Light the Darkness Cannot Overcome

A Sermon for Bloomsbury Central Baptist Church
Advent 4 - 21^st December 2025

 

John 1.1-18
Psalm 130.5-8

My soul waits for the Lord, and in God's word I put my hope.

There are some moments in the biblical year
            that feel like standing at the hinge of time.

Advent 4 is one of them.

We are so very close to Christmas
            that we can almost hear the rustle of angels' wings
            and the rustle of wrapping paper.

Yet we are not there quite yet.

The light is beginning to rise,
            but the shadows have not fully retreated.

We live caught between longing and fulfilment,
            between yearning for redemption
            and recognising redemption already at work.

It is a holy tension.

The psalmist gives us the language for that tension.
            "I wait for the Lord, my soul waits, and in God's word I hope."

The psalm comes from a place that is not comfortable or romantic.
            It speaks from the depths. From anguish.
            From fear that something is broken.
            From the sense that things are not as they should be.

It is the cry of someone who knows something about despair
            yet refuses to surrender to it.
Someone who chooses hope even when hope costs something.

Waiting here is not passive.
            Waiting is an act of commitment, an act that engages the whole being.
            Waiting is faith that refuses to be silenced.

Advent is the season that gives permission for this kind of waiting.
            It does not demand that we pretend to be cheerful.
            It does not insist that we smooth over the pain of the world.

Advent looks the darkness in the face and says:
            we will wait here, because we believe the light is coming.

Advent sits with the grief of the Holy Land.
            Advent cries with refugees on cold borders.
Advent aches with families worried about bills and debt and homelessness.
            Advent weeps for the devastation of our planet.

Advent does not avert its gaze from the shadows.
            Advent holds its place and waits, heart and soul and body, for the coming of God.

And then, into that aching, yearning darkness, the Gospel of John begins.
            Not with shepherds and stars and a manger.
            Not with Mary and Joseph.

John begins with a prologue that sounds like the creation of the universe.
            "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God,
            and the Word was God."

And before we have time to catch our breath,
            the prologue moves from the cosmic to the miraculous.
"The Word became flesh and dwelt among us, full of grace and truth."

It is almost too much to hold in our minds.
            The Word who spoke creation into existence
                        does not remain distant or abstract.
            The Word enters the story. The Word becomes human.
                        The Word takes on skin and bones and breath.
            The Word does not hover in a cloud of glory
                        but lives and walks and eats and suffers.
            The Word comes into the world not as an idea but as a person.
                        Not as a symbol but as flesh.

And something crucial happens here.
            The incarnation reveals what God is like.
If we want to know God, we look to Jesus.
            God is not remote, not untouchable, not indifferent to the world.
            God is present. God is embodied. God is relational.
            God is love that moves toward the world rather than away from it.

The psalmist waits with longing for redemption.
            The Gospel declares that redemption has begun to arrive.
The psalmist hopes in God's word.
            The Gospel reveals that the Word has taken on human life.

The truth of the incarnation is both deeply comforting and deeply disruptive.
            It comforts us, because it tells us
                        that God has not abandoned the world to its chaos.
            It disrupts us, because it tells us
                        that if God has come to the world in flesh,
                        then everything is now touched with holiness.

Nothing can be dismissed as unworthy of divine concern.
            Flesh is holy. Human life in all its vulnerability is holy.
A newborn baby is holy.
            But so also are those the world treats as disposable.

The Word becoming flesh announces that bodies matter.
            The bodies of the hungry matter.
            The bodies of the marginalised matter.
            The bodies of the wounded matter.
The bodies of those in Gaza and the West Bank matter.
            The bodies of those in Israel matter.
The bodies of those on the streets of London matter.
            The bodies of those who feel they do not belong matter.

And this is not just sentiment.
            The incarnation is a declaration that if God chooses
                        to stand in solidarity with human lives,
            then nothing is beneath the concern of heaven.

There is also a message for the church.

If the Word has become flesh,
            then we who follow Christ cannot live faith as an idea alone.

Faith is not a theory. Faith is not a hobby.
            Faith is not a personal preference.
Faith is flesh and blood. Faith is embodied.
            Faith takes place in real relationships.

Faith demands that we notice suffering and do something about it.
            Faith demands that we step toward the pain of the world
            rather than turn away from it.

Faith demands that we love, not in generalities, but in actions.

When the church becomes abstract,
            when it becomes detached from human lives,
            it stops looking like Jesus.

And yet, even as we hear the call to embody faith,
            we must acknowledge how difficult it can be to live as bearers of light.

The darkness in our world is not abstract;
            it is real and often overwhelming.

We see it in communities divided by inequality,
            in families struggling with illness or loss,
            in the relentless pace of injustice and indifference.
Sometimes it can feel as if the darkness is stronger than the light.

Advent, however, reminds us
            that even the smallest flicker of light
            can pierce the deepest darkness.
The Word became flesh not in grand palaces,
            but in the vulnerability of a child.

The glory of God did not overwhelm the world with dazzling brilliance,
            but entered quietly, gently, into the rhythm of ordinary life.
In that quiet, ordinary presence,
            the darkness could not extinguish the light.

This gives us both courage and direction.
            In our neighbourhoods, in our workplaces, in our church community,
            we are called to be small lights that shine persistently.

Acts of kindness, moments of listening,
            gestures of solidarity, campaigning for justice, welcoming the stranger
            – these are the ways the light of the Word continues to shine.

None of these acts are flashy,
            but each one counters the darkness,
            each one embodies hope,
and each one witnesses to the God who is already at work in the world.

We are not powerless. We are not spectators.
            The incarnation calls us to participate.

The psalmist waits with hope,
            but we wait as those who already carry the light.

In the act of waiting and acting, we join in the work of God,
            so that darkness is met not with despair
            but with patient, relentless light.

