CMLC 2025-11-30 Sermon

Have you ever woken up in the middle of the night,

needing to go to the bathroom, and you just didn't

want to turn the light on? You know turning the

light on will help you see. But you know that

feeling, waking up at 2 .30 in the morning, making

a quiet deal with yourself, I'm not turning on

that light. Because you know the rules. If the

light goes on, your eyes will sting, your brain

kicks into gear, and your body thinks it's morning,

and suddenly you're awake. when all you wanted

to do was stay half asleep and go take care of

your business. So you shuffle in the dark, eyes

half closed, hand on the wall like a sleepy zombie,

making way more noise than anybody needs to hear

at any point in time and being called by your

older cousin a super spy. Thank you, Jock. You're

trying not to wake up. You're trying not to see

too clearly. You're trying to stay inside the

comfort zone of drowsiness where the dark lets

you pretend that you're still asleep. You tiptoe

through the dark hoping that the night can just

keep lulling you along and you can get back to

bed quickly. Sometimes we avoid light on purpose.

If we turned it on, if we really saw things,

we'd have to be awake. And being awake is inconvenient.

Being awake demands something. It breaks the

spell of comfortable sleep. Turning on the light

forces awareness. Once the light is on, you must

face the reality that the night is over. That

you're awake and that you must act. That's the

worst part. If you're awake, it means you're

supposed to be doing stuff. We live in a world

that constantly lulls us into sleep. Sometimes

it's the literal sleep of the night, but more

often it's the moral, spiritual, ethical sleep

that quietly settles over our hearts. We like

it that way. Darkness can be comfortable. It

keeps us from having to face truths that we'd

rather ignore. It allows us to postpone uncomfortable

conversations with ourselves, with others, with

God. Darkness is seductive because it allows

us to stay unexamined, unchallenged, and unaccountable.

And the same is true morally and spiritually.

We can live, speak, and act without fully seeing

ourselves, without being fully honest with God

or our neighbors. But the moment light shines,

whether through conscience, scripture, or God

Himself, we can no longer pretend. The night

is over. The dawn is near. Wake up! You're welcome.

Paul captures this urgency in Romans 13 when

he writes, The night is far gone. The day is

at hand. So let us cast off the works of darkness

and put on the armor of light. We cannot pretend

that moral sleepiness is harmless. The night

is ending. The light is coming. We often prefer

spiritual drowsiness because if the light comes

on then that means we have to admit something

if Christ's truth shines on our words our habits

our excuses our compromises We'd have to acknowledge.

What's really there if We step into the light

we can't keep pretending that everything is in

order if you turn on the light Then you have

to see the mess that's on the floor the clutter

in the corner, the things that we've tripped

over a dozen times, the things that we try to

navigate around, instead of realizing the need

to clean it up. Darkness lets us stay numb. Just

like that 2 .30 a .m. trip to the bathroom, with

all of our resentments, prejudices, hidden sins,

and comfortable habits, we sometimes whisper

to our souls, don't turn the light on, don't

wake up. Don't look too closely Let me stay in

the half darkness a little longer, but Advent

says wake up The dawn is here and Christ is shining

the light has risen But you've just been keeping

your eyes closed Consider the darkness that grows

when no one is paying attention for years here

in Houston it appeared executives were running

a perfectly successful business climbing to unprecedented

financial heights, but behind the scenes, accounting

tricks, manipulation, and deception were running

unchecked. They created shell companies to hide

losses. They shifted debt off their books so

it wouldn't be noticed. They reported profits

that were not actually profits after all. People

trusted numbers because they wanted to believe

everything was fine. Darkness thrived because

people don't want to look too closely. They didn't

want to turn on the light. But you see, the consequences

were devastating. Not just for the Enron executives,

but for the employees, the retirees, the investors,

and the communities who trusted the company.

Jobs evaporated overnight. Life savings disappeared.

Families were uprooted. Communities were shaken.

All of this because darkness had been allowed

to grow unchallenged. because people had been

lulled into ethical sleepiness. And the strange

thing was, many of the people involved were not

villains in their own minds. They weren't waking

up each morning thinking, how can I be evil today?

Mwa ha ha, where is the wax for my mustache?

