THE CRACK OF DAWN
Sermon by Dwyn M. Mounger, M.Div., Ph.D., Interim Pastor
Community Presbyterian Church Deerfield Beach, Florida
8:30 and 10:30 a.m.; November 29, 2009 (FIRST SUNDAY OF ADVENT)
Scripture: Jeremiah 33:14-16; Canticle (Lk. 1:67-79; metrical paraphrase); I Thessalonians 3:9-13; Luke 1:67-79.
Years ago, when I was in seminary in New Jersey,
the only time I could get back home was during the Christmas
holidays. Each year, four of us students from the South
would pile into one car in early afternoon, after our last classes,
and we’d take turns at the wheel, driving ALL NIGHT.
We’d drop off ONE of us in the Carolinas; another, in Alabama;
and two of us would journey all the way home to Mississippi.
As I recall, about 3 o’clock in the morning, somewhere in North Carolina, we’d pull over at a truck stop and order the first breakfast with real grits that we’d had in months! And then, somehow, it was always MY turn to take the wheel, while my friends slept. How LONELY! –Every farm, every town, shrouded in DARKNESS! It seemed as if I were the only person in the whole world awake—except for the occasional driver of a eighteen-wheeler on the Interstate! The only sounds were the CAR MOTOR, the WINTER WIND, and the SNORES of my friends.
I’d grow terribly DROWSY. I ‘d yawn, shake my head, wind down the window slightly to force the icy breeze to blow on my face, to keep from falling asleep. But I wouldn’t STOP, for I was too anxious to GET HOME! So I’d drive on—through the endless December night—until, FINALLY, somewhere in northern Georgia, scarcely discernable above the shadowed hills covered with pines and bare scrub oaks, I’d see a faint tinge of PINK in the sky that meant the SUN was rising BEHIND me. –Yes, the CRACK OF DAWN! HOW WONDERFUL IT WAS! Not only was it my signal to wake up one of the OTHER guys to take HIS turn at the wheel, but it was a JOY IN ITSELF for me to WATCH the dawn slowly spread over the winter landscape, dispelling the fog and eventually warming the chill!
YOU YOURSELF have REJOICED to see the coming of the dawn, haven’t you? Perhaps it was when you shivered with your fishing rod in that boat, on that pier or lakeside, or with your weapon on that deer stand in the wee hours, waiting fruitlessly for your prey to appear. Or what about that long, long night when WORRY about someONE or someTHING totally ROBBED you of sleep? Or what about that agonizing night, when you SAT UP with someone you dearly LOVED, who was GRAVELY ILL, perhaps DYING?
Yet when the DAWN finally arrived, it cheered you somehow, didn’t it? No matter how DESPERATE you may have been, somehow the SUNRISE made things a bit better! Thornton Wilder, in his prize-winning play The Bridge of San Luis Rey, asks: “For what human ill does not dawn seem to be an alleviation?” --And he’s RIGHT!
Friends, did you know that Luke compares the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ to the crack of dawn? Just consider the words of Zechariah, the elderly Jewish priest, in our Gospel for today. And awhile ago, you and I sang these same words, in rhymed form, in the CANTICLE of the same verses from Luke, chapter one, printed in your bulletin. Yes, old Zechariah is overjoyed, because a son, John the Baptizer, has just been born to him and his aged wife Elizabeth. –A son who’ll be the MESSENGER to announce the coming of Jesus, the Messiah! And ecstatic Zechariah lifts his voice in a song of PRAISE: “BLESSED be the Lord God of Israel, for he has looked favorably on his people and redeemed them . . . .”
Old Zechariah sings of his new son, the way-preparer for Christ. And he ends his song with THESE glorious words: “The DAWN from on high will break upon us, to give light to those who sit in darkness and in the shadow of death, to guide our feet into the way of PEACE!
Yes, friends, Jesus Christ comes to us like the DAYBREAK! –Isn’t that the MESSAGE of Advent the season that begins this very morning for God’s people? Tell me, what does daybreak DO? –Well, most OBVIOUSLY, it drives away the DARKNESS and replaces it with LIGHT! The Babe in the Manger came into a WORLD shrouded in moral and spiritual NIGHT! Somehow the old, PAGAN religions, with their fickle gods and goddesses, just didn’t satisfy. People LONGED for the light of the TRUTH. The Roman Emperor Hadrian, builder of the wall in northern England to keep out the fierce Scots, for example, once wrote a pathetic little poem, addressed to his soul. LISTEN:
Moreover, friends, not only Gentile religion in the ancient world had grown increasingly irrelevant and empty, but even much of Judaism, despite the wonderful ethical monotheism that it shares with Christianity and Islam, had largely degenerated into complex legalism and empty ceremony and burdensome rules. To ordinary folks, Jew and Gentile alike, God or the gods and goddesses, seemed demanding, unloving, impersonal. The Deity and the meaning of creation and life itself were shrouded in thick DARKNESS.