I want you to imagine a quiet street in London on a winter evening.
            The snow has started to fall, thick and soft,
            muffling the usual sounds of traffic.

The sky is dark, the street is dark,
            and the houses are dark behind their curtains.

And yet, at the corner, there is a single streetlamp,
            its yellow glow spilling across the snow.

The light is small.
            It cannot illuminate the entire street.
            It cannot stop the cold.
            It cannot prevent the snow from falling.

But it does what it can.
            It gives direction to someone walking home.
It casts shadows that make the world look alive.
            It is a signal: there is care here, there is attention, there is light.

In the same way, our lives, our church,
            our acts of justice and compassion are like that streetlamp.

We cannot eradicate all darkness.
            We cannot solve every problem or heal every wound.
But in the small, faithful ways we live and serve, we shine.

A kind word to a neighbour,
            a phone call to someone who is lonely,
            our campaigning for clean water or housing justice,
            the spaces we make for people to feel welcomed and valued
                        – all these are lights.

And together, as a community,
            those small lights meet the darkness
            and announce that the Word has come,
            and the darkness has not overcome it.

This is the hope of Advent:
            that light is already breaking in,
            that even a little light matters,
and that each of us is invited to carry it into the world.

John's Gospel tells us near the beginning
            that the first calling of those who meet the Word
            is to witness to the light.
To reveal what we have seen and heard.

Witnessing is not forcing belief on others.
            It is not winning arguments.
Witnessing is simply saying through our actions and our community:
            this is what the light looks like.
            This is what love looks like.
            This is what justice looks like.
            This is what hope looks like when it is embodied.
This is what compassion looks like when it becomes flesh
            in the lives of those who follow Jesus.

What would Bloomsbury look like if we fully lived that calling?
            If we were a community that others could look to and say,
            "If you want to see what the light looks like, look there."

I think we already know the answer.
            We see it whenever we choose generosity over indifference.
We see it in our campaigning and our organising.
            We see it in our advocacy for those who are pushed to the margins.
We see it in choosing to be a place
            where LGBTQ people are cherished and celebrated.
We see it in bearing witness to the pain of Palestine
            and insisting that every life has equal value.
We see it in offering welcome to students, seekers, doubters,
            the grieving, the hopeful and the curious.
We see it whenever we dare to love one another
            as if Christ were loving through us.

And yet, we also know that faithfulness is not always easy.
            The prologue to John says, "The light shines in the darkness,
            and the darkness has not overcome it."

The grammar is important.
            It does not say the darkness never tries.
            It does not say the darkness is imaginary.
It says the darkness does not win.
            Darkness never has the final word.

But until the final word of love is spoken,
            we still live in a world where love is resisted,
            and justice is delayed, and violence is real.

Advent is honest about this.

The psalmist waits through the night longing for dawn.
            The church waits for the fullness of redemption.
Yet we wait not with despair, but with confidence.

"With the Lord is steadfast love, and with the Lord is full redemption."
            As Psalm 130 puts it
Full redemption. Not partial.
            Not symbolic. Not theoretical. Full.
It is a promise that what God starts, God completes.

John uses different language to say the same thing.
            "From Christ's fullness we have all received grace upon grace."

It is a cascading abundance.
            It is the relentless generosity of God
            spilled into the world through Jesus.

Grace upon grace.
            Grace that heals shame. Grace that dismantles fear.
            Grace that unravels hatred. Grace that restores dignity.
            Grace that sets people free.
Grace that reaches those who believe themselves beyond reach.
            Grace that will not give up.

Put the psalm and the Gospel together and you hear a single message.
            Wait in hope, because the One who is coming is already here.
Wait in confidence, because the One who is coming
            is full of redemption and grace.
Wait actively, because the One who is coming
            demands a witness in our lives and in our world.

Advent is more than preparing to celebrate the birth of Jesus long ago.
            Advent invites us to prepare for Christ who continues to enter the world.

Christ comes every time fear is met with courage,
            every time loneliness is met with welcome,
            every time hatred is answered with love,
            every time injustice is confronted with collective power.
Christ comes when we act in faith.
            The Word continues to become flesh in us.

And so we wait.

Not waiting for escape from the world,
            but waiting for the transformation of the world.
Not waiting for God to fix everything while we remain passive,
            but waiting as those who already embody hope.
Waiting like people who believe
            that we have a part to play in the inbreaking of grace.

This is our calling as a church.

To open our lives and our community
            so that the Word continues to dwell among us.
To be a place where it is safe to long, safe to weep,
            safe to hope and safe to doubt.
To be a place where justice and compassion
            are not abstract ideas but lived truths.
To be a place where bodies matter
            and where no one is disposable.
To be a place where light shines in the darkness
            and where the darkness does not overcome it.

The world is yearning.
            The psalmist understands it. The Gospel meets it.
Humanity is crying out from the depths,
            from war and injustice, from fear and division,
            from isolation and anxiety.

And God answers not with distance but with incarnation.
            Not with condemnation but with grace.
            Not with withdrawal but with solidarity.

So here we are at the hinge of time.

We are so close to the day of celebration that we can almost hear the angels.
            Yet as Advent insists, we do not rush.
We stay in the waiting.
            We wait for Christmas, yet we also wait for the fullness of redemption.
We wait with hope, because the Word who became flesh walks with us.
            The world is not abandoned.
            God is not absent. Light is already shining.

And so we pray:

Come, Christ who is our light.
            Come into the shadows of this world.
Come into the depths of our fear and our longing.
            Come into our community, our city and our world.
Come with grace upon grace until every life is honoured,
            every injustice confronted, every tear wiped away
            and every person knows they are loved.
Make your home among us once again.
            And make us your witnesses. Amen.