In this passage the author announced to his audience the authenticity of the Gospel that guides through the dark places of life. 

I read that the ad agency for Motel 6 heard Tom Bodett contributing to an NPR report from Alaska in 1986 and hired him to do a commercial for the growing chain of motels.  They said they hired him because he sounded like the kind of person who stays at Motel 6.  That must not have offended him too much because after taping the commercial he ad-libbed, “We’ll leave the light on for you.”  The success of that one line seems to indicate to me that there are more than a few of us out there that are afraid of the dark.  One of the roadside attractions that I may take for granted, but always notice when they are absent is street lamps.  When I am on the road with my family and pull in to some place to sleep for the night, I want to make sure there are plenty of street lamps.  Why?  I already told you – I’m afraid of the dark.

Peter seemed to understand this fear.  He wrote to his people a short letter reminding them of their calling, warning them against false teachers, and exhorting them to be ready for the Lord’s return.  William Barclay wrote that Peter wanted to convey to his people that “the Second Coming is a living reality which all persons must expect and for which all persons must prepare.”

It seems that the brightness of the Christian hope was beginning to dim.  People were tired of waiting for the Lord to return and began to live their lives outside of this expectation.  Through scripture, God leaves the light on for you.

I found myself focusing all this week on one phrase in this passage, be attentive to this as to a lamp shining in a dark place.  Even though I was trying to move through this passage exegetically phrase by phrase, I couldn’t get away from this one phrase, specifically, “a lamp shining in a dark place”.  My prayer life began to focus on people who have need of the lamp of God in the dark places of life.  I don’t know where the dark places are for you, but I know for me the darkest places are places of doubt, despair, and dullness.  This passage shines as a street lamp in those neighborhoods.  Through scripture, God leaves the light on for you.
 

The Lamp of God shines in the Darkness of doubt

The people in the first century had bouts with doubt.  That is why Peter approached them with the assurance that this was not some cleverly devised myth about the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.  The charge has been repeatedly made against the church – that religion is the opiate of the masses contrived to keep the uncivilized people in line. 

I have four brothers and three sisters.  I am second in the consecutive streak of five boys.  The fourth in that set is Kris. Kris had a different room than the first three of us and we did not want him messing with our stuff.  So my brother Kemp developed a cleverly devised myth that his green felt alligator could actually come to life and tear Kris limb from limb.  It worked for awhile, but eventually Kris saw it as a cleverly devised myth and we were exposed as mean brothers.  To many people this is what religion is.  The fastest growing religious category in America is the number of people who declare “no-religious preference” when asked about their faith.  15% of Americans fall into this category.  This category was at 3% in 1968.  It is experiencing rapid growth, but it does not bring people out of the darkness of doubt.

Tim Keller addressed this issue in his book, The Reason for God: Belief in the Age of Skepticism.  Skepticism does not eliminate the unavoidable dynamic of faith.  We all believe in something and organize our life more or less around that belief.  Kelly and Kevin were confirmed and lifelong atheists.  Keller writes, “Their doubts about God were very stubborn, and yet they had doubts about their doubts, and so they began attending Redeemer (the church Keller serves as pastor).”   Kevin and Kelly were good people.  They were moral, community oriented, concerned with social justice, and people who spent a lot of time in coffee shops.  They were good people.  Then one day the lamp shined in Kevin’s darkness.  He wrote, “While sitting in a coffee shop reading C.S. Lewis’ Mere Christianity, I put down the book and wrote in my notebook ‘the evidence surrounding the claims of Christianity is simply overwhelming.’” (to which the Apostle Peter would say, “I told you so.”)  Kevin continued to testify, “I realized that my achievements were ultimately unsatisfying, the approval of others is fleeting, that a carpe diem life lived solely for adventure is just a form of narcissism and idolatry.  And so I became a believer in Christ.”

Doubt is not a darkness that only visits the devout; it is also familiar to the skeptic.  In fact, Keller writes, “A faith without doubt is like a human body without any antibodies in it.”  So doubt is an inevitable darkness.  That does not make it any less dark, but if lifelong atheists can find solace in the light of the gospel, perhaps we Christians should become more familiar with it.  In the Bauer Greek Lexicon regarding the word in verse 19 translated confirmed, I read this, “We possess the prophetic word as something altogether reliable.”  Through scripture, God leaves the light on for you.
 

The Lamp of God shines in the darkness of Despair

I am not sure what the people reading Peter’s letter for the first time were going through.  I don’t know if there was persecution, grief, poverty, or if they were part of the aristocratic segment of the population who were insulated from a lot of these hardships.  There are very few hints given about his audience.  What I do know is that every audience that I have ever addressed (including preschool chapel) has members in it that are all too familiar with this darkness of despair.

