Sleeper, Awake

The following is a reprint of my sermon of April 3rd, based upon Ephesians 5:8-14:

When was the last time you had a nightmare? Did it wake you up, and if so, did it wake you with a pounding heart and some measure of anxiety or trepidation? Are you afraid of the dark? Would you admit it if you were? Mostly adults don’t struggle with night terrors, but often young children do. Night terrors are a kind of extreme nightmare that are often accompanied by screaming or sweats and elevated pulse and heart rates and shortness of breath. To help alleviate the thoughts of things in the night, nightmares, and night terrors parents often utilize night lights. There is something comforting about awaking in the darkness and being able to see.

Perhaps since we were primal beings living in caves, humanity has struggled with trying to light the darkness, so much so, in fact, that darkness has come to symbolize the things that are wrong, while its opposite, light, has come to symbolize all that is right. Light and dark become opposite sides of the coin, and if we know Jesus as the ultimate good and we hear that Jesus is light, then darkness must surely represent evil. But evil is devious; it is deceitful and often hides itself as something innocuous. Evil can never be good and dark can never be light, but sometimes the darkness of evil imitates the light, and sometimes it hides in the twilight – that time at the end of the day between light and dark.

It is darkness that tries to hide or obscure the light, and it can be difficult to see in the half-light of evening. Indeed, there are shadows and dark areas that can hide things - did something move, or is it only the shadows? In the darkness we sleep, but when the light comes we are to awake, get up and enter into the light to live our lives. Paul uses these metaphors for our faith journey, calling on us to awake! We can no longer sleep in the darkness, oblivious to the ways of the dark. It is time to awake and to come into the light, living like the good that is our Lord. Indeed, sin relishes secrecy; it revels in being hidden, in nestling into the dark. Sins that are committed in the dark are often exposed in the light.

Whispers in the dark create hurt in the light. Secrets in the dark are exposed in the light, and so Paul calls on believers to live not in the darkness whispering secrets and nurturing sin, but to come into the light and live fully awake and aware. And awareness is necessary, because too often sin hides itself in the half-light of life – in places where we might not recognize it. This story offers an illustration of how the half-light can work against us. It has floated around the internet for a while, but is a reminder of our call to be awake and aware and to live in the light. (Note: I have modified it for my own use).

Satan called a worldwide convention. In his opening address to his minions, he said,

“Jesus has built his church on a rock and the very gates of hell cannot prevail against it. The faith confession allows people to enter into a relationship with the Lord, and the transforming Spirit comes to live in them, a transforming presence that can put them beyond our reach. But we do not have to keep them from Jesus or from church or even from the Spirit to have success in creating chaos and evil.

Here is our plan of action: distract them from their Savior and interfere with their attempts to form community in church with each other.

‘But how is this accomplished?’ his servants asked.

Keep them busy in the nonessentials of life and invent innumerable schemes and ways to occupy their minds and their time. Tempt them to spend and borrow so they have to work longer hours to maintain their lifestyle. Convince them that church is just one option among the many that are available for them, like a smorgasborg of good things to choose from. Encourage them to enjoy activities that compete with spiritual development and with community formation so that fellowship with other believers is fragmented.

Convince them that material gain and self-sufficiency are the most important aspects of life – and that independence is vital. As the pressures of work and family accumulate and as they lose connections in their faith community their family life and relationships will also crumble. Fill their minds with images of physical beauty and physical love, so that they become convinced that bodily perfection and physical attraction are the measure of love and relationships.

Overstimulate their minds so that they cannot hear that still small voice. Entice them to play the mp3 player or the CD player all the time. Tempt them to keep their phone or TV or CD or PC going constantly, consuming their time and further interfering with meaningful relationships.

Fill their coffee tables with magazines and newspapers. Pound their minds with 24 hour a day news and advertising, and invade their driving moments with billboards and rolling advertisements on other vehicles. Flood their email and their mailboxes with junk mail, sweepstakes that promise instant gratification, and promotional offers for products and services that fill them with false hope.

Encourage them to measure their self-worth by their productivity so that they resist sitting in quiet solitude and spending time in communion with God. Make productivity the measure of even their recreation time, so that it too becomes excessive. Then they return to home and work from their vacations exhausted, disquieted and unprepared to return to work and to life.

Convince them either that being amidst God’s nature is unproductive, or, that being in nature replaces being in fellowship with other Christians in church. Help them to justify their absence from church fellowship with the belief that church is only about worship and they can do that anywhere. That way the people who need them and the people they need will not be unavailable for support and encouragement. In the meantime, crowd their lives with so many good causes and worthy goals that they have no time to seek sustaining power from Jesus. Soon they will rely on their own strength and will sacrifice health and family for the good things that they are engaged in.

When they do meet for fellowship and community, for study together and worship, encourage gossip and hurtful small talk so that they leave with troubled consciences and unsettled emotions. Encourage them to nurse their little hurts so that they fail to forgive and lose support for each other. Support their belief that the splinter in the other person’s eye is so much larger than the log in their own. Discourage mutual understanding and communication so that they will continue to nurture the hurt feelings and sense of loss that they have suffered.

‘But these are such little things,’ the demons complained.

Ah, but if we confuse them with the half-light, they will wander into the darkness on their own.”

Paul calls on the followers of Jesus to move from the darkness to the light, to awaken to the light and live there. And the danger for most of us is not in the obvious places. The danger for most of us is in the half light, where sometimes wrong can look right, where choices can become confused, and where compassion becomes judgment and condemnation. In the half light we can justify our broken community and the works with which we accuse and hurt. And in the half light, the danger is that we will wander into the darkness on our own.

The strategy of the evil one is simple. Is it effective?



Sleeper, awake and move into the light.