Brant Hills Presbyterian Church: Sermon, January 8, 2017 Rev. Curtis Bablitz “FOLLOW THE LIGHT”

People don’t usually follow stars nowadays. We used to do it all the time – sailors on ships, travelers on caravans, they could set a course by the stars above and know they were headed in the right direction, but we don’t really do that anymore. For one thing, you can’t really see the stars anymore from most populated areas, what with all the light pollution, and so we have a hard time recognizing which ones are which, which ones we can trust to follow. If you went camping as a kid, you might have learned the old trick to find the North Star – find the big dipper and follow the cup up to the little dipper and there it is – but good luck actually using the North Star to get anywhere in particular. We don’t follow stars, because now we don’t need to – why follow some twinkling little ball in the sky when you have Google Maps? Of course, Google Maps uses GPS, which depends on a whole system of satellites flying over our heads, thousands of little twinkling little balls in the sky that we follow without even thinking about it, but it’s not really the same thing. We follow satellites, not stars.

So you have to give the wise men some credit for this amazing journey they went on, because even by the standards of their day, it was not an easy one. Matthew calls them the Magi, which is a Greek word that refer to Persian astrologers and intellectuals, people who lived in modern day Iran, outside of the Roman Empire. So these wise men travelled a long way to get to Jerusalem and then Bethlehem, and an even longer way to get back home, since they had to take a different road. According to Google Maps, nowadays it would take four hundred and eight hours to walk nonstop from Iran to Bethlehem via Jerusalem – the wise men might have been a little faster than that if they were on camels or horses, but then they couldn’t use all our modern roads and expressways. The song we sang this morning talks about these kings who traverse afar, over fields and fountains, moors and mountains, and while I’m not sure how many moors there are in the Middle East, it certainly wouldn’t have been an easy journey, leaving behind everything you know, your comfortable, familiar world, and setting out into the unknown, following this little point of light in the sky in the hopes that it might lead you to the promised King of the Jews. The Wise Men didn’t get everything right – certainly showing up in Jerusalem and trusting King Herod with the news of this newborn King wasn’t a smart move – but you have to give them credit. They did something that took a lot of wisdom and courage and preparation and patience. They followed the star. They followed the light.

And I think that most of the time, when we Christians think about what it’s like to follow Jesus Christ, we think it’s something like that journey of the wise men. We think that when God calls us to follow Jesus Christ, we need to leave everything behind, let go of all the familiar, comfortable, predictable things that we’re oh-so-fond of, and set out into the great unknown. When we read the stories of the great saints in the history of the church, that’s what they all do – Paul and his missionary journeys all over the Roman Empire, Dietrich Bonhoeffer giving his life to oppose Hitler’s rule over Germany, Mother Teresa serving for decades in the slums of Calcutta, those are the kind of Christians we want to be, Christians who live bold lives of adventure and danger and passion, who follow Jesus Christ no matter what the cost. Even when things are so difficult, when God seems so far away, just a tiny speck of light in the distance, they still follow, they still persevere, they never give up. They use all their wisdom and courage and preparation and patience and they follow the star. They follow the light.

And I don’t know about you, but when I think about Christians like that, when I think about the trials they faced, the challenges they took on, the way they lived and died, giving everything to Jesus Christ, and then I look at myself, and I just can’t see how I can possibly measure up. Following Jesus just sounds so hard. How am I supposed to fight against evil like Bonhoeffer or serve like Mother Teresa Brant Hills Presbyterian Church: Sermon, January 8, 2017 Rev. Curtis Bablitz “FOLLOW THE LIGHT” or witness like Paul when I can barely make it two hours without messing up somehow. I don’t feel very brave very often. I’m not the kind of guy who likes to volunteer for crazy adventures in far off places. I like things that are comfortable and familiar, I like easy access to sandwiches and running water and coffee, and just getting by as a Christian in this world already seems so difficult. We all do our best, we try our hardest, and yet the world doesn’t seem to be getting any safer, our families and relationships are still so flawed and fragile, and the idea of setting out on some kind of crazy adventure to follow Jesus out there in the wild blue yonder, it just seems terrifying and exhausting and impossible. We’re not strong enough, brave enough, confident enough to go out there and set out after some tiny point of light in the sky, trusting it’ll lead us to the King of Kings. So often, we feel like we don’t have enough wisdom and courage and preparation and patience to follow the star. We don’t want to follow the light.

