Starry Night

A Sermon by the Reverend Shearon Sykes Williams on the First Sunday in Advent, November 28, 2021.

Today is the First Sunday of Advent.  Advent means “coming”.  And it operates on three different levels all at once.  It is a season when we anticipate the coming of Jesus as a baby at Christmas, the coming of Jesus again in glory on the last day, and the coming of Jesus throughout our lives at unexpected times.  So time collapses during Advent.  All of these meanings overlap and give texture and color to this wondrous season, a season that is contemplative and introspective while also being very alive with that special energy of expectation that something extraordinary is about to happen.  

Jesus’ words today sound both foreboding and deeply hopeful.  “There will be signs in the moon, and the stars, and on earth distress among nations confused by the roaring of the sea and the waves… Then they will see the Son of Man coming in a cloud with power and great glory.  Now when these things begin to take place, stand up and raise your heads, because your redemption is drawing near.”  Jesus anticipates the last day when history will come to fulfillment, and everything will open into the vastness of eternity and God’s purposes for all of creation will finally be realized.  And Jesus invites us to live as if that is always about to happen and look for glimpses of it in the here and now.  

Perhaps the artist who best conveyed this paradox of the “now and not yet” way of living that Jesus calls us to is Vincent Van Gogh.  And the painting that speaks to it most profoundly is Starry Night.  Starry Night captures our imaginations because it conveys the complexity of living faithfully, looking for the inbreaking of God’s kingdom, that image of redemption that Jesus talks about.  Van Gogh using a variety of deep blues for the sky to represent eternity and a bright, citron yellow for the stars to convey hopefulness.  The painting pulsates with energy.  The sky is swirling with life, vitality and mystery.  It is both ominous and inviting.  There is a dark cypress tree in the foreground that represents both death and eternal life. 

Van Gogh knew the challenge of living in a broken world in a hopeful, expectant  way.  He painted Starry Night while looking out of his asylum window.  Van Gogh’s struggled with his mental health his whole life and yet such beauty came forth from his despair.  He saw things at a deeper level than most people and gave himself over to the mystery of suffering and he could see the glory of eternity that we can find in this life.  Van Gogh was deeply spiritual and he had first become an evangelist to Belgian coal miners.  He insisted on living in abject poverty, just like the miners, eating very little.  He took Jesus’ teachings quite literally but he didn’t fit the mold of the church, so he was sent home.  That was one of the many disappointments that he experienced in life, but he transferred his spiritual fervor into his painting.  He saw God everywhere, in the natural world, and in the marginalized people that he befriended and often painted. 

The sky in Starry Night is alive with God’s presence and represents the inbreaking of God’s glory that Jesus is talking about in the Gospel today.  It is foreboding and yet hopeful, foreboding because the world as we know it will one day be upturned, and yet hopeful because we see that something much better is dawning. And this is not just an end time image, it’s happening all the time, every time we glimpse the extraordinary in the ordinary.  A conversation with a homeless person that gives us new insights into what it means to share the image of God.  A mentally ill person who shows us a new way of being in relationship.  A relative who finally answers the phone after years of estrangement.  Instances when justice is done even in a context of ongoing injustices.   In all these ways we know that God is very near, bright, hopeful stars in the night sky, lighting our way.   

Jesus tells us not to be alarmed when unexpected things start happening, because God shows up in unexpected places.  A baby that came to change the world who is born in a stable to poor parents.  A penniless Messiah who has no need for validation by worldly institutions, but who brings God’s very being into people’s lives.  

What signs of our redemption will we experience this Advent?  Advent invites us to rachet it down a few notches just as our culture is kicking it up.  But just like the paradox of Jesus’ words in today’s Gospel and the both/and of Van Gogh’s Starry Night, we can live with an Advent mindset during this time of holiday glitz, looking expectantly for signs of God’s inbreaking everywhere. 

One spiritual practice that really helps is having an Advent wreath at home and lighting a candle every night just like we do in church each Sunday.  If you didn’t have a chance to order one from our EYC, you can get a regular door wreath from the grocery store on your way home today, lay it flat on your kitchen table and put four candles in it.  And you can light it each night when you sit down for dinner.  Every night of the first week you light one candle, every night of the second week light two candles, etc.  And as you light each candle, you pray “Come, Lord Jesus.”  “Come to us as a baby at Christmas.”  “Come to us at the end of history and bring all things to perfection.”  “Come to us each and every day and bring us hope and peace.”  This simple practice is good for individuals, good for couples and good for families.  We all need rituals that help us go deeper and claim a peaceful place in the midst of all of the activity.  Signs of God’s inbreaking are all around us.  Advent is about having eyes to see and ears to hear. 

“There will be signs in the moon, and the stars, and on earth distress among nations confused by the roaring of the sea and the waves… Then they will see the Son of Man coming in a cloud with power and great glory.  Now when these things begin to take place, stand up and raise your heads, because your redemption is drawing near.”