A Crack In The Door - Jeremiah 29:10-14

Many you have heard the youth, other chaperones, and I give Anita a hard time of the years, officially giving her the title of “The Bag Lady.”  She earned that title because she carries many bags when we go on a trip, and in those bags there are other bags with everything organized.  We might give her a hard time, but the other chaperones and I will have to confess, at least, that if one of our youth have a need that we weren’t prepared for, Anita was, pulling out of one of her bags whatever it is we have needed.  However, there is another designation that many of you don’t know, she doesn’t even know it, because I just came up with it preparing this sermon.  Anita is the “Queen of Nightlights.”  I don’t believe there is a room in our home that doesn’t have at least one nightlight of some sort—some rooms have two or more.  When we go on trips, she usually carries at least two nightlights with us—to place in the bathrooms if nowhere else.  That might seem extreme to some of us, but when I have gone on trips without her (such as Annual Conference or Summer Breakaway), I realize what a blessing it is.  I can’t tell you the number of times I have been at a hotel, with it’s room darkening curtains, turned off the television, and, preparing to go to sleep, turned off all the lights—and found the place pitch dark.  Many of those places were so dark that even giving my eyes time to adjust, there was nothing but darkness, leaving me in a strange room fraught with danger were I to have to get up in the middle of the night.  Those are the places where I go an turn on the bathroom light and close the door, all but a sliver, so that just a thin line of light shines through, breaking the darkness, and showing the way.

It’s a child’s bedtime.  Picture this in a time before children began going to sleep watching television.  The parents put the child to bed, read the bedtime story, respond to the numerous requests for a sip of water, and after tucking the child in for the fifth time, and prepare to leave the room.  They turn off the lights and shut the door as they go out, only to hear the child cry out.  They remember, open the door just a tiny sliver, just enough to let a thin stream of light flow into the dark room, and the child drifts quietly off to sleep.

What is it about dark rooms or dark places that unnerve us?  As children, it is probably the fear of what might be lurking there in the darkness—especially the monsters lurking under the bed, in the closet, or hiding in the corner.  When it comes to being an adult and being uncomfortable with the dark—it may be fear of the same uncertainty about what monsters might be lurking in the room, though our fear may be less about monsters with fur or scales and more about the real flesh-covered monsters.  It may also be a fear of what we might run into or step on in the dark.  In either case, there are many, maybe even some of us here, who find themselves fearful, or maybe even trapped, when they are in the dark.  It may even be so bad that a sense of hopelessness settles over them as they lay, sit, or stand there.  All it takes, though, to bring relief, is that thin sliver of light that pours in through a crack in the door.

These are the images that came to mind as I thought about the lyrics of one of my favorite songs by what has become one of my favorite bands, NEEDTOBREATHE.  The song is called Wasteland.  A portion of the chorus goes like this:

In this wasteland where I'm livin'

There is a crack in the door filled with light

And it's all that I need to get by

In this wasteland where I'm livin'

There is a crack in the door filled with light

And it's all that I need to shine

This song, and the album, were the result of the group finding itself in a very dark place that almost resulted in the South Carolina natives completely disbanding, and what it took to bring them out of the darkness.

It was a sense of hopeless despair that those from Judah and Jerusalem were experiencing as they found themselves bound and trapped in the darkness of exile.  Babylon had come and had taken the inhabitants of Jerusalem and Judah from their homes, from their homeland, and brought them to somewhere strange, somewhere unfamiliar, somewhere God’s people did not want to be.  They had watched as their city fell and all the people, even the priests, prophets, and princes were taken captive.  They arrived in Babylon and as they were forced to settle in this new land, it was as if someone had turned off all the lights, blackened all the windows, closed the door, locked it tight, and left them in the dark.  They found themselves filled with dread.  They knew for certain that this was to be their end.  Many of them likely began to blame God for doing this to them.  Those not brave enough to blame God, simply resigned themselves to their destruction being part of God’s plan for them.  Darkness enveloped them.

Into this darkness God chose to speak through the prophet Jeremiah.  God spoke to them words that became in their darkness, a crack in the door filled with light.  Jeremiah spoke words that have too often been taken over by prosperity gospel preachers and graduation greeting card writers, but they are truly words spoken to people who felt bound by darkness, despair, and depression who felt that the only future left for them was the blackness of death.  These are the words that God spoke through Jeremiah, “For surely I know the plans I have for you…plans for your welfare and not for harm, to give you a future with hope.”

God speaks into their darkness.  A darkness not brought by God’s design for them, but a darkness brought upon them in the consequences of their own sin.  Into that darkness, God says, “you are facing the consequences of your decisions, but this is not the end.  This is not what I have planned for you.  I have a future planned for you, and it is not a future of endless suffering, it is not a future of complete darkness, it is not a future marked by your destruction, it is a future that will be marked by blessings, it is a future marked by hope, it is a future that will be filled with light.”  God continues on, “You may not think that I hear your prayers as you struggle, but I hear you, and I will respond.  You may not think I am near, but as you move forward, and you begin searching for me, you will find me.  You may feel like you have lost everything, but when you experience the future I have planned for you, God says, you will find yourself completely restored.”  God’s Word, God’s promise, became a beam of light shining through a crack in the door.

The understanding that God wants to offer us hope, offer us light in the midst of the darkness, that God has blessings in store for us, that God is on our side, marks the rest of the chorus of Wasteland, as NEEDTOBREATHE borrows words not from Jeremiah, but from Paul:

Oh if God is on my side

Oh if God is on my side

Oh if God is on my side

Who can be against me

What darkness do we find ourselves in today?  Where are we in exile?

Do we feel bound in the darkness of financial strain?  Are our phones flooded and mailboxes filled with collection notices? Do our checkbooks spend more time in red than in black?  Are we concerned about what we will do when we hit retirement or what might happen if we are suddenly unemployed?  Do we worry which utility might get cut off next or where we will get our next meal from?

Do we feel like our jobs or careers are places of exile?  Do we have bosses or supervisors who don’t understand us or who won’t listen to concerns we have?  Do the demands of others keep piling up to the point we never feel like we’re making any progress?   Do we find ourselves working non-stop, with every request for time off met with denial?  Do we watch round after round of layoffs and are left working if each day may be our last?

Maybe the darkness is global.  Maybe we look at the world, at the violence, at the decisions that world leaders, including our own, make, and we feel like it is taking us closer and closer to the point of destruction—whether through immorality or war.  Maybe the darkness is local—maybe we feel bound by the sense of constant turmoil in the community, gangs and supremacists, flags and fracking, monuments and marriages.  Maybe the darkness hits home—divorce or disease, abuse or abandonment…

We find ourselves in darkness…the result of sin…some of it our own…some of it brought on by others…but the darkness of sin and suffering closing the door tight.

And yet, in that darkness, there is a crack in the door…that crack is filled with light…it is filled with the voice of God saying, “I have a future for you…and this is not it.  Remember the darkness that filled that would have filled that tomb when the stone rolled over the entrance and sealed it shut?  Remember that on Easter morning, I didn’t just move the stone over a little to form a crack in the doorway, I rolled the stone away.  Hear anew the words of Jeremiah, for they were not just for the exiles in Babylon, they are for the exiles in Burlington and everywhere else: “For surely I know the plans I have for you… plans for your welfare and not for harm, to give you a future with hope.  Then when you call upon me and come and pray to me, I will hear you.  When you search for me, you will find me; if you seek me with all your heart, I will let you find me… and I will restore your fortunes and gather you from all the nations and all the places…I will bring you back to the place from [of] exile.”

In the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen.