Sermon – The Light Shines

(I preached this sermon at Christ Lutheran Church in Harrisburg, PA on Sunday November 16, 2025. The sermon is based on Isaiah 9:1-7. You can listen to the audio by going to this link – https://christlutheranharrisburg.podbean.com/e/light/ )

If the Old Testament prophets were around today, I feel safe in saying that they would probably not have a whole lot of followers on social media.  The didn’t offer messages that seem to be popular in modern American Christianity – you know the messages:  the prosperity gospel garbage, The whole rapture someone up so they can watch God throw a hissy fit on creation theology, the puritan like efforts to control what other people say and do – you know, condemning “those” people for who they are and what they do.  

Last week we heard Amos speak truth into a country where truth was manipulated and twisted to enhance the powerful’s position and to offer cover for their actions. We heard a prophet who knew the streets — he wasn’t just familiar with them, but he had walked streets just like ours. The stories repeat. Only the names and countries change.

And today, Isaiah steps onto those same streets. And he speaks not after the horror of a nation conquered, but into the horror as it unfolds.

Because hope does not wait for things to get better before it speaks.
Hope is not optimism. Hope isn’t happy thoughts.  Hope is not denial. Hope does not sugarcoat anything.

Hope looks horror full in the face. It shines a light on what is real.
And then — even when nothing looks different — hope declares,
“It does not have to stay this way.
God is already pulling us in a new direction, whether we want to go there or not.”

And let’s be honest: most of us don’t want to go.
Because hope means surrendering control.
And we cling to control, don’t we?  It’s a human addiction.  

We cling to control as individuals.
We cling to control as communities.
And nations cling to control most of all.

And in that sense, we are no different than the empires and kingdoms Isaiah confronted:
addicted to control, domination, and shaping reality to fit our desires.

Isaiah sees this. And Isaiah refuses to lie.
He names what is real — and then he names what God is doing anyway.

Isaiah lived during the rise of Assyria — an empire that swallowed up the northern kingdom of Israel. Assyria was not subtle. Assyria did what all empires do:

They exploited.
They conquered.
They extracted.
They crushed.
And they killed.

Empires always operate this way because they share the same core creed:
When the ends justify the means, everyone becomes disposable.
And an empire built on that eventually collapses under its own cruelty.

Isaiah is not surprised by violence, corruption, or lies.
And he does not say, “This is not who we are.”

Instead, He says:
“This is exactly who we have been — But God has other plans for who we become.”

That distinction is where hope begins.

And we have to name what is happening around us.

This week clergy and lay leaders went to the Broadview ICE facility in Illinois to offer communion to people being detained there. They came to offer Christ’s body and blood to those who are suffering.  A colleague of mind said it best when he wrote the following about this incident: “Just a quick reminder. Visiting the prisoner is one of a very short list of activities Jesus explicitly names as how to serve him.”

And on November 14th, the official Department of Homeland Security account on X called these clergy “violent rioters.”They posted video that clearly contradicted their own claim — because the only violence visible was from government agents shoving, knocking down, and arresting peaceful people of faith.

And then the official government account ended with:
“Get a job you imbecilic morons.”

I have no words.

And yet — Isaiah speaks into this with light.
Not after it.
Into it.

Because this is not new.

In 1965, on the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma Alabama, peaceful marchers — dressed in their Sunday best — were met with tear gas, horses, and clubs simply for demanding the right to vote. State violence defended the status quo.  And this day became known as Bloody Sunday.  

In 1837, Elijah Lovejoy, an abolitionist pastor, was murdered in Alton, IL by a mob for printing the truth about slavery. When authorities couldn’t control his message, they allowed him to be silenced.

This is not new.
These moments are consistent with a long pattern.

Because we must tell the truth:
Whether people call the United States an empire or not, we often use the methods of empire:

Control.
Domination.
Imposing our will on others.
Twisting reality to maintain power.
Crushing truth-tellers.
Banning books that reveal what actually happened.
Erecting statues that honor a lie.

And when truth threatens power, empire tries to extinguish the light — every time.

But Isaiah says the opposite:
“The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light” — right there, in the darkness.

Not after.
In it.

We need to be clear: we have always walked both paths at the same time.

America is not either/or.
It has always been both/and —
a story of brutality and a story of liberation running parallel.

