The Light Shines in the Darkness

“What has come into being in him was life, and the life was the light of all people. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it.”

The story of Christmas is the story of God coming among us and affirming the life of the world – the light shines in the darkness and the darkness did not overcome it.

It is very easy to lose sight of this positive message from this ancient story – this message of hope: God cares about what God has made!

So often I believe the Christian story has been dominated by a more negative narrative.  Looking back through 2000 years of Christian history and theology we find tales of judgement, of who is going to the good place and who is going to the others place, of who is in and who is out, and we find stories of moralism and exclusion.  The good news is only good for some.

I believe that this negative narrative can so easily shape our whole world view, our approach to life and our proclamation.  So often we use the negative narratives that surround us to feed the negative narrative of the church as if by this people will turn to God.    

I confess there have been many times that I have bought into this kind of negativity. I wonder whether the publication of Paul Ehrlich’s famous book “The Population Bomb” which coincided with the year of my birth in 1968 has contributed to my willingness to listen to the so-called prophets of doom.  Or maybe it was assassination of Martin Luther king Junior or the Vietnam War and the shadow of the Cold War.  This was the world that I was born in to.

But since then the prophets of doom have been so many especially in relationship to the issues of climate and over-consumption and finite resources.

For me John Carroll’s book “Humanism: The Wreck of Western Culture” as well as Clive Hamilton’s book “Requiem for a Species” were certainly formational.  These books fed the concerns that I have for the way that we are conducting ourselves as a human species.  Since reading them other books like “Climate Code Red” and Paul Gilding’s “The Great Disruption” have also feed these negative narrative.

Now, let me be clear I do not doubt the seriousness with which these authors raise concerns for us.  As human beings living on this fragile planet we are very much in a precarious situation – the future feels uncertain and I do not put much faith in human beings.

The fears and concerns that I have, and no doubt that many of you share, are fed by the constant news cycle which likes to sensationalise and play on our fears.  Anyone who reads or watch the news whether it is online or in more traditional formats will be aware of the weight that the news corporations place on our shoulders continuously.

The negative narratives sell and the temptation as a Christians is simply to say, "See we do need God" as if somehow we are above or beyond all these problems – but we in church are as complicit with the problems of the world as the next person and this is ironic since we are supposed to have a story which is meant to be good news.  Good news which we celebrate on Christmas Day.

Jesus' birth is God’s commitment to what God has made – life.  This is good news “the life was the light of all people. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it.”

On this Christmas day it would be easy for me to be sentimental and say to you we just need to love each other more, or to say that the negative narrative of God's wrath and judgement will be countered by your personal salvation but I believe God’s vision is far bigger than the salvation of individuals and God's very nature is love.

God’s desire is for the life of the world.  The closing chapter of the scriptures provide us not the vision of a destroyed creation but of a new heaven and earth – a coming kingdom dominated by God’s peace

One of my good friends and mentors was the Catholic Bishop Michael Putney who always used to speak of looking for times in which “peace breaks out” to look for the signs of God at work renewing and recreating the world.

To put it another way he was encouraging me not to listen to the negative narrative, which is a particular predilection for Protestants, but to listen for the positive presence of the Prince of Peace, Jesus: who was born in Bethlehem and who has walked and who now walks among us.

As I contemplated this notion of the positive presence of Jesus with us I was reminded of the research of the Swedish Doctor Hans Rosling shared on the TED website. In a talk from a few years ago Rosling points out that less people are being killed by natural disasters and fewer people are living below the poverty line.  A report put out this year by the World Bank tracking development goals recently confirmed again that fewer people on the planet live below the poverty line.

“The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it.”  People are getting access to greater wealth and I believe that this will lead to better lives.  John 10:10 says that Jesus came that we might have life and life abundantly.

Alongside this good news I came across a statistical research video produced by Neil Halloran which looks at the number of deaths caused by wars and conflicts from World War 2 until today.  World War Two stands out as a travesty in human history but what was really interesting is how since World War 2 that overall we are killing each other less as a species.

In 1989 John Lewis Gaddes coined the phrase the Long Peace to reflect the changes that have taken place in significant world conflict since the 1950s.  Whilst through this period and into our present time there have been continued conflicts statistically the number of people killed in these conflicts has reduced dramatically.

Don’t get me wrong, anytime Cain raises his hand against Abel, when we kill each other in war or in times of peace it is a travesty.  But the good news is that we are getting better as a race.  This is not to diminish the serious situation that has been unfolding in Syria and Iraq but overall we are doing better and we should hear this as good news

“What has come into being in him was life!” Life is a precious gift and we need to continue to learn to value the lives of others more deeply for it is in others we meet Christ presence with us.

And finally, the recent Paris Climate Agreement has given us some hope in the area of the warming of the planet. The will and the commitment to meeting this challenge for all humanity is changing.

