April 2, 2000

Pastor David G. Mullen

John 3:14-21

"And the people loved darkness rather than light." Jesus saw how enslaved to evil humanity was in his day, and the basic human situation has not changed. We may enjoy a much higher standard of living because of technological advances, but technology has not removed evil, only amplified it, given it more tools to work with.

Take the case of the World Wide Web. The Web is a wonderful development, a source of much information, entertainment, and real help for human beings. Hey, even good old Calvary Lutheran has a fine WebPage. Yet, there’s a lot more than church WebSites out there!

"And the people loved darkness rather than light." Evil prowls around on the Web like the devil himself. Thousand of folks have been victims of the dark side of the Web: the pornography, harassment, threats, and scams. People become terrified and need help! And there is help. The April issue of Reader’s Digest contains an article about a few of the more than 1,300 "Cyber Angels" who live around the world, patrolling the Web around the clock on the lookout for child pornography, pedophiles; and they offer help for people being "cyberstalked." Why do they do that? They share the common, motivating bond: sinister sites and predators have victimized them. The group often works with the FBI, state police forces, and law enforcement agencies worldwide. This is important work because cyberstalkers —predators is what they are–hiding in the dark hells of their imagination, think they are untouchable and invisible in the Web. Exposing them drives them away, at least for while.

That kind of reminds of when I was a kid and used to a lot in the hilly land up behind our house. There were a lot of flat sandstone type rocks up there, and if whenever I turned one over, there would be a hundreds of disgusting beetles and bugs scurrying for cover, because they couldn’t stand the light. They were creatures of the darkness.

Evil likes the darkness. I was talking with a police officer one day who told me about a couple of greater Sacramento areas, where, if you drive through during the day you hardly see a soul. But drive through, if you dare, at three in the morning, and it’s like hell out there–people swarming all over, dealing drugs, drinking, carrying on, fighting, and so on. Jesus said it long ago: "And this is the judgment that the light has come into the world, and people loved darkness rather than light because their deeds were evil."

Of course, neither bugs nor people are evil. It’s our deeds that are evil, and it’s our fear of being exposed that drives us to hide. We are like Adam and Eve right after the fall: the Lord of light comes calling for us in the evening, "Adam, Eve, where are you?" and we run and hide. Christ wants to bring us to God, introduce us to the divine love and kindness, but we run and hide.

Back to the Internet for a moment, please. You can fire up your computer and modem and go out to the Wed and find chat rooms and things called listservs where there are ongoing discussions in the form of typed messages. You may enter one of those or sign up and view what everyone saying, pay attention to the discussion and its themes and the personalities of those who send the messages, without ever saying a word. You don’t dare or care to jump into the dialog, so you just sit there and watch. You lurk. You are what is called a lurker. In that context that not really a bad thing, it just means you are a non-participant, and likely missing out on the fun of the conversation.

Lurking just beyond the gospel story today, is Nicodemus, who appears at the beginning of John 3, and comes to Jesus in the night to talk about things of God. In fact, in Jesus’ day Nicodemus was a lurker hanging out on the edges of the crowds when Jesus taught, but never getting close enough to be have to be committed to anything. He admits that he and the other religious leaders know that Jesus is more than just another wise teacher. But Nicodemus does not let himself become a follower of Christ. He lurks in the dark on the edges of grace. He says he cannot understand what Jesus is talking about. Being born again, or, from above?

Lurkers on the edge of grace–could that be us sometimes in our lives? Maybe we’ve even been going to church for years, but it’s like we’re just watching, looking in from the outside, afraid to take the step of real commitment to the Lord. Sometimes we so strongly opt for the darkness that we can scarcely believe we really could live in freedom and joy, like true children of God! After decades of working with troubled people, most of them with deep spiritual problems, the psychologist Carl Jung wrote, "One does not become enlightened by imagining figures of light, but by making darkness conscious." And the darkness we need to make conscious is first and foremost, our own! That’s the beginning of everything good!

We lurk on the edges of grace because we prefer the darkness so that we don’t have to become conscious, that is to say, aware, of the evil actions and desires that shape our lives. Specifically, we do not want our action in life to be exposed–not even to ourselves, or maybe it is more like especially to ourselves. So, a deeply spiritual man wrote, "What strange beings we are that sitting in hell at the bottom of the dark, we are afraid of our own immortality."

You’ve probably heard the old statement about the difference between making a contribution and making a real commitment, in terms of, say, your breakfast? Think about the eggs and bacon on your plate. The chicken makes a contribution, but the pig has made a real commitment.

So Christ–not a Cyber Angel, but our Savior--asks for a commitment. His way is the way of light that exposes the evil in the darkness and then forgives it, even while dying. Talk about commitment! On Good Friday he hangs on the Cross, where lurkers are watching on the edge of the crowd, thinking he’s the evil, when really the evil is in them. As it is in us. But let us not be lurkers on the edge of grace. The Cross is a sign of what God wants from us all: don’t sit in your hell at the bottom of the dark, but renounce evil, crawl out of your cave of sin, go to Jesus, embrace him, and cling to his Cross as if your very life depended on it–it does!

Thus the great God-loving poet Rumi wrote,

This is how I would die into the love I have for you:

As pieces of cloud dissolve in the sunlight.

Embracing the Cross, we live as children of the light. Amen.