Sermon Preached By: Dr. Larry Corbett, Pinnacle’s former senior pastor
Date: 9:30 & 11 a.m. Easter Sunday, April 8, 2007
Scripture: John 20: 1–18
Sermon Title:

"Punching Holes in the Darkness"

In the last couple of weeks through the nationwide media we have seen two persons whose politics are diametrically opposites encounter a common vulnerability which we all face. The possibility of death being a short time away.

Elizabeth Edwards, wife of Democratic presidential candidate, John Edwards, and Tony Snow, White House press secretary have been linked in our eyes by a brutal disease. A reoccurring cancer.

This week’s Newsweek has a major article on cancer in which one person speaks of having an MRI every six months like a visit to his probation officer — he may get another six months of freedom, and no matter how exemplary his behavior it won’t affect the possible outcome before the next MRI. We all know that cancer has the power to rupture the “inner calm of which we all are built.” (New York Times, Natalie Angier in “A Mutinous Group of Cells on a Greedy, Destructive Path,” April 3, 2007) Both Mrs. Edwards and Mr. Snow have vowed to fight their resurgent disease, and given the possible treatments available today, they may well succeed. But the point is that when Katie Couric said in a “60 Minutes” interview with Mrs. Edwards how hard it must be “staring at possible death,” Mrs. Edwards correctly shot back, “Aren’t we all, though?”

And so we are, but as many therapists know, it is much too heavy and ominous a threat to one’s spiritual and emotional life so we repress it daily.

Death brings the loss of life, and light. Death is typically portrayed as darkness by poets, artists, and authors.

The father of Dylan Thomas was an atheist during his life, and when he was dying, became a believer. Dylan wrote to him:

“Do not go gently into that good night, rage, rage, against the dying of the light.”

We all live under the threat of the dying of the light – and experience it in numerous ways:

The death of parents, spouses, children, siblings, and friends.

It causes us to awaken in the night wondering if anyone is listening to the prayer we just said. We wonder why our family or friend had to die and where she might be now. We wonder if her spirit knows what we’re going through presently. How does their spirit live? Can it be here and there at the same time? And, what do we face, now? These are nagging questions of philosophy and theology, common but mysterious personal questions with universal expression.

Such questions surface in a lifetime prominent with the darkness of death. In today’s world, it is the life of all of us.

Death dominates the news. I can barely bring myself to watch local news anymore as it seems that every day brings more news of murders, shootings, rage, and “dying of the light.”

The vast majority of news from Iraq continues to bring heavy sorrowful reports of the loss of young men and women with families full of grief.

Many of us in the church receive daily e–mail requests for prayers of intercession for persons threatened with life impacting illnesses, diseases, and accidents. We not only encounter death personally, but in so many of the life–impacting systems around us.

So very much of life is full of old systemic formulations in life that have run their course. Already, people are exhausted with the rhetoric of Hillary and Barack and Rudy and John and Mitt and all the rest who have nothing new to say. So many of the old systems to which we have lent our support no longer command our devotion. There’s not a person here who does not struggle against dying systems dominant today — public, corporate, hidden, overt, economic, medical and familial. The systems in which so many of us have found self worth, identity, achievement, and financial security are now full of uncertainty, confusion, and fear. Manifestations of the darkness of life.

Somewhere I read about Robert Louis Stevenson, the great British poet. As a boy, Stevenson was intrigued by the work of the old lamplighter who went about with a ladder and a torch, setting the street lights ablaze for the night.

One evening in Edinburgh, Scotland, as young Robert stood watching with childish fascination, his parents heard him exclaim, “Look, look, there’s a man out there punching holes in the darkness!” Oh, how much we need to punch holes in the darkness of 21st century life. We need the light of new life.

Human beings have always craved the light from the beginning of creation. It is no different today than centuries ago.

Have you considered how many light bulbs you have in your home? Think about it… from the little night lights in the hallway to decorative lights to lights for reading and watching movies… the average American home has between fifty and one hundred light bulb sockets. (Go ahead, go home and count them… we have seven of them in our master bathroom alone!)

Walmart has recognized this need for light. Walmart is on a mission to get us to change the world of darkness by changing our light bulbs. In the next year Walmart’s goal is to sell one swirl bulb to every one of its 100 million regular customers. That’s a hundred million light bulbs, a lot of holes in the darkness.

Walmart has tested these bulbs. They replaced every light bulb in ceiling fan displays in their stores with them – 40 bulbs per store in 3,230 stores. Walmart projected a savings of $6 million dollars a year in electric bills. And systemically, that impacts energy use, rising gas prices, dependence on foreign oil, etc. When Charles Kirby, vice president of Walmart, did the math he said it was an “I got it” moment. Punching holes in darkness.

Who would have thought that the transformation of one simple common item that everyone has taken for granted for a hundred years would actually be a solution to some of the major energy problems facing the world? Who knew that a simple change in lighting had the potential to save us all?

God knew! Call it God’s original lighting plan.

On this Easter morning if we scroll back to Christmas Eve we might remember that John called Jesus, the

“light of the world…

the light that shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it…

the true light that enlightens everyone…

the light that was coming into the world in the form of a typical human being…

the light of God… made flesh. God was punching holes in the darkness!” Our darkness.

Now, John reports that early on the first day of the week when it was still dark (Did you hear that?) Mary Magdalene goes to the tomb, and then Peter, and the other disciple, and then in the light of daybreak with great repetition in the next few verses, we hear the gospel report, “Peter… bent down to look in and saw the linen wrappings lying there; then the other disciple… also went in and saw and believed… Mary saw two angels… then she saw Jesus standing there.… ”

This 3–lettered word, saw, is repeated no less than seven times in fifteen verses, nearly half of the report! The disciples rejoiced when they saw the Lord.

That’s Easter, friends. May we also see the difference! It wasn’t just that Jesus was raised from the dead. It was that he was raised for us in our darkness. He returned to his friends and enabled them to see and believe. Punching holes in their darkness that we might see and believe.

Easter matters, friends, because it is God’s announcement that there is a solution to the world’s preoccupation with darkness and death, or to put it another way, preoccupation with over consumption of sin and self. One life, redeemed from death, can save the world.

Imagine if every one of us plugged that reshaped life into our homes, our workplaces, and everywhere else we went… then, we, too, would be punching holes in the darkness. Walmart thinks it only takes one light bulb to save the world… that’s nothing compared to the risen Christ. God’s gift of light and life. It truly is a resurrection day. Thanks be to God!

I have used the following resources for this sermon: The Skeptical Passionate Christian by Michael F. Duffy; The New York Times, April 3, 2007, “A Mutinous Group of Cells On a Greedy, Destructive Path” by Natalie Angier; Homiletics, April, 2007; Journal for Preachers, Volume XXX, Number 3, Easter, 2007; and Pulpit Resource, William H. Willimon, April, 2007.