God’s desire for us is life and the promise of God is that the light shines in the darkness and the darkness did not overcome it.

The positive presence of the Word of God becoming flesh does not mean that everything is going smoothly.  The scriptures tells us that he came to what was his own and his own people did not accept him.  God’s presence alongside us does create conflict within us and confronts us with the problems of our own lives and of the community of humanity in which we live.

Sentimentalising Christmas does not take the Word becoming flesh seriously, neither does focussing on a negative narrative proclaim the hope of Christmas.  On this day we remember that God’s desire for us and the whole creation is life and life in all its fullness and on this day I would encourage to seek out the signs of this promise - to see where peace is breaking out as Michael would have said!

This is indeed the good news: “What has come into being in him was life, and the life was the light of all people. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it.”

It is my hope and prayer for you this Christmas that you will encounter in your own life the positive presence and power of the Prince of Peace, the Word of God made flesh.  And, that this encounter will help you to live in with hope.

(Photo: Courtesy of Rod Shea Instagram)

A Mile in our Shoes: John 1.

Rev Peter Lockhart
(A Sermon prepared for 96.5 Family FM)

There are essentially two different versions of how Jesus was born in the Bible. The one found in the gospel of Matthew tells us a story entailing Joseph’s dream and wise men following a star. Matthew also tells about the massacre of infants and the flight of Mary, Joseph and the baby Jesus into Egypt. On the other hand Luke’s story is about visitations: the angel visits Mary; Mary visits her cousin Elizabeth; Mary and Joseph visit Bethlehem; angels visit shepherds and the shepherds visit the Christ child.


It is from these two stories that we get most of the images on our Christmas cards and in the Christmas story books and the nativity plays. Many of which confuse the stories with one another overlapping the different elements and sentimentalising them.

Whilst these stories about Jesus birth are important my favourite reading for Christmas day is neither of these. Rather, I am always drawn to the beginning of John’s gospel which taps into the very first story found in the Bible, the story of creation. In fact in most English translations of the Bible the first words of the book of Genesis and of the Gospel according to John are exactly the same “In the beginning...”

So, let listen to the words of John 1:1-14 as they reveal to us the essence of Christmas:

In the beginning was the Word,
and the Word was with God,
and the Word was God.
He was in the beginning with God.
All things came into being through him,
and without him
not one thing came into being.
What has come into being in him
was life,
and the life was the light of all people.
The light shines in the darkness,
and the darkness did not overcome it.

There was a man sent from God,
whose name was John.
He came as a witness to testify to the light,
so that all might believe through him.
He himself was not the light,
but he came to testify to the light.
The true light,
which enlightens everyone,
was coming into the world.
He was in the world,
and the world came into being through him;
yet the world did not know him.
He came to what was his own,
and his own people did not accept him.
But to all who received him,
who believed in his name,
he gave power to become children of God,
who were born,
not of blood or of the will of the flesh
or of the will of man,
but of God.

And the Word became flesh
and lived among us,
and we have seen his glory,
the glory as of a father’s only son,
full of grace and truth.

The wonderful imagery of this passage lets us into the wondrous secret that the man Jesus was and is also the eternal Word of God. The Word of God which was spoken at time of creation, through who all things came into being.

The word that the church has used to describe this amazing choice of God to become human through the centuries is ‘incarnation’.

For me when I use this word rather simply say that Jesus was born I feel somewhat confronted by the amazing mystery which unfolded in this event, the Word became flesh! Incarnation!

In Matthew’s version of the events the Lord appears to Joseph in a dream and tells him that the child to be born will be called “God with us”. Whilst, in Luke’s telling of the story when the angel appears to Mary she is told that the child she will carry will be holy and will be called the Son of God.

This claim that Jesus is God among us is what I believe is completely unique about Christianity.

In my study of history and of world religions I can find claims of virgin births, demigods and even reincarnation and resurrection. The uniqueness of the Christian faith revolves around this claim: the Word became flesh and lived amongst us.

When we begin to unpack the implications of this it really is quite astounding.

You may have heard the expression, ‘you never really know a man until you stand in his shoes and walk around in them’. There are a few variations of this saying but I suspect most of us would believe that this is a pretty true kind of sentiment, especially if we have faced difficulties in our lives – the death of a loved one, fleeing from our home country, living with a disability, enduring a painful chronic illness, living as a dispossessed people and the list goes on.

Most of us would agree that to have any concept of what our lives are like means engaging closely with them.

This is exactly what the mystery of the incarnation is about: the Word became flesh. God comes to a walk a mile in our shoes in the person Jesus.

Yes Jesus may not have shared the specific experiences that you or I will live through but we certainly know that he experienced the whole spectrum of human existence joy, love, loss, grief, rejection, torture and even a sense of being abandoned by God in the moments before his death.

