Lent 2 - 16th March 2025 = Choral Evensong
Readings: Exodus 11: 1-10; Psalm 119: 121-136; Luke 22: 39-53
Luke 22:53 “When I was with you day after day in the temple, you did not lay hands on me. But this is your hour, and the power of darkness.
On Friday we were privileged to host the World Day of Prayer Service. The focus of the service was the Cook Islands – 15 islands scattered over 2 million square kilometres of the Pacific Ocean with a population of 16,000. However, there are 20,000 Cook Islanders living in Australia and 80,000 in New Zealand. During the service we were introduced to a Cook Islander woman named Vainiu. In her story she describes being taught in her own language, Cook Island Maori for the first three years of her education in the early 1960’s. However, as she progressed English became the language of instruction, and they were told not to speak their mother tongue. She describes how one day she was caught speaking in her mother tongue and as punishment was made to wear a cardboard sign that said, “I am a Maori speaker”, as well as being given a detention and made to pull out prickly weeds in the playground. She describes how she was devalued and shamed by the school system and likened this to darkness. She said “God goes with us to the darkness at the bottom of the ocean where there is no light, And God helps lead us out of darkness into a wonderful light.
Darkness in the scriptures is much more than an absence of light. It represents, along with light, a fundamental duality that reaches right back to the creation. In the first verse of our Scriptures, we read “In the beginning when God created the heavens and the earth, the earth was a formless void and darkness covered the face of the deep, while a wind from God swept over the face of the waters. Then God said, let there be light, and there was light….”[1] Darkness represents nothingness, formlessness. It has come to be associated with sin, evil, wilful disobedience to God. And if you, as I did yesterday, put the word “darkness” into your favourite Bible browser, you’ll come up with 177 verses in which, for the most part, this duality between light and darkness is drawn. Two or three examples – from Isaiah “Ah, you who call evil good and good evil, who put darkness for light and light for darkness”[2], part of Isaiah’s denunciation of social injustice. Or from Micah
“Do not rejoice over me, O my enemy;
when I fall, I shall rise;
when I sit in darkness,
the Lord will be a light to me.”[3]
Or from St. John “And this is the judgement, that the light has come into the world, and people loved darkness rather than light because their deeds were evil.”[4]
So, when Jesus says as his betrayers and the chief priests and the temple police come for him “This is your hour, and the power of darkness”, maybe he’s not referring just to the act of betrayal by Judas. Maybe he’s indicating that at this moment, all the powers of darkness – nothingness, complete separation from God, untrammelled evil, a reversal of the goodness of creation are in the ascendancy and as we follow the story – the second readings for Sunday Evening Prayer during the Season of Lent take us through St. Luke’s Passion narrative, we’ll come to the point of Jesus’ death when “darkness came over the whole land until three in the afternoon while the sun’s light failed.”[5]
Where does the power of darkness reside today – which powers of darkness may think their hour has come? We’ve already had one example at the beginning of this sermon – the darkness of cultural devaluation and repression in Vainiu’s story. A story, no doubt, all too familiar to our own indigenous brothers and sisters. We see the darkness of conflict around the world – not only in the violence, injustice, awful injury, deaths of the innocent, but in literal darkness as the Israeli Defence Force cuts electricity to Gaza again, or Russia deliberately targets electrical infrastructure in Ukraine. We see the darkness of gender-based violence not only in our own country but around the world. This year’s ABM Lenten Appeal aims to support women to flourish as they build peace in homes and communities, gain confidence in the wider world and become economically empowered. It assists in supporting communities to be restored to wholeness after being trained in how to end gender-based violence and other injustices against women and girls. Rallies held yesterday highlighted yet again the scourge of violence against women in our own society. There is darkness in the threats to properly functioning democracy around the world posed by authoritarianism, dictatorship, and wilful casting aside of proper diplomatic norms and long-standing alliances. There is darkness in the influence those with money and perceived power have in the halls of some governments. There is darkness in the threat posed to proper discourse by deliberate misinformation and disinformation propagated through the anti-social media. You no doubt can think of other examples.
But as you read the final verses of the passage from St. Luke again, Jesus, in the midst of betrayal and impending arrest, remains composed and in control. Despite the pandemonium, and chaotic circumstances he demonstrates his divine authority and compassion - he heals the ear of Malchus, one of the mob come to arrest him. The hour darkness has come, but the one who said “I am the light of the world”[6] is still in control. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it.[7] The light of Christ still shines in the darknesses of our present world too – they may have their hour but, in the end, they will not overcome the light. In the first reading at the Eucharist this morning, we heard how a deep and terrifying darkness descends on Abraham. Yet even in the darkness, God is there. The smoking firepot and flaming torch that pass by him are vivid Old Testament symbols of God’s presence.[8]
In this Season of Lent we’re bidden to reflect on darkness in our own lives – and to expose that darkness to the light of Christ who is the world’s light, he and none other. Born in our darkness, he became our brother.[9]
Let us pray:
God of tender compassion and mercy,
whose Son is the morning star
and the sun of righteousness.
let him shine in the darkness
and shadows of this world,
that we may serve you in freedom and peace;
through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen
[1] Genesis 1: 1-3
[2] Isaiah 5:20
[3] Micah 7:8
[4] John 3:19
[5] Luke 23:44
[6] John 8:12
[7] John 1:5
[8] Genesis 15:17
[9] TIS 246
© The Rev’d WD Crossman