Rev. Tom Sorenson, Pastor
December 6, 2009

Scripture:

Let us pray: May the words of my mouth and the meditations of all of our hearts be acceptable in your sight O God, our strength and our redeemer. Amen.

That passage we just heard from Luke is called the Song of Zechariah. I have fond memories of singing the Song of Zechariah in traditional Psalm style in the beautiful St. Ignatius Chapel at Seattle University. In that Psalm style one verse is repeated a various points as kind of refrain. In the arrangement of the Song of Zechariah that I sang at St. Ignatius all those years ago that line was “By the tender mercy of our God, the dawn from on high will break upon us.” To this day I can hardly speak that line. I have to sing it. “By the tender mercy of our God, the dawn from on high will break upon us.” I love that line, so this morning I want to delve into it a bit and see what it has to say to us beyond reminding me of good times back in seminary.

“By the tender mercy of our God the dawn from on high will break upon us.” Set as it is in Luke’s relatively long story of the events leading up to the birth of Jesus, the line pretty clearly is intended to be a reference to the coming of Jesus. For us Christians, in the birth of Jesus the dawn from on high has indeed broken upon us. But how? What does it mean for us to say that in Jesus the dawn from on high has broken upon us? And what does it mean for us to say that Jesus comes to us “by the tender mercy of our God”? We can of course only point briefly to answers to those questions in one brief sermon, but fortunately we get some help in doing that from the Song of Zechariah itself. Specifically we get help in answering these questions from the last line of the Song of Zechariah. That line reads: “to give light to those who sit in darkness and in the shadow of death, to guide our feet into the way of peace." That’s what Jesus comes to do, and he comes through and reveals to us the tender mercy of our God.

First of all, the Song says, Jesus gives light to those who sit in darkness and in the shadow of death. The first question to ask about that is: Who’s that? Well, I believe that it is all of us. It is every human being. We all sit in the shadow of death. Most of the time we do a pretty good job of ignoring and even denying that truth, but sometimes it gets driven home to us in powerful ways that we can’t ignore or deny. That has happened to me three times already in my short time here with you just in my immediate family. You all know about it. Since I began as your pastor not quite eight years ago my wife, my mother, and my father have all died. And we’ve had deaths in this church family that hit us hard: Ken Simon, Fred Rosenzweig, Joyce Smith, and others. Perhaps it is true that merely in order to live we have to live in denial of death most of the time. Yet when we stop to think about it, we all know that we live life in the shadow of death.

And we live in darkness most of the time. At least, most people live in spiritual darkness most of the time. Most people live in darkness most of the time because most of the time they, and we, live as though we were separated from God. That’s what all of the various manifestations of spiritual darkness ultimately come down to. They come down to a lack of awareness of the presence of God with us.

Jesus give us light in that shadow and in that darkness. At least, that’s what the song of Zechariah tells us. Does he? Yes, I am convinced that he does. How? By teaching and demonstrating to us God’s unshakable presence and solidarity with us in everything that happens to us in life and even in death. Jesus is the light in our darkness because he is the light of the presence of God in the world and in our lives. Jesus illuminates the shadow of death because he shows us that not even death can separate us from the presence of God. So Zechariah’s right. In Jesus the dawn from on high has broken upon us, illuminating our darkness and removing the shadows, even the shadow of death.

In the same way he guides our feet into the way of peace. The presence of God that we have in and through Jesus Christ is the only real source of peace that there is. Only that presence of God can calm our fears, calm our angers, and pacify our aggressions. By showing us the unfailing presence of God, Jesus does indeed guide our feet into the way of peace.

And in doing these things, of course, in shining light in our darkness and guiding our feet into the way of peace, he demonstrates to us the tender mercy of our God. God knows about our darkness. God knows our fear in the shadow of death. And God could shrug the divine shoulders and say that’s their problem not mine. Their darkness isn’t my darkness. Their fear isn’t my fear. But God doesn’t do that. God responds to our darkness and our fear not with indifference but with tender mercy. God responds not by leaving us to our own devices but by sending us sure proof of God’s mercy and God’s care in the person of Jesus. It is indeed by the tender mercy of our God that the dawn from on high has broken upon us.

So as we continue through this Advent season, let us prepare our hearts to welcome the dawn. Let us prepare our hearts to respond to God’s immeasurable gift in Christ Jesus with joy and with thanksgiving. Let us prepare our hearts to respond to the tender mercy of our God with lives more worthy of the great gift we are preparing to receive. That is our task, that is our calling in this holy season. May God grant us the grace to do it. Amen