But then the Babe in the Manger came into this world like the CRACK OF DAWN—to drive away those mysterious shadows, to reveal God’s face of LOVE! And, friends, Christ comes to YOUR world and MINE TODAY like the crack of dawn, to drive away the darkness of OUR lives! Oh, it’s TRUE that often the night seems IMPOSSIBLE, the darkness IMPENETRABLE! When you and I look around us, read the gloomy news headlines, we’re tempted to see nothing but an impenetrable valley of the shadow of DEATH! The war in Afghanistan alone has, by now, lasted much longer even than World War II.
But Jesus said, “I am the LIGHT OF THE WORLD!” And, AMAZINGLY, Jesus said, “YOU are the light of the world!” We aren’t to keep the light inside this comfortable building, but take it to all those around us, in our post-Christian America, witnessing by deed and, if led, by word.
And the message of Advent, the message that you and I PROCLAIM this morning—yes, the message of a lone candle burning in our Advent wreath today, is that THE CRACK OF DAWN HAS APPEARED! –to bring LIGHT, to bring PEACE! And, in God’s time, its brilliance will UTTERLY DISPEL that darkness!
Yes, the glorious, good news of daybreak! So our Advent prayer this morning—and the prayer of EVERY Christian throughout this world, so filled with darkness, is, in the haunting words of the centuries-old hymn:
And our message, the message proclaimed by the Church down through the ages, is: REJOICE! REJOICE! EMMANUEL HAS COME; EMMANUEL SHALL COME; Indeed, EMMANUEL IS COMING NOW, O ISRAEL!”
Prayers:
Lord, in this Season of Advent we wait for so many things: For love to rekindle its flame in the hollow of our hearts; for that peace beyond comprehension, to quiet our troubled thoughts; for justice to become a word constantly on our lips and faithfully in our actions; and especially for the Light of LIfe to brighten our steps in the dark, winter night.
Come quickly, Jesus, and lift the shadow of our vision. Come quickly, Jesus, and coax us out of our hiding places. Place us in the midst of the hungry, the lonely, the lost. And keep us hopeful, Lord, even when wars and rumors of wars threaten to undo us and paralyze our faith.
Hear now our prayers for your Church, that heralds to a needy world his coming; for this congregation of your people, in this special season, and for all those congregations and parishes represented here today; for the leaders of the U.S.A., of Canada, of the Commonwealth, and of EVERY nation, that your peace and wisdom may bless all earth.
Merciful God, accept our prayers for healing-- particularly of those who, in this sanctuary today, may be in pain of body, mind, or spirit; and for all those of our brothers and sisters who hurt, and for their families.
Finally, keep us in fellowship with those who have walked the Advent way BEFORE us, until we join them in your perfect Kingdom in heaven.
Come, Emmanuel, long-expected Christ, whose birth anew in our hearts fills us with joy; for we make these prayers in your holy name. Amen.
As I recall, about 3 o’clock in the morning, somewhere in North Carolina, we’d pull over at a truck stop and order the first breakfast with real grits that we’d had in months! And then, somehow, it was always MY turn to take the wheel, while my friends slept. How LONELY! –Every farm, every town, shrouded in DARKNESS! It seemed as if I were the only person in the whole world awake—except for the occasional driver of a eighteen-wheeler on the Interstate! The only sounds were the CAR MOTOR, the WINTER WIND, and the SNORES of my friends.
I’d grow terribly DROWSY. I ‘d yawn, shake my head, wind down the window slightly to force the icy breeze to blow on my face, to keep from falling asleep. But I wouldn’t STOP, for I was too anxious to GET HOME! So I’d drive on—through the endless December night—until, FINALLY, somewhere in northern Georgia, scarcely discernable above the shadowed hills covered with pines and bare scrub oaks, I’d see a faint tinge of PINK in the sky that meant the SUN was rising BEHIND me. –Yes, the CRACK OF DAWN! HOW WONDERFUL IT WAS! Not only was it my signal to wake up one of the OTHER guys to take HIS turn at the wheel, but it was a JOY IN ITSELF for me to WATCH the dawn slowly spread over the winter landscape, dispelling the fog and eventually warming the chill!
YOU YOURSELF have REJOICED to see the coming of the dawn, haven’t you? Perhaps it was when you shivered with your fishing rod in that boat, on that pier or lakeside, or with your weapon on that deer stand in the wee hours, waiting fruitlessly for your prey to appear. Or what about that long, long night when WORRY about someONE or someTHING totally ROBBED you of sleep? Or what about that agonizing night, when you SAT UP with someone you dearly LOVED, who was GRAVELY ILL, perhaps DYING?
Yet when the DAWN finally arrived, it cheered you somehow, didn’t it? No matter how DESPERATE you may have been, somehow the SUNRISE made things a bit better! Thornton Wilder, in his prize-winning play The Bridge of San Luis Rey, asks: “For what human ill does not dawn seem to be an alleviation?” --And he’s RIGHT!
Friends, did you know that Luke compares the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ to the crack of dawn? Just consider the words of Zechariah, the elderly Jewish priest, in our Gospel for today. And awhile ago, you and I sang these same words, in rhymed form, in the CANTICLE of the same verses from Luke, chapter one, printed in your bulletin. Yes, old Zechariah is overjoyed, because a son, John the Baptizer, has just been born to him and his aged wife Elizabeth. –A son who’ll be the MESSENGER to announce the coming of Jesus, the Messiah! And ecstatic Zechariah lifts his voice in a song of PRAISE: “BLESSED be the Lord God of Israel, for he has looked favorably on his people and redeemed them . . . .”
