Sermon-of-the-Month for February, 2008
UNTIL THE MORNING STAR RISES IN YOUR HEARTS
Text: 2 Peter 1:16-21
For we did not follow cleverly devised myths when we made known to you the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, but we had been eyewitnesses of his majesty. For he received honor and glory from God the Father when that voice was conveyed to him by the Majestic Glory, saying, "This is my Son, my Beloved, with whom I am well pleased." We ourselves heard this voice come from heaven, while we were with him on the holy mountain.
So we have the prophetic message more fully confirmed. You will do well to be attentive to this as to a lamp shining in a dark place, until the day dawns and the morning star rises in your hearts. First of all you must understand this, that no prophecy of scripture is a matter of one's own interpretation, because no prophecy ever came by human will, but men and women moved by the Holy Spirit spoke from God.
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The writer of this letter we know as 2 Peter to some of the 1st or 2nd generation Christians was addressing one of the perplexing issues of the early church. We don't know who wrote the letter - it was frequent and acceptable in that era to attribute writings to earlier leaders of influence and renown, and this writer has chosen Peter no doubt because of Peter's reputation and his presence with Jesus in the events of his ministry, including the transfiguration. We'll call the writer Peter but realize that it is someone writing in his name, decades after Peter's work in carrying the gospel message beyond his own Hebrew community, a writer writing probably in the late 1st or early 2nd century, well after Peter's death.
By that time a major problem had developed for the early Christians: the unexplainable delay of the Second Coming of Christ. Jesus had told his first followers that he would be returning soon -even within their lifetimes - to wrap up the work of God's salvation drama...to judge the living and the dead and bring history to an end, with Jesus installed as King of Kings. This promise is how the young church got through those early years of persecution and suffering: it's bad now, but hold on...God is about to deliver his people from their torment and bring about a new heaven and a new earth with the Messiah's return...any day now...any minute...keep alert and awake. But how long can one live on the qui vive in such intense anticipation?
How long, O Lord...? The familiar cry reflects a frustrating impatience with God's timing. And we know that mood as well. How long before the suffering of the innocent ends? How long before all people are treated equally with respect and honor? How long before the advances of scientific and medical knowledge wipe out the devastations of disease? How long before the emotionally and mentally broken find wholeness and health? How long before nations come to realize the irreparable folly of war and live in peace? Some of these "how long" questions were caught up in the folk anthem of the 1960's by Bob Dylan, "Blowin' in the Wind."
How many roads must a man walk down before you call him a man?
How many times must the cannonball fly before they're forever banned?
How many times must a man look up, before he can see the sky?
How many ears must one man have before he can hear people cry?
How many deaths will it take till he knows that too many people have died?
The answer, my friend, is blowin' in the wind...
Even though many of these delayed endings are attributable to human intransigence and call for human commitment, we tend to bring God in on the delay: How could a loving God stand by while this or that misfortune is taking place? When is God going to act decisively to bring in this new age of love, peace, justice, and wholeness?
Or... is it not going to happen? Are we just players in an unending drama of glory and misery, agony and ecstasy, hopes raised and hopes dashed? Is this notion of God having won the victory in Christ and promising us that God's purpose will prevail and that the end is Life, not Death...is all this just a myth to comfort pitifully deluded people? These were exactly the kinds of questions being echoed in the communities where Christians were trying to live out what Peter calls "this faith as precious as ours through the righteousness of our God and Savior Jesus Christ." (1:1). Some were beginning to accuse the leaders of the apostolic tradition of propagating false hopes for the Christian faithful. So Peter counters: "We did not follow cleverly devised myths when we made known to you the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, but we had been eyewitnesses to his majesty." We saw and heard it ourselves...this faith is not built upon some concocted story of God sending his Son. It's true.
And then come some of what must be the most beautiful and compelling images of hope in all of scripture. No - you don't have the final consummation in your midst; for whatever reason, God's timing is not your timing, for God's ways are not our ways. What you do have is the hope you need to live triumphantly and abundantly: a lamp shining in a dark place. Everything is not illumined, all mystery explained, all misery overcome. But in Christ you have the lamp you need to make your way in faith and live in hope. You walk by faith, not complete sight - but you do have what you need to walk boldly into the future. The world is a dark place - and who would contradict that appraisal today? Live in the light of the lamp until the fullness of light dawns...the sunrise of that new day. Live as people of hope "until the day dawns and the morning star rises in your hearts." What a beautiful picture: making our way through the dark place with the lamp of hope until we see that star that rises at dawn - the morning star - that heralds the approaching daylight. And this morning star is not just seen with our eyes, it is seen and known in our hearts. It's beyond intellectual convincing, it is hope's dawning in our hearts. God's promise is not a myth, and we will know its truth some morning; meanwhile we live in that promise, the hope of the rising, the dawning of God's day.
As I see it we can choose to live in one of the two basic modes: Life is one damned thing after another (and I use that word "damned" in its truest sense) and there is no reason to be hopeful that the ways of love, justice, and peace will prevail, so let's just divest ourselves of that illusion and face life grimly and stoically. Or we can trust that we have reliable lamps to live by that will see us through the dark places until dawn, and that we can live by that light and work in this dark world for the ends that will one day arrive in fullness. It makes a huge difference how we choose, because to a great extent, we are what we hope for...or what we despair of. We can live toward the coming of the light...or be creatures of the dark place.
"You will do well to be attentive to this as a lamp shining in a dark place, until the day dawns and the morning star rises in your hearts." Amen.
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