Path 1 — The Path of Control and Harm 

• Andrew Jackson’s Trail of Tears — breaking treaties, stealing land, and causing the death of thousands.
• John Adams and the Alien & Sedition Acts — criminalizing dissent and silencing political opponents.
• Gilded Age greed — brutal working conditions, child labor, and wealth built on exploitation.
• The Roaring 20s collapse — speculative frenzy leading to the Great Depression and massive suffering, driven by deregulation and corporate greed.
• Herbert Hoover’s failures — policies that deepened the Depression and caused widespread homelessness.
• Warren Harding’s corruption — the Teapot Dome scandal and officials selling off public resources.
• Nixonian corruption — Watergate, abuse of power, and attacks on the press.

This is real. And we must not pretend otherwise.

Path 2 — The Path of Liberation and Justice

• The Emancipation Proclamation signed by Abraham Lincoln— declaring freedom for enslaved people in Confederate states.
• The 13th, 14th & 15th Amendments — ending slavery, guaranteeing equal protection, and granting voting rights to Black men.
• The Progressive Era — child labor laws, worker protections, and the rise of unions.
• The 19th Amendment — securing women’s right to vote.
• The Civil Rights Movement — desegregation, voting rights, fair housing, and legal equality.
• Marriage Equality — affirming LGBTQ families and expanding dignity under the law.

These also are real.

We have always pursued both paths simultaneously.
And Isaiah cries out:
“Choose the path of light. Choose the path of liberation.”

Because the God who shines light into darkness is calling us toward the second path — always.

Light doesn’t only expose horror.
Light also reveals goodness.

Light tells the stories that empire tries to hide:
Stories of people caring for one another.
Stories of healing.
Stories of communities refusing to be divided.
Stories of neighbors standing together even when the powerful try to sow mistrust and fear.

Light shows us that God’s new direction is already breaking in — right now — often in small and quiet ways.

And when our eyes, our hearts, and our minds are open, we start to see it.
Because that’s what “light” means in Scripture: open eyes, open hearts, open minds.

And “darkness” is simply this:
closing our eyes, clenching our fists, and putting blinders around our minds.

Isaiah reminds us that God chooses openness over fear.

We may be struggling with the question of where God is in the midst of this.  Why doesn’t God do something?  Why doesn’t God act decisively?  These are good questions.  

God takes sides — God takes the side of the oppressed, the marginalized, the vulnerable.
And because God takes sides, God acts.

So what does God do?

God starts a new way forward.  We see this way embodied in Jesus and his way.  
A way guided by love.
A way that frees victims and perpetrators.
A way that creates possibility where violence only creates cycles.

God’s light is not violent.
God’s light is relentless love breaking through our defenses.

Isaiah is writing to people drowning in horror.
And he reminds them of the “day of Midian,” when Gideon led 300 men to defeat an army of 135,000.

A story meant to say:
“When the odds are impossible, God shows up.”

And we have our own Day of Midian in this church.

The day when seven people — just seven — voted to move forward with the health ministries.

No money.
No staff.
No certainty.
No logical path to success.

And yet from that tiny seed came three clinics, thousands of lives touched, and a ministry that now holds this whole community together.

Tell me that’s not Midian.
Tell me that’s not God.  Tell me that’s not Christ’s way. 

Isaiah would nod with recognition.

So what is the light that God is shining now?

It’s this church.

This place — this community — is a beacon on the hill.
Not just the building.
You.
This community.

People are drawn here because this place offers the light the world tries to extinguish.

Here, people find the light of healing in a world full of harm.
The light of hope in a world full of discouragement.
The light of real welcome in a world addicted to suspicion.
The light of trust in a world where trust is rare.
The light of love where the world demands control.
The light of recognizing each person’s God-given worth where the world dehumanizes.
The light of Christ in a world addicted to violence, cruelty, judgment, and division.

This is not poetic flourish.
This is measurable reality.

Since 2018, there have been over 100,000 visits to this church —
to the clinics, to partner programs, to worship, to community gatherings.

People come because the people who walked in darkness have seen a great light.
Those who lived in a land of deep darkness — on them light has shined.

And Christ — not us — ensures that this light will keep shining.

Not after the horror.
Not once everything is safe.
But right in the middle of it.

This is the time this church was made for.  And the light of God will shine on people.  

Hope shines now.

Light shines now.

And the darkness cannot overcome it.

Thanks be to God.