St. Paul Lutheran Church, Minden, Nebraska
Sunday sermon – Second Sunday of Easter, April 19, ’09
“Groping In Darkness”
Text: 1 John 1:5-7
First a word of introduction! This message is going to be the 1st in a series of 6 messages, each message based on the Epistle reading for each of the next six Sundays of Easter leading up to Pentecost. All six Epistle readings come from the little New Testament letter of 1 John -- which really is not so much a letter but more an early Christian homily, or a sermon.
(If you’re open to suggestions, I would suggest you read & become familiar with 1 John because there’s a lot in this little homily that still applies to living a Christian life in a post-Christian world today.)
Having said that, I’m can also tell you this will not be an easy series of messages to preach because all 6 messages are going follow the exhortations that the author of 1 John sets forth showing what is distinct & different about Christian beliefs, Christian behavior, Christ-ian ethics as opposed to the beliefs & behavior & ethics of those who aren’t Christians.
This is not to say 1 John is an early Christian homily on how to be a “saint” - or how to be a “holier-than-thou” religious person - or a religious “know-it-all”. No way!
1 John is a welcome, encouraging, pastoral, down-to-earth word of Good News for believers to take seriously the proclamation of Easter that the Lord Jesus Christ, is one, resurrected, living, ever-present Lord who daily calls us His followers to reflect His love, His Word, His compassion in the lives we are given o live.
“The infinite (incarnate) Life of God himself took shape before us,” writes the apostle John in the opening verses of 1 John, “We saw it, we heard it, and now we’re telling you so you can experience it along with us, the experience of fellowship with the Father and His Son, the risen Jesus Christ. Our motive for writing is simply this: We want you to enjoy this, too. Your joy will double our joy!” (from the Message, 1:3,4)
This raises a good, practical question. What does it mean to you, to me when John as an eye-witness to the resurrected Lord Jesus says Jesus’ resurrection changes everything?
Second comes a word of clarification. In 1 John chapter 1 the apostle speaks of darkness & light, only it’s not as simple a distinction to make as we might think. A seminary professor who teaches homiletics at the Lutheran School of Theology in Chicago puts it this way: “in order to see & experience the joy of walking in the light, as God is in the light, we have to first deal with, see ourselves “groping in darkness.”
Certainly it ought to be no surprise to us there is darkness in this life. Not darkness that’s natural but darkness that is the dark-ness of griping or groaning. Even as Christians, most of us have been there, done that. Griping & groaning is a state of mind we get ourselves into that manifests itself in mumbling about things not going well or things going against us. We grumble, we complain, we whine, we develop an “attitude”, we put the worst construction on things. This is not walking in the light
I have read where it’s been said Christians seem to have some of “the lowest irritation thresholds around.” Call it ICS, “Irritable Christian Syndrome.”
An early symptom of Irritable Christian Syndrome” is developing a reputation for being Mr. “Doom & Gloom” or Mrs. “Can’t you do any-thing right?”
Other symptoms of Irritable Christian Syndrome are Christians cry-ing out, exploding with “Leave me alone! Don’t bother me! Give me a break! Get off my case!” In other words “Irritable Christian Syndrome:” is not a particularly bright, flattering, loving characteristic to be known for! Not a good reflection of what being a believer in the risen Lord Jesus Christ and walking in the light is all about.
And what about this? In this life there is also the darkness of grasping, grabbing, hanging on for dear life to all you can get your hands on. “Grab your family, protect your most precious possessions, circle the wagons against an uncertain, unpredictable future.” There even used to be a beer commercial many years ago that said, “You only go ‘round once in this life, so you better grab for all you can get.”
Are you a grabber, a grasper? Are you a person whose desire for possessions, having this, that and everything else is a consuming, driving desire in your life? Again, grabbing, grasping is not a particularly flattering, loving characteristic to be known for! Not a good reflection of what being a believer in the risen Lord Jesus Christ and walking in the light is all about.
