opening, roll that stone away and burst out of our tombs. 

Kids, have you all been to the Museum of Science in Boston? There is an exhibit there that has been there for so long, it was even there when I was a kid: the lightning exhibit. I loved that lightning room, and I was scared to death of it. They had lightning shows every few hours, and children sit in the dark with their parents, waiting for a spectacular light show to light up the room with a loud zap and crackle. It is stunning and loud, and I jumped with fear every time the lightning zapped the metal conductor, just like I do every time thunder cracks after the lightning in a rainstorm. And yet, I couldn’t wait to go back every year. It was exhilarating. Lightning is as beautiful as it is terrifying. 

In our scripture from the Gospel according to Matthew, the women go to the tomb on Easter morning, and there is a great earthquake. An angel of the Lord rolled back the stone sealing the tomb where Jesus had been, and sat on it. His appearance, the text says, was “like lightning.” The guards and the women must have been shaking with fear because lightning is as terrifying as it is beautiful. “Do not be afraid; I know that you are looking for Jesus who was crucified. He is not here; for he has been raised, as he said. Come, see the place where he lay,” the Angel says. The story goes that the women left the tomb “with fear and great joy,” to go back and tell the others. 

Fear and great joy. 

So it is with all of us. 

Like the women who came to the tomb that day, the resurrection has not eradicated our fears. Many of us will go home again today, still uncertain of where our next pay check will come from, still facing terrifying diagnoses, still living with domestic violence in our homes, still mourning broken relationships that can never be repaired, still struggling with the heartbreak of addiction, still mourning the loss of a loved one, still fearful of what the future holds for our children and our earth. Christ’s resurrection does not wash those realities away. It simply calls us to impossible joy in the midst of our greatest fears. That is what our resurrected God invites: joy anyway. Let there be light! 

This Easter Sunday, let us greet with fear and joy the light of God that cannot be put out. The love of God that cannot be killed or swept away. You are the proof that God’s light still shines in the darkness, and the darkness cannot overcome it. 
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So come out of your tombs! Raise up your lights. Turn them on and hold them up! Hold up your lights for all those loved ones we have lost, because they are not gone. Light perpetual shines upon them. Hold out your lights for the broken hearted, for all is not lost. The light of hope still shines. Hold out your lights for those who live in fear. Do not be afraid! The light shines in the darkness. Hold out your lights for all those waiting to be resurrected from the darkness of their tombs. Death does not have the final word, life does. Darkness does not have the final word, light does.

God has made you a light in a dark place….Alleluia! LET IT SHINE! 

Let it shine on the darkness of your fears....the light of joy will illuminate it. 
Say it with me: Alleluia! Let it shine!

Let it shine on the darkness of illness...the light of hope will heal us.
Say it with me: Alleluia! Let it shine!

Let it shine on the darkness of loss….the light of our loved ones will live on inside of us.
Alleluia! Let it shine!

Let it shine on the darkness of lies and conceit...the light of truth will stamp it out.
Alleluia! Let it shine!

Let it shine on the darkness of war and terrorism….the light of peace will reign.
Alleluia! Let it shine!

Let it shine on the darkness of evil...the light of Love will DESTROY it.
Alleluia! Let it shine!

Let it shine on the darkness of death....the light of life will overcome it.
Alleluia! Let it shine!

Breathe, and then PUSH. For a new world is waiting to be born. God’s LOVE is ready to burst forth, from your hearts, and your hands. No grave can contain it. God has made you a light in a dark place. Alleluia! Let it shine. 

Amen.

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