Praised be Jesus Christ…. Now and for ever!
I thought I’d start off my sermon this morning with a sort of mental exercise. This will be more difficult for the adults, but then it’s not intended for them anyway, so…too bad.
I want you to imagine that it’s night time and you are ready for bed--on time. (This may actually have happened to some of you recently.) Your teeth are brushed, your bed is made, you have your Incredible Hulk jam-jams on.
What’s the last thing you do before you turn out the light? (Again, I’ll bet this happened to you—maybe even recently.). I’ll bet you’re so proud to be going to sleep on time for once that you decide to reward yourself with a little treat: you pick up your phone or your laptop or gamestation or your playbox or whatever it is and you say to yourself, “I’m early for bed. My homework is done. As a reward, I’ll just play a few minutes of Clash Royale before I hit the snooze highway.” Maybe you even go so far as to turn out the lights. But first…you decide to look at a TikTok video or a Snapchat reel or whatever. Just for a minute or two—just to let your brain rest before you go to sleep.
Three hours later, you look around and realize it’s 1 o’clock in the morning. So you figure, “Well, I’m gonna be exhausted tomorrow anyway. I might as well play to this next level or watch this next video or send this last text.” Two hours later you realize you’re only gonna get four hours of sleep. Power sleep, right? Except that when the alarm goes off, you feel like death.
Oh forget mental exercise—we might as well admit it: this happened to you LAST NIGHT. Your whole night was swallowed by Minecraft, and frankly today is pretty much going to be a loss as well. So you’ve decided to go to bed extra early tonight. But first—one level of Clash Royale. And so the cycle repeats itself, and you wind up stumbling through your days half awake, half interested, half engaged, and frankly, half alive.
Miserable one that I am! Who will deliver me from this mortal body? Son of David, have pity!
We have entered the season of Advent, and we are waiting for Jesus to come wake us up.
And Isaiah promises exactly this awakening.
“But a very little while…and the desert shall be changed into an orchard…
On that day the deaf shall hear the words of a book; and out of gloom and darkness, the eyes of the blind shall see. The lowly will ever find joy in the LORD, and the poor rejoice in the Holy One of Israel.”
Truth be told, sometimes life does feel like gloom and darkness—like an endless video game or a whole series of TikTok videos with no real depth. We stumble around like blind men. We stumble around half awake, circles under our eyes, waiting for something big to happen that will change our lives.
But the Good News (with a capital G and a capital N) is that’s what Advent is about—the arrival of the One who opens blind eyes and wakes up