Old Zechariah sings of his new son, the way-preparer for Christ. And he ends his song with THESE glorious words: “The DAWN from on high will break upon us, to give light to those who sit in darkness and in the shadow of death, to guide our feet into the way of PEACE!
Yes, friends, Jesus Christ comes to us like the DAYBREAK! –Isn’t that the MESSAGE of Advent the season that begins this very morning for God’s people? Tell me, what does daybreak DO? –Well, most OBVIOUSLY, it drives away the DARKNESS and replaces it with LIGHT! The Babe in the Manger came into a WORLD shrouded in moral and spiritual NIGHT! Somehow the old, PAGAN religions, with their fickle gods and goddesses, just didn’t satisfy. People LONGED for the light of the TRUTH. The Roman Emperor Hadrian, builder of the wall in northern England to keep out the fierce Scots, for example, once wrote a pathetic little poem, addressed to his soul. LISTEN:
Odd
little comrade, comfortable guest,
Capricious, elfin puff of air,
You’re off? But where?
And when you’ve left my breast,
Tense little traveler, pale and bare,
Will you find anything to laugh at there?
Capricious, elfin puff of air,
You’re off? But where?
And when you’ve left my breast,
Tense little traveler, pale and bare,
Will you find anything to laugh at there?
Moreover, friends, not only Gentile religion in the ancient world had grown increasingly irrelevant and empty, but even much of Judaism, despite the wonderful ethical monotheism that it shares with Christianity and Islam, had largely degenerated into complex legalism and empty ceremony and burdensome rules. To ordinary folks, Jew and Gentile alike, God or the gods and goddesses, seemed demanding, unloving, impersonal. The Deity and the meaning of creation and life itself were shrouded in thick DARKNESS.
But then the Babe in the Manger came into this world like the CRACK OF DAWN—to drive away those mysterious shadows, to reveal God’s face of LOVE! And, friends, Christ comes to YOUR world and MINE TODAY like the crack of dawn, to drive away the darkness of OUR lives! Oh, it’s TRUE that often the night seems IMPOSSIBLE, the darkness IMPENETRABLE! When you and I look around us, read the gloomy news headlines, we’re tempted to see nothing but an impenetrable valley of the shadow of DEATH! The war in Afghanistan alone has, by now, lasted much longer even than World War II.
But Jesus said, “I am the LIGHT OF THE WORLD!” And, AMAZINGLY, Jesus said, “YOU are the light of the world!” We aren’t to keep the light inside this comfortable building, but take it to all those around us, in our post-Christian America, witnessing by deed and, if led, by word.
And the message of Advent, the message that you and I PROCLAIM this morning—yes, the message of a lone candle burning in our Advent wreath today, is that THE CRACK OF DAWN HAS APPEARED! –to bring LIGHT, to bring PEACE! And, in God’s time, its brilliance will UTTERLY DISPEL that darkness!
Yes, the glorious, good news of daybreak! So our Advent prayer this morning—and the prayer of EVERY Christian throughout this world, so filled with darkness, is, in the haunting words of the centuries-old hymn:
O
come, Thou Dayspring (come, CRACK OF DAWN) and cheer
Our spirits by Thine Advent here;
Disperse the gloomy clouds of night
And death’s dark shadows put to flight.
Our spirits by Thine Advent here;
Disperse the gloomy clouds of night
And death’s dark shadows put to flight.
And our message, the message proclaimed by the Church down through the ages, is: REJOICE! REJOICE! EMMANUEL HAS COME; EMMANUEL SHALL COME; Indeed, EMMANUEL IS COMING NOW, O ISRAEL!”
Prayers:
Lord, in this Season of Advent we wait for so many things: For love to rekindle its flame in the hollow of our hearts; for that peace beyond comprehension, to quiet our troubled thoughts; for justice to become a word constantly on our lips and faithfully in our actions; and especially for the Light of LIfe to brighten our steps in the dark, winter night.
Come quickly, Jesus, and lift the shadow of our vision. Come quickly, Jesus, and coax us out of our hiding places. Place us in the midst of the hungry, the lonely, the lost. And keep us hopeful, Lord, even when wars and rumors of wars threaten to undo us and paralyze our faith.
Hear now our prayers for your Church, that heralds to a needy world his coming; for this congregation of your people, in this special season, and for all those congregations and parishes represented here today; for the leaders of the U.S.A., of Canada, of the Commonwealth, and of EVERY nation, that your peace and wisdom may bless all earth.
Merciful God, accept our prayers for healing-- particularly of those who, in this sanctuary today, may be in pain of body, mind, or spirit; and for all those of our brothers and sisters who hurt, and for their families.
Finally, keep us in fellowship with those who have walked the Advent way BEFORE us, until we join them in your perfect Kingdom in heaven.
Come, Emmanuel, long-expected Christ, whose birth anew in our hearts fills us with joy; for we make these prayers in your holy name. Amen.