In the Dark (Sermon, Advent 4)

Years ago, when I worked at a church with a preschool, I attended the Christmas program.  This was long enough ago that the Christmas story was told with a flannel board, a cloth covered board with little fabric cutouts. In this version of the Christmas story, there were the usual elements- Mary and Joseph, an outline of a stable, angels, and shepherds. There was also a cut-out of the night sky - a deeply colored piece of fabric with stars and a hint of the Milky Way. 

As we watched the story unfold in this particular year, the teacher would tell part of the story and each child would come and put up their piece on the flannel board. As she came to the part about the shepherds watching their flocks by night, one little boy leapt up and said, “I have the dark!” 

I have the dark. 

I’ve been thinking a lot about that incident this week, not just because today is the solstice. 

The little boy wasn’t bothered about what he had. The dark was as much a part of the story as everything else. The sheep, the star, the manger, the dark. 

Today’s readings take place mostly in the dark.

Not the cozy, candlelit kind of dark.
But the kind where you don’t know what comes next.
The kind where God hasn’t explained the Divine actions yet.
The kind where you have to decide what to do before everything makes sense.

That’s where God seems to like to work.

Isaiah meets King Ahaz in a moment of fear. The Assyrian nation is threatening. The future feels fragile. And God says, Ask for a sign.
Ahaz refuses to ask, not because he is faithful, but because he is fearful. God gives a sign anyway:

A young woman is with child and shall bear a son, and shall name him Immanuel.

This is not a lightning bolt miracle.
It is not a military solution.
It is a pregnancy, a regular everyday nativity.

Something hidden.
Something slow.
Something that looks ordinary at first glance.

God’s promise does not arrive fully formed.
It grows in the dark.

The psalm picks up the cry of people still waiting:

Restore us, O God; let your face shine, that we may be saved.

They are asking for light.
They are begging for clarity.
But consider: this prayer itself comes from the shadows, 
from a place of displacement and longing, 
From a place where the ending cannot be clearly seen.

Faith, here, is not confidence.
Faith is calling out when you cannot yet see.
Faith is not the absence of doubt, but action in spite of doubt.

Paul, writing to the Romans, speaks as though the promise is already fulfilled.
He talks about Jesus as both descended from David and declared Son of God with power.

But remember—when Paul writes this, the world has not changed much at all.
Rome is still Rome.
The church is small.
Suffering continues.
And Paul is under house arrest as he writes. 
He knows he’s not getting out of this alive for this life. 

He is not ignoring the darkness.
He is interpreting it.

God’s power, Paul insists, does not cancel human weakness.
God understands it. God accounts for it. 

God moves through the way humans are because this is how we are made and how we be..

And then there is Joseph.

Matthew tells us plainly: Joseph was a righteous man.
Which means he follows the law.
Which also means he has every reason to walk away.

Mary’s pregnancy puts him in a nearly impossible place.
Public shame.
Private heartbreak.
A future rewritten without his consent.

Joseph does not get a sermon.
He does not get an explanation.
He gets a dream.

And in that dream, God does not say, “Here is how everything will turn out.”
God says, Do not be afraid.

That is what God says when full clarity is not available.

Joseph wakes up still in the dark.
Still facing rumors.
Still without proof.

And Matthew says, He did as the angel of the Lord commanded him.

Joseph looked at what he had and said, “I have the dark”. And he acted accordingly with his part of the story.

Not with complete certainty.
Not with complete understanding.
But genuine obedience born of trust that God is present even when the light is dim.

Advent 4 reminds us that God’s greatest work begins unseen.

In a womb.
In a dream.
In a prison cell.
In a decision made quietly, without applause.

We often want God to work by fixing, solving, explaining.
But God works in the dark.

Slowly.
Patiently.
In the dark.

If you are waiting right now—
If you are holding questions you cannot answer—
If you are doing the next right thing without knowing where it leads—

You are not faithless.
You are in Advent.

Immanuel means God with us.
Not God after the confusion clears.
Not God once the fear is gone.

God with us when the wind blows.
God with us when the trees fall. 
God with us when death follows death, and grief seems not to end.

We can have the dark.
God is with us, right here.
In the shadows.
In the waiting.
In the waiting before Christmas dawns.

In the dark is where salvation begins.

Amen.

