27th January 2008 : Epiphany 3 : Year A
9:30am Westfield
Isaiah 9:1-4 : Matthew 4:12-25

I must confess I like candles. I’m not exactly sure what it is about them that I like but I do know that I’m not alone in my fascination. Perhaps it’s their utter simplicity as a means of providing light – and maybe in an age that has not slowed down its discovery and development of technological miracles candles remind us that simplicity remains a powerful and yet vulnerable force in our world.

I suspect also that people who lived in the ages before electricity understood things like fire and light and candles and torches far better than most of us do today. Nevertheless we still know that what the part-time wise person sez is true – that in a pitch-black room the striking and lighting of a single flame floods every corner with light, to some degree at least.

It’s perhaps a minor miracle that in the 21st century we still understand the simplicity of flame and out of that understanding can recognise the power of Isaiah’s imagery when the prophet speaks of a light that shines in darkness and deep darkness. Maybe we’ve all had more than a few doses of night-time power-cuts and know the inexpressible gratitude we feel when we lay hands on matches and a batch of humble household candles!

Over the centuries many have insisted that Isaiah is talking about Jesus as this light that shines in the land of Zebulun and Naphtali. That’s not very likely even thought Matthew’s gospel also wants to point us in that direction.

What’s more likely is that Isaiah is using a powerful counter-pointing image. The land of Zebulun and the land of Naphtali were not well-regarded. If location, location, location is the key to getting a good price for your dwelling then a mansion in Zebulun or Naphtali would sell for considerably less than the exact same mansion in Jerusalem. Fast-forward to century 21 Western Australia and we’re talking the difference between Balga and Lockridge on the one hand, and Peppermint Grove on the other.

So this is a deep deep darkness Isaiah is drawing to our attention – so deep that the introduction of light is not just welcome but completely life-changing, mind-altering, hope-bringing.

By the time Jesus came along the social and spiritual power-cut in Israel had lasted a long, long time. Foreign troops occupied and controlled the land and religion had gone to pot. This was deep darkness.

So what does God do? Send in a brigade of gig watt-bearing rescue-teams from Jerusalem? I don’t think so. Would you believe a hundred Synergy technicians with authority to reconnect the main grid? No? How about a boy scout with a battery-powered torch?

No, of course not. God doesn’t send rescuers from the centre of power but instead has a child born in an obscure village, part-raised in non-Jewish enemy territory and brought up in a place that the rich and famous despise, a place that as far as they are concerned is the heart of darkness.

This guy is Jesus and he becomes the match struck in the pitch-black room. He becomes the prime and leading example of how God operates in our world, using the simple and unlikely, the weak and vulnerable and powerless to do mighty deeds.

We know that Jesus had a few unfair advantages that we don’t seem to have – like being Son of God. But here’s the thing. Jesus sed back then and he continues to say it right now, here, today – You guys and gals, you go and live like me, you go and do what I did. Heal the sick and stuff like that. But above all be light in deep darkness. Bring hope where people have forgotten what hope is.

It’s been going on for centuries now. People following Jesus, doing what he did, bringing hope. And all the while the deep darkness has followed, trying to smother the light at every turn, sometimes with remarkable effect.

But again and again the Living God calls people to follow Jesus and bring that light into the pitch-black rooms of the world. And that’s precisely what we’ll see in a short while as S, G and L are baptised.

They become in this small ritual that uses very ordinary stuff like water and olive oil and candle light signs of God’s continuing presence and above all the continuing light illuminating the deep darkness of our world with hope.

That’s a big ask for a toddler and a couple of young children. But they don’t have to make it happen immediately. They will have the Holy Spirit to guide them and equally importantly their parents and godparents – and the members of this congregation. In the words of Sean Connery in Entrapment “it’sh imposshible – but doable - ” so let’s do it!