And if you’ve ever felt that way, if you feel that way right now, then take a look at the passage we read today from the Old Testament, from the book of Isaiah. At this point in Isaiah’s story, the people of Israel are exhausted. They have spent the last eighty years in exile in the lands of Babylon and Persia, far, far away from their homeland, and when the new King of Persia finally lets them return home, they find that their once prosperous nation is nothing but ruins and rubble, cities all burned to the ground, farms and vineyards destroyed, everything good that they remembered from their old lives seems to be lost, and now they need to rebuild everything from scratch, all while trying to live amongst the people who had moved into the land while they were gone. The people of Israel felt so weak, so hopeless, without any courage, without any idea of how to go about making a new world out of the fallen memories of the old. And to this group of people, the voice of God calls, and tells them to Arise, and shine. God tells them to get up and follow the light, but this command isn’t a word of challenge. God isn’t telling them to arise and get to work, to go out and defeat evil and conquer poverty and build his kingdom in the world. God isn’t telling them to follow some far off point of light in the distance into an uncertain, difficult future. No, God tells the people of Israel to Arise, because his light is coming to them, because he wants to bless them with his power and presence and love, in the midst of their weakness and fear, God’s light is coming to them. And when that light dawns, when the glory of the Lord rises and appears over his people, it will change everything – all nations will be drawn in by that light, all that they have lost will be restored, their sons and daughters will return home, their hearts will be filled with joy, their homes will be filled with strength, their voices will be lifted up to worship the God of Israel, when God’s light dawns, when God’s light comes upon his people, all the darkness will be defeated, and the people will see their God. The people of Israel don’t need to worry, because the light is coming to them, dawning over them, and all they have to do is lift up their eyes and let themselves shine, let themselves reflect the light of God that is shining on them. When the people of Israel feel too weak to follow the light, that’s when God’s light comes to them, meets them where they are, and shows them how to shine.

And God’s promise to send his light to his people Israel was kept in Jesus Christ. When Jesus entered the world at Bethlehem, God’s relationship with his people was fundamentally changed – for the first time, they could see God, speak with him face to face, for the first time God was illuminated and revealed by earthly light, because he walked among us as one of us. Isaiah’s prophecy started coming true from the moment that Jesus was born, as the wise men from the east became the first representatives of all the nations of the world to come and follow the light of the Lord God of Israel. That’s the whole point – following the light isn’t difficult when the light comes to you. When God crosses over every obstacle, every barrier between heaven and earth and reveals himself to humanity Brant Hills Presbyterian Church: Sermon, January 8, 2017 Rev. Curtis Bablitz “FOLLOW THE LIGHT” in a baby in a manger, then all that’s left for the people to do is just come and see, come and find out what the light of Christ has revealed for all of us.

Here today, Our God is calling us to follow his light, to live as his people in this world in everything we say and do. And sometimes that call will come as a challenge, sometimes God will ask us to do things we don’t want to do, go to places we don’t want to go, leave behind things we don’t think we could ever live without. But even when God’s call is challenging, we can know that before he asks us to follow his light, God sends that light to us, when we are weak and weary and uncertain and afraid, God sends his light to us and shines on us so that we are able to follow him, so we are able to shine for the world to see, to reflect the light of Jesus Christ right where we are. We can follow Jesus Christ here and now, in the small everyday moments of our lives, we can reflect his grace and forgiveness and mercy and love to all the people we meet. And we have God’s promise that anything he asks us to do, he will help us to do it, he will make us capable of doing even what seems impossible. All the great saints of the church, the men and women who have gone before us, they were all just as weak and frightened and unsure as we are, but then the light of Jesus Christ dawned over them, filled their lives with his love and the courage that comes from his Holy Spirit, and then they found the strength to do the impossible, to serve boldly, without reservation, without hesitation, to follow wherever God called them. That same power is here with us. That same light has dawned here. This year, here in this church, we will let the light of Jesus Christ shine – we will live so that when the world sees us, they will know how loving our God truly is. When the light of Christ shines, the world gathers round, and the impossible becomes possible, and the kingdom of God grows near. So today, let us Arise, and Shine, for our Light has come, and we will follow the light. Amen.