What the mystery of the incarnation does for me is remind me that God does not stand aloof, separated from our existence by time and space, and God’s downright divinity, no God chooses to show how much God loves what God created in the beginning by sharing our existence.

God walked a mile in your shoes and mine so when we turn to God and cry out in joy or in sorrow, in hope or in despair, in gratitude or in grief we know the one who is listening understands what it means to be human.

One of the most significant things about the incarnation is that it is God’s answer to our misapprehensions about love. I suspect a large portion of our personal pain and problems as human beings stems from the concern that ate not loved. We don’t believe we are loved by God and we don’t believe that we are loved by others.

In the book 1 John we read that ‘God is love’ and so Jesus is God’s love in the world. God seeking to transform how we understand and feel about ourselves – we are loved, you are loved and I am loved. In fact God loves everything that God has made.

There is an old carol which captures this true Spirit of Christmas in its words:

Love came down at Christmas,
Love all lovely, love divine;
Love was born at Christmas,
Star and angels gave the sign.

Worship we the Godhead,
Love incarnate, love divine;
Worship we our Jesus:
But wherewith for sacred sign?

Love shall be our token,
Love be yours and love be mine,
Love to God and all of us,
Love for plea and gift and sign.

In 1 John it goes on to say that we love because God first loved us. Christmas and the Christmas Spirit is about celebrating this love of God in which we find God giving us himself to share our life. God loves us and the world that God made so much that God becomes part of it.

When we understand this story, the story of the incarnation, the things we do for one another at Christmas should move us beyond our own needs and wants and into loving others just as we have been loved. It means trying to understand what it means to walk in someone else’s shoes and reach out just as God has reached out to us.

It is my hope and prayer that this Christmas beyond the pressure for gifts and cards and celebrations that sometimes weigh us down that you will encounter something of the joy and mystery of the Word become flesh: that you will encounter God’s love come down to you this Christmas and that you will know that God is with you, now as then.

May God bless you all and may you have a happy and holy Christmas.

An Ordination Sermon

Peter Lockhart
For Suzy Sitton!

What sort of person does the risen Christ entrust his church to?

As the curtain closes on John’s gospel, Jesus says to Peter, “feed my lambs” “tend my sheep” “feed my sheep”. Jesus entrusts the future of his church to Peter.

Of course the whole notion of the Petrine office and its link to the ordering church and so also ordination is much stronger in some of our sister churches.

Yet, on this night when we come to ordain Suzy reflecting on Jesus call to Peter may give some insight as to ordination and to the sheep that he is called to. To do this I want to do 2 things:

First: To consider who Peter was and what his cv looked like, and in so doing ascertain some of the qualities and challenges for those called into ordination?

And, second: to consider who the sheep that Peter was entrusted with were, so that we might know who it is we are called to care for as well.

To discover a bit about Peter’s background I began reading the gospel of John backwards to see what kind of person Jesus was willing to send out in his name.

I limited myself to discovering who Peter is in John’s gospel because this is where the story comes from. I have not included every reference to Peter in John’s gospel but certainly I am including the majority.

Jesus conversation with Peter is taking place on a beach. Why? At the beginning of John 21 just after the risen Jesus has appeared to the disciples for a second time in the locked room, Peter somewhat mysteriously decides to go fishing.

Peter’s decision to go fishing has always been perplexing. Maybe in the moment of confusion and misdirection after the resurrection of Jesus Peter is lured back to his old life. We know from John Chapter 1 Peter is a fisherman and maybe going fishing simply seems easier than dealing with the death and resurrection of his master.

In terms of ordination maybe this a reminder that each of us who is ordained has another background, another vocation, from which we have been called and which at times we may also feel lured back towards. This could be at times in which we find ourselves confused or confronted by our encounter with the risen and crucified Jesus. What are we meant to do with that? Going fishing may be easier!

Now I am going to skip back over Peter’s mini-Olympics, running to the tomb, and travel back prior to Jesus crucifixion.

In John 18 Peter’s triple denial of Jesus is set against the backdrop of Jesus being questioned by the High Priest Caiaphas.

Three times Peter is asked whether he was one of Jesus followers and three times Peter denied the association. Of course there is a clear connection to the threefold questioning of Jesus about Peter’s love in the story that we heard tonight. But it also grates against Peter’s assertion of John 13:37 when he said “I will lay down my life for you.”

As followers of Jesus, as his disciples, all of us will find that there are moments that we forget whose we are and we too will deny Jesus. Ordination is not reliant on an unwavering faith but is done in midst of the honest struggle that any of us have to hold true to Jesus. It is more than likely that like Peter it will take the cock crowing for us to realise with shame we have denied our Lord.

Now John 18 is not the best of Chapter’s for our prospective candidate, for in John 18:10 we also hear the story of Jesus’ arrest and how Peter drew forth his sword and struck the high priest slave, Malchus, ear off.

Now Jesus automatically intervenes, despite his commitment and the best intentions Peter has got it wrong.

The sword reminds me that there are times that as people who follow Jesus we may be tempted to support violence against other people in the name of Jesus or even commit violence against people. Not necessarily physical violence but the violence of judgement or exclusion or manipulation or hatred or simply apathy and inaction because we believe in doing so we are defending our Lord, but the question does Jesus need to be defended?

Retreating backwards through time and the confrontation in the garden we find Jesus in John 13 with a towel tied around his waist and Peter refusing to have his feet washed.

The towel could just as well be bound around Peter’s head. His blindness to Jesus teaching and misunderstanding seems to reach dizzying heights.

The setting apart of people at ordination is not because those ordained listen and understand Jesus any better than Peter did at this moment. To jump out of John and to quote Paul for a moment “we see through a dark glass”. The best any of can says is that we have glimpsed the Christ and gleaned some understanding of his way, as narrow and misguided as we might be in that.

Given all of these issues, thankfully, one of the aspects of Peter’s call is that he isn’t in it alone.

We know that Peter does not follow Jesus alone; he was fishing with 6 other disciples when the risen Lord came to them. As misguided as they may have been at times the disciples did support one another and encouraged one another as they followed Jesus. We know too that it was not simple this rag tag 12 that followed Jesus and got involved but many others as well.

It is far too tempting to see ordained ministry as a private and personal crusade as if we are lone rangers riding off into the sunset. This is not the case. And the presence of the minister’s from the Presbytery tonight and people from many congregations reminds us of this. We are all in this together.

Skipping back, right to the beginning of John now, in John 1 we hear about the call of Peter and of the other disciples.

And I want us to pause here for a moment because this really is what it is all about. Jesus calls Peter to be his disciple and in the encounter on the beach in John 21 Jesus determines to send Peter as his shepherd. In John 15 Jesus reminds all of the disciples, “You did not choose me, I chose you”

As much as anything this is what ordination is about not the quality of the person being called but of the faithfulness of he that calls us. We might go fishing, or deny Jesus, or commit violence in his name, we might misunderstand his teaching or simply think that we can do it alone yet it is in the grace of God which calls to us and it is his faithfulness that we celebrate tonight.

It might be even said that the fallibility of the ordained ministry of the church is a parable of the kingdom of God, because as ordained people our failure to be all that we can be is a reminder that God’s grace extends even to the ordained.

So this is the person who Jesus called, Peter, whom despite his failings Jesus believes in and trusts to feed his sheep.

Who are these sheep that peter is feed? I do not want us to simply make the assumption that the sheep are congregation members but looking again to the scriptures to think about whom it is that Jesus, himself fed.

I am going to do this in short, but again want to invite some people to help me build this picture.

In John 3 it is Nicodemus – a man who represents deep and long thinking about who God is, he is a Pharisee, a person of faith who assumed he had it all worked out, but was in fact far from the truth.

In John 4 we encounter the Samaritan woman at the well. Someone from a different religion, a person ostracised by her own community, a woman with questionable morals: a woman who thirsts for living water.

And again in John 4 the royal official whose son had died. He was a wealthy man with power and influence whom Jesus reached out to in love.

In John 5 a paralysed man and in John 9, a man blind since birth. People coping with disability found at the fringe of society, in need of healing and hope, in need of community.

To step briefly out of John’s gospel “tax collectors and sinners” and “the lost sheep of the house of Israel”.

Beyond his own followers these are the sheep that Jesus fed. Yes we are responsible to the flock of our congregation but our congregations are ministers of the gospel as well and together we are called to all of these whom Jesus loved.

“Feed my sheep”. Indeed they are Jesus’ sheep, not ours, but we who called to follow Jesus, ordained and lay alike, are called to follow Jesus by serving those whom he loved. Our very own lives are not hypocritical failures but signs of the grace of a God who in Jesus would call even us to share in his ministry, not because we are worthy of the call but because Jesus reaches out in love and faithfulness declaring God’s peace us and constantly inviting us also to follow him.

The one coming into the World

In the story of the raising of Lazarus found in John 11 Martha recognises Jesus as the one coming into the world. This is a marvellous image of God's grace and love. Jesus is coming into the world and in him God is coming into the world. Whilst having a historical context there is a constancy of the movement of Jesus coming into the world through the power of the Holy Spirit, the helper that Jesus says the Father will send.

Jesus coming into the world shifts we human beings in our relationship with God. Firstly, it celebrates our created existence. Our lives are affirmed by the incarnation which reminds us that the creation is good and we are to live in the light not of what we expect may happen after we die but in the gift of life we have now. Second, it says we do not need to go to find God anywhere because Jesus is one who comes to us. Jesus coming into the world is God's coming into the presence of our daily living and we can discover that God is there with us not simply some God out there who is immune to what it means to live.