Do do do. Do you think that anyone being evil

ever really says, yes, I am evil today, you caught

me? Most of them were simply operating in what

had become business as usual, because that's

how darkness works. It doesn't show up wearing

a dastardly cape and a top hat. It shows up disguised

as normal. And because so many people were spiritually

and morally sleepy, because they were used to

the dark, they kept walking forward without ever

turning on the light. But you see, we don't even

have to look at corporate America to see the

same patterns. We can even think about churches,

communities, families. When trust is misused,

when authority is wielded irresponsibly, when

darkness thrives in silence or in secrecy, the

damage is real. People are hurt. Faith is shaken.

Hope is diminished. Darkness thrives. We've all

seen the news lately about a large prominent

Houston congregation where a leadership structure

was upended in a massive internal shift. Decisions

were made behind closed doors, authority was

redirected in ways that many members didn't actually

understand, and people suddenly began to feel

as though trust had been broken when they discovered

they had no more say in their own church. Even

churches can drift into a kind of organizational

darkness, secrecy, power struggles, defensiveness,

fear of the light. and the damage always spreads.

It doesn't ever stay in one place. People become

disillusioned. Young adults walk away. Members

feel unseen or unheard. Communities fracture.

Darkness, even when it feels safe, always costs

more than we think. But isn't that how things

have to be though? Don't businesses have to act

that way? No. There are plenty of examples whenever

doing the right thing may cost quite a bit, but

people still do it. When Johnson & Johnson in

1982 found out that seven people died after cyanide

-laced Tylenol capsules reached the market, the

company did not hesitate. They recalled every

single Tylenol bottle in the nation. Over 31

million bottles at a staggering cost that no

one helped them with. They acted transparently,

decisively, and sacrificially. Or Patagonia,

on Black Friday of all days saying, don't buy

this jacket, rather than trying to manipulate

guilt or pressure, instead asking that, do people

really need to buy our product today? And if

they choose to buy, do they trust that their

money is used responsibly? Or CVS Pharmacy, when

they stopped selling all tobacco products in

2014 because they wanted to align themselves

with health care rather than addictive substances

losing two billion dollars every single year

and even now having to close over a thousand

locations over the last three years ten percent

of its locations streamlining to continue its

mission of doing what's right for the community

But when scripture talks about darkness, it's

not always talking about dramatic things or obvious

rebellions. Often darkness is the stuff that

we've stopped noticing. Habits we excuse, patterns

we justify, sharp words that we shrug off, grudges

we quietly feed. sins that we rename so we don't

have to feel convicted, the things we keep in

the corner because we hope God doesn't bring

them into the center of the room. Do we really

think that the sins listed in Romans 13 were

just exceptions to what everyday people were

doing? Darkness allows us to say, I don't want

to deal with that yet. I don't want the light

to expose that. Let me stay comfortable, but

the longer we stay asleep the more damage that

we do Even as we know that Jesus is coming It's

like this time I was having this terrible dream

one night as a child and I began screaming bloody

murder To the point where my father jumped out

of bed Ran down the hallway slipped on a dryer

sheet, began pinball bouncing from wall to wall

in the hallway, and then finally jumped up on

my bed to protect me from imaginary dogs, whatever

I was dreaming about. And I did not want the

lights to come on at all because I did not want

to know just how beat up my dad was because of

my bad dream. I didn't want to see what was needed.

But the problem is that you cannot put ice on

the bruises if you haven't turned the lights

on to figure out where they are. See, you can't

fix the brokenness in the world or inside of

yourself without allowing the light to come flooding

in and show you what is happening inside so you

can change. But you see, Matthew is reminding

us that just having better ethical behavior or

more vigilance is not enough. The wake -up call

is about Jesus. Advent introduces us to a child,

a child who steps into the world when we are

unprepared, vulnerable, and still half asleep.

You see, children have a way of revealing what

we would rather hide. They ask questions that

we cannot ignore. They let the pastor know if

he's preaching way too long. But you see, the

thing is that the children are the ones who are

the most likely to tell you things that you didn't

want to know. They're the ones who are going

to say, wow, have you always had a mole there

in the center of your forehead? Wow, do you always

talk with that lisp? or even along the lines

of, did you ever have hair on your head? They

noticed, though, the inconsistencies in our behavior,

the speech, our ethics. They're the ones that

challenge us with moral clarity that we often

lose as adults. And the thing is, is that we

know that when we were children, someone taught

us honesty, fairness, compassion, justice. We

were instructed not to cheat, not to deceive,

not to take shortcuts. But somewhere along the

way, adulthood gave us permission to forget.

We rationalized our compromises. We found ways

to hide darkness instead of shining light on

it because it wasn't quite as dark as something

else. And then we look at the next generation

and wonder why they seem to prioritize career

advancement over integrity, why they don't seem

to have any loyalty to the places where they

work, why their ethical actions seem optional.