Griping, groaning; blaming, complaining; grasping, grabbing; possessing, hoarding, hanging on, helping ourselves to whatever we can get for ourselves!
The apostle John writes of this kind of darkness: If we claim to have fellowship with God yet walk in the darkness, we lie and do not live by the truth.
Then to hear about groping in darkness! Is this a good or a bad thing? According to the apostle John it’s a good thing. So third, here’s a word of affirmation.
The dictionary defines “groping” as “feeling or searching about blindly, hesitantly, uncertainly; feeling one’s way. Seeking or finding one’s way by groping.”
In today’s epistle reading, the apostle John emphatically declares not just that “God is light,” but that “in God there is no darkness at all.” In God, in God’s will for us, in God’s Word for us, in God’s love for us, in the gift of Jesus crucified & risen from the dead for us, there is no darkness at all.”
We may find ourselves in dark places and in dark times, all of us guilty at one time or another of “Irritable Christian Syndrome,” guilty of walking in the darkness, gravitating toward darkness, being caught in the grip of darkness, reflecting the dark side of our human nature. But unlike gravitating toward darkness, groping in darkness is to say there is a way out of darkness. There is hope for us, there is salvation, there is freedom from Irritable Christian Syndrome when groping in darkness is us groping, searching, seeking God.
Groping in darkness, says John, is to confess our sin, confess the reality of our human nature. To confess our sin is to personally, publicly, specifically acknowledge our blindness, our waywardness, our daily need for God revealed in Jesus Christ and not merely be resigned to, give in to a state of sinfulness.
“If we claim to be without sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, God is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness.” (vv.8,9).
I, for one, sinner that I am, low irritation threshold that I have, I do not want my life to reflect the darkness of Irritable Christian Syndrome when God longs to meet me in this darkness and bring me & my life into the light of His steadfast love & mercy revealed in the risen Lord Jesus Christ.
In Psalm 139, the Word of God says, “If we say, ‘Surely the darkness will hide me and the light become night around me,’ the reality is, the Good News is, “even the darkness will not be dark to God; the night will shine like the day, for darkness is as light to God.”
What that’s saying is whether we use light or darkness to describe the uniqueness, the newness, or the end of the way things use to be, it is God’s nature is to love and forgive us. This is the joy of being believers in the crucified and risen-from-the-dead Lord Jesus Christ. It’s a new day dawning, a light shining in a dark place, a burden of failure & guilt lifted off our shoulders. We hear, we see, we touch God’s love and forgiveness in the person of Jesus and He hears & sees & touches us in His Word and His Sacraments of Holy Baptism and Holy Communion.
This brings me to a fourth word, a word of application!
As the light of God’s love is ever more clearly & personally revealed in the risen Lord Jesus, so the light & the power of Jesus’ resurrection and the transformation brought on by our relationship with God thru faith in the risen Lord Jesus finds concrete expression in the way we live each day as we love one another.
My dear children, pleads the apostle John, I write this to you so that you will not sin, not give in to, not be ruled by the darkness.
But if anybody does sin, if anyone is caught in the grip of dark-ness, let him not gripe or groan or grovel in the darkness but let him grope in darkness.
Thankfully, we neither walk in the light nor grope in the darkness alone.
We have a risen Lord, who seeks us, meets us in our darkness, one who speaks to the Father in our defense – Jesus Christ, the Righteous One.
He is the atoning sacrifice for our sin, and not only for ours but also for the sins of the whole world. (2:1,2)
Praise God for the light of His redeeming, darkness-transforming love revealed to us in Christ; a love that restores our relationship to God, reduces the stress of Christian Irritation Syndrome, and enables us to be a blessing to others, others with whom we learn how to walk in the light . . .
May God grant this to us all as we continue to consider more of what’s written for us and to us in 1 John in the next five Sundays of Easter still to come. Amen