 

 

Love Has Come

Sermon for the First Sunday in Advent, Year A (2025) 

Written for the Montana Synod 

 

Isaiah 2:1-5; Psalm 122; Romans 13:11-14; Matthew 24:36-44

 

Greetings, siblings in Christ, from your faith family in Big Timber. May the grace and peace of our Lord and Savior be with you all on this day and in the time to come.

Happy New Years, friends! This Sunday marks the start of the season of Advent and the beginning of a new church year. For those of you who are interested, this is the beginning of Year A in the three-year church cycle, meaning most of the gospel readings for the year ahead will be from Matthew.

In the world around us, especially in commercial spaces, Advent is a season of anticipation and acquisition. It’s time to get ready for the celebration of Christmas and all that comes with it. In the church world, we are a little out of step with that. Yes, Advent is a season of anticipation, but less about Christmas and more about the promises of God’s judgment and reconciliation. Part of the reason we put the Christmas carols on hold in the church world is because the Advent themes of hope in frustration, faithfulness in division, and refining fire aren’t in sync with the oft glow of light around mother and child in the nativity scene.

When that thematic separation feels too great, we tend to default to Christmas mode because it feels easier. The judgment themes and the tensions of Advent can be frightening. The idea of still waiting for our long-expected Savior is frustrating and confusing for some. Advent as Christmas-lite seems easier.


When we skip ahead, however, we miss important things about the waiting and the preparation. Not only that, but we specifically cannot skip ahead because Jesus told us not to. As we do not know the day or the hour, we are called to be in a state of preparation, not a state of already celebrating or a position of despair because we think it will never happen. What it means to be a follower of Jesus and to be one who trusts His word is to be one who keeps moving in hopeful expectation, no matter how long it takes.

Here is a story to illustrate what I mean:

In November 2007, I was waiting for my husband to return home from a deployment to Iraq with the Army. He had left in March. We missed many milestones in the nine months apart, including our first wedding anniversary. Our communication had been intermittent. We, along with all the other families in our company, were anticipating the reunion.

Some of you will know this and some of you are about to learn that military returns are not always smooth affairs. Due to security and moving parts in theatre, the dates of returns are not set until very close when they will happen. Many things can cause delays. They may leave the war zone, but be held up in another location for hours or days.

Once we kind of had a date. I began to clean the house. I ordered new sheets. I refreshed the pantry with foods I knew my husband liked and stocked the fridge with beverages. I got a haircut. I filled his truck with gas and got the oil changed.

Finally, on the day before, we were given an estimated return around midday. The next morning it changed to late afternoon. In the waiting, I vacuumed again and did another random load of laundry. I made cookies and talked on the phone with a friend.

In the mid-afternoon, we were told that it would be closer to 10 pm. I made another batch of cookies and ran to the grocery store for some additional food I thought might be good the next day.

At 9 pm, we were told that it would probably be around 2 am.

Families with kids were trying to decide whether to put the kids to bed or just let them stay up. Partners without kids, like me, continued to stretch out our activities- cleaning pantries, playing with pets, vacuuming long forgotten corners of the house. We filled our time with things that needed doing, but that we just usually didn’t get to.

Finally, at 1:30 am, most of us gathered at the Armory building on the post to wait together. A movie was on for the kids. We talked and laughed together. We held each other up.

At 3 am, the reunion came.

When you see pictures or videos of reunions, they’re often in public or maybe they’re surprises. The majority of reunions, however, do happen on bases, posts, or installations. With family members who had filled their weeks, days, and hours of waiting with all kinds of activity.

This is the kind of waiting that Jesus is talking about. This is the waiting of Advent.


This is waiting for one who is loved and who loves.


When Isaiah speaks of the day of the Lord, when the people shall learn war no more…


When the psalmist says, “For the sake of my kindred | and companions, pray for your well-being”...


When Paul says to the Roman Christians, “For salvation is nearer to us now than when we became believers”...

These are statements of anticipation and hope, the kind of anticipation and action-filled waiting that Jesus expected of his followers- then and now.

While we may feel like the promised time of return continues to be delayed, there are still many things we can do. We are called and equipped for tasks of love and service to all those people around us.

The alertness to which we have been called, by Christ himself, is not a flurry of activity right before the event, like cleaning the house before guests. It is on-going, paced responsiveness to the grace that has always been with us, is in us now, and will sustain us in the life to come. This is Advent. And we are Advent people.

At the start of our own new year, in a season of waiting, out of step with the culture around us, we know that a reunion is coming. With the help of the Spirit, we remain awake and active.

And we know the love that will meet us has been with us all along. Amen.