Why they make TikToks that make light of anything

they do with their bodies. Why the world feels

so fractured. As the words in Cats in the Cradle

would remind us, I'm gonna grow up to be just

like you, Dad. You know I'm gonna be like you.

Children imitate what they see. They learn from

actions. They learn from attitudes. And they

learn from our failures. When we work too hard,

The kids work too hard. When we look for the

easy way out, the children can't handle life

either. But the good news is that it's never

too late to model the right way. No matter our

past missteps, we can begin today. We can choose

integrity, honesty. We can follow the light and

have a chance at the next generation seeing it

and following. But you see, as inconvenient as

it may be, it's still needed. Whether tiptoeing

through the dark and we stub our toes because

we didn't want to turn on the light, or when

we realize that the bruises are going to be there

whether we see them or not, the truth is better

than the fear that we may imagine. But the child

of Advent, the Christ child, works in the same

way. He exposes darkness not to condemn us, but

to redeem us. He illuminates our shortcomings,

our ethical lapses, our moral sleepiness, because

He's offering us grace, forgiveness, and the

opportunity to start anew. The light does not

shame, it heals. The light does not punish, it

restores. The child comes for the ethically distracted

people. The child comes for us. The ethical life

though, it's more than businesses It's communities

families Legacies, it's more than children. It's

nephews nieces our students our neighbors kids

the children in our own church They pay attention

to whether ethics matter in real life They pay

attention to where ethics matter in our life

Because if all they see is compromise and self

-interest They will do the same if they see integrity

and courage They will be inspired to walk in

the light What does Romans 13 look like when

we put on the armor of light? It's more than

just avoiding the things that it listed in there

There are things listed in there that I've never

really had to worry about in my everyday life

But if we're honest, it looks like truth -telling

even when it's uncomfortable It looks like fair

treatment of others and not exploiting or manipulating

It looks like generosity being free and honest.

It looks like forgiveness and patience to others

and to ourselves It looks like daily resisting

choices That can lead us into darkness The ones

that we say well everyone else is doing it. I'm

sure it's not that bad But you see, Advent is

a season when the church stands between darkness

and daylight. It's that early morning moment

when the sky is starting to turn blue, but the

sun hasn't yet risen. I have no idea what it

actually looks like in real life, but the thing

about the sunrise, rumor has it you cannot stop

it. You can't close the blinds and try to pretend

it's not there. You can close them, but it's

still there. You can try to bury your head under

the pillow, but it's still there. You can pretend

it's the middle of the night, but the dawn keeps

on coming. Because Jesus says He will come at

an hour when we do not expect. But that's exactly

why we need to be awake. Because the light of

Christ is not about being harsh. It's not about

humiliating. It's not a gotcha moment from God.

I caught you. It's helping us to finally see

a way forward to be healed to be children of

the day the light the dawn and So as Paul says

that once Christ has been put on once we are

clothed in his righteousness Then we shed off

the shadows Because putting on Christ is more

than what's on the outside It's what transforms

us on the inside So let's be honest about the

things that we have kept in our darkness. The

bitterness that we've nursed. The habits that

we've justified. The lies that we've told ourselves

to get past the decisions that we've made. The

secret selfishness. The fears, the pride, the

excuses, the unspoken resentments. You don't

cast these off in order to earn God's love you

cast them off because God's love is already shining

on you And as we do the scripture illuminates

the prayer centers The community strengthens.

The service wakens. Compassion, worship keeps

our eyes open. We are meant to wake up not just

to a moment, but to a rhythm that is meant to

change our life. This whole next month is meant

to be about resetting before a new year has dawned.

Where we offer forgiveness, correction, grace,

and a new beginning. but especially with ourselves.

So here we stand, the first Sunday of Advent,

the Sunday of hope. The light is coming on, but

are we going to fight the sunrise today? Are

we going to keep condemning everything around

us but refusing to awaken ourselves? The alarm

is going off. The curtains are opening, the horizon

is glowing, and you're pretending that that alarm

is just a good beat to dance to. But let's be

honest, the day is at hand. So if we wake up,

today is not a day for fear or shame, but hope,

mercy, and restoration. So today, as the baby

is going to be in the manger, Let us let the

child show us what is good and what is true,

but also the forgiveness for when it hasn't been

true for us. Because today is when the dawn draws

near, the light is shining, and today is the

day when we are called to wake up. Thanks be

to God.