Despair visits people in so many different ways.  Only ten days ago I received a call from a young man that I have known since he was a teenager.  I was surprised to hear his voice on the other end of the line and shouted, “Hey, how’s it going?” 

“Terrible”, he said.  “My sister’s dead.”

I knew his sister.  I was serving her church the year that she was confirmed.  I was standing in front of the church only five years ago when she glided down the aisle as a bride in her bare feet, because she couldn’t find her shoes. (She found them about a year later in the back seat of one of the bridesmaids’ car).  I rode with her husband, her brother, and her father as we went to the airport to tell her mother, who was in flight when Jerene died.  Many of you know, there are no words that are adequate for that darkness of despair.  It is too thick, too deep, too profound.

I believe David knew this darkness when he lamented in 2 Samuel 18, “O my son Absalom, my son, my son Absalom! Would I had died instead of you, O Absalom, my son, my son!”  I believe the psalmist knew this darkness when writing in Psalm 22, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? Why are you so far from helping me, from the words of my groaning? O my God, I cry by day, but you do not answer; and by night, but find no rest.”  I believe Jesus Christ himself knew this darkness when he echoed those very words from the cross where he went for us – for our sorrows and our sins – “Eloi, eloi, lema sabachthani? My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”

Pheme Perkins wrote in her commentary of the phrase in verse 19, you will do well to be attentive to this as to a lamp shining in a dark place, “The small lamp that shines in murky darkness will eventually bring them to their vision of the majesty and glory of God.”  I have been in places and so have you, where the lamp seems so small and the darkness so great.  Yet I am convinced that through this book, God speaks to us even in, and perhaps especially in the darkness of despair. 

At Jerene’s funeral on Monday I felt led to preach on the same passage that I read at her wedding five and a half years ago.  The passage concludes, “Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.  Love never ends.”  I was not pleased with the words in the message that I had prepared.  It sounded like pure drivel in the face of deep despair, but as I was preaching the message these words looked all together different.  I began to dialogue with God from the pulpit, “If these words are true, then we need them much more on the day of Jerene’s funeral than we did on the day of her marriage.  For that day was filled with joy, celebration, laughter, beauty, and light.  It was nice to hear that ‘love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.  Love never ends.’  But it wasn’t all that essential – not then.”  I said in what I sensed was a God moment, “Perhaps love is that one word that speaks to this time, the one word that makes any sense in the midst of such pain, the one word that gives hope in this season of despair.  If this is true it must mean that love can sustain us even in the absurdity of this moment.”  It was the small lamp shining in the pitch darkness.  Through scripture, God leaves the light on for you.
 

The Lamp of God shines in the darkness of Dullness

Many people are stranded not in the darkness of doubt or despair, but in the darkness of dullness, passionlessness, where each day looks like the previous day, and next day does not have a lot of hope of being any different – the Parousia, the coming of Christ seemed so remotely distant. 

Tammy said she looked up the extended weather forecast the other day and every day looked the same.  This only reinforced my desire to be a weatherman in July in Texas.  All I would need to do is go in the studio once with thirty changes of clothes and say, “Today’s high will be in the mid to upper 90’s with lows in the high 70’s. Chance of rain is twenty percent.”  Every now and then I could get a little bold and plug in 30% chance of rain.  That’s a little monotonous when it comes to weather, but it is painfully dark when that describes our lives.

Two years ago I read the book The Shack and became familiar with Mack’s Great Sadness.  William Young wrote about its weight and unshakeable presence.  For many people, with a just a few word changes, the quote could easily describe The Great Dullness, “The Great Sadness Dullness had draped itself around the shoulder like some invisible but almost tangibly heavy quilt.  The weight of its presence dulled [his] eyes and stooped his shoulders.  Even his efforts to shake it off were exhausting, as if his arms were sewn into its bleak folds of [emptiness] and he had somehow become part of it.  He ate, worked, loved, dreamed, and played in this garment of heaviness, weighed down as if he were wearing a leaden robe – trudging daily through the murky despondency that sucked the color out of everything.” 

This redirected quote describes the haunting emptiness that many people feel.  They channel surf with the remote, web surf with the mouse, mall surf with the credit card in search of something that will shake The Great Dullness that has become life.

Sometimes this is a sign of depression that like heart disease, diabetes, and cancer should be treated by professionals.  Many times, however, it is a symptom of life that has lost its lamp.  Michael Green wrote in his commentary on 2 Peter, “We are on a pilgrimage throughout our lives in this dark world.  God has graciously provided us with a lamp, the Scriptures.  If we pay attention to them…we shall walk safely.  If we neglect them, we shall be engulfed by darkness.  The whole course of our lives ought to be governed by the Word of God.”