Sermon: God is LIght

May the words of my lips and the meditations of our hearts be now and always acceptable in your sight, O Lord our strength and our redeemer. Amen.

A verse from the first Epistle of St John:

            God is light, and in him there is no darkness at all.

I don’t know whether you saw the opening ceremony of the Olympic Games on Friday evening; I found it a most impressive spectacle. ‘Light’ was a dominant theme; indeed the decision not to begin until 9pm was precisely to give priority to light against the darkness of night. And while the architectural design of the London Olympic Stadium might fail to live up to the magnificence of the BeijingBirds’ Nest, nevertheless, the lighting of the stadium externally and in Friday’s ceremony was a technological wonder, and we can be rightly proud of the lighting architects, designers and technicians, along with the pyro-technical brilliance of the fireworks. Of course, the journey of the Olympic Flame itself has really captured the imagination of our nation. We recall its arrival at the north door of this Cathedral Church in June and the crowds that tuned out in all weathers; the inspirational people who were nominated to carry it and the stories that have been told about their lives; some undertaking extraordinary community and charitable causes; some over-coming massive personal challenges; some simply making a difference in the places where they live. Yes, bearers of light indeed. But on Friday, once Her Majesty had ‘dropped in’, there was that great image of the flame borne along the River Thames so proudly by David Beckham and received at the Stadium by the great Sir Steve Redgrave. But then it was dispersed to the next generation of young athletes, who in turn lit the vessels borne by each of the nations competing, uniting the flames in a quite breath-taking cauldron where many lights became one light, rising high in the stadium. This was great theatre, brilliantly conceived, symbolically arresting, perfectly executed.

I was interested how on Friday there was a faith theme that could be discerned. It began with the singing of Jerusalem, of the holy Lamb of God, William’s Blake’s poetry providing a backcloth to the representation of a ‘green and pleasant land’ up-rooted by the coming of the ‘dark, Satanic mills’, in a visually amazing transformation of the set. I’m amused to hear that this could have been seen as left-wing propaganda, for the significance of the industrial revolution cannot be over-stated, especially in areas of Britain like the North-East. Then from Wales we heard a rendition of Guide me, O thou great Jehovah. To commemorate the London Bombings that took place within twenty-four hours of the announcement that the Games were coming to London, we had a moving solo performance of the hymn Abide with me, and there seated directly behind Her Majesty was the Archbishop of Canterbury.  The theme might not be anything like as dominant as the ancient Olympics where the role of the gods was central, but I was pleased to see that words of faith were not excluded; that the whole thing was not deliberately secularised; for faith is and remains a crucial part of the unfolding story of our nation and the world community.

But other themes emerged a well. One was the sense of unity in diversity; the human family in all its cultural difference, symbolised by the procession of athletes in their striking clothes and uniforms, coming together in a shared endeavour. And with that a sense of hope, that here is something positive, something celebratory, something that binds together billions of people. There are, of course, deep questions about modern professional sport; its ever-growing commercialisation, in some areas its corruption, its use to promote an ideologically false nationalism. We must hope and trust that the oaths taken in the name of athletes and competitors, coaches and referees and judges will be heeded, and that failure to win a medal is not regarded as some kind of treasonable offence.

While I was watching the ceremony, my mind kept wandering to other television images I have seen a lot of this past week, not least in the city of Aleppo; the images of bombing, gun-fire, devastated buildings, bodies wrapped in shrouds, innocent civilians, women, men and children in make-shift hospitals. And that is only one area – we might think of the thousands of refugees in central Sudan and the continuing violence in central Nigeria. It all seems a long way from the optimism of Friday evening.

And yet, the themes and hopes and many of the symbols of Friday evening are central to religious and Christian convictions. They provide us with a choice – to what do we wish to aspire as a race? Unity, light, hope, celebration, are all basic theological themes, and if we fail to make connections then we simply state our own Christian tribal irrelevance.

Which brings me back to my opening text from the first Epistle of John.

            God is light, and in him there is no darkness at all.

In the Johannine writings, there is a tendency to draw on contrasting couplets. There is almost a kind of dualism:

                        light-darkness

                        love-hate

                        truth-lies

                        children of God-children of the devil

                        the things of God – the things of the world.

Our text expresses a conviction about the nature and character of God. Yes, he is light, but he is pure light, total light, light without shadow or defect – light without darkness. ‘Darkness’ illustrates all that is sinful and evil, all that expresses itself in hatred, selfishness, violence and exploitation. And bound up with these images is the concept of judgment. The Johannine literature does not soft-pedal judgment.  For God’s light exposes evil and wickedness for what it is. I sometimes describe Johannine theology as provocative theology. By being black and white, it does not permit shades of grey. There is no half-light or twilight; there is no emerging dawn or dusk, simply day or night, light or darkness. The theology is designed to provoke a choice and response; it doesn’t permit sitting on the fence; it doesn’t do compromise.  Of course such an approach has its dangers, not least because if such a view becomes entirely dominant, it can lead to the most dangerous forms of fundamentalism. But it is not the only voice to be heard in the New Testament.  Rightly understood, it reminds us that we can’t simply sit back and do nothing; we can’t brush things under the carpet, bury our heads in the sand, pretend that everything is all right. If God is light, then darkness must perish.

And yes, Friday evening did have its own shades; a sense of the exploitation and human cost of the coming of the ‘dark, Satanic mills’, and the fact that there was a commemoration of those who died in in World Wara and other conflicts, and those who were killed and injured in merciless terrorist attacks on 7/7. Yes, this might be the first Games where every team had women competitors but that does not mean that in some parts of the world women are not subjugated. And we could not fail to be aware of the actual situation at home for some of the competing athletes, or even of basic issues such as global wealth and poverty.

The light exposes darkness and brings it under judgment. Our prayer must be that the Olympic Games themselves, with the memory of that Opening Ceremony, may become a signpost, a disclosure of God’s presence in the midst of his own creation, a presence that both inspires but also judges, of a God who is transcendent but also immanent. May the blazing cauldron, which burns continuously throughout this unique and magnificent sporting event, be a sign of the One who calls every human being into life and who judges our warring madness, for

            God is light, and in him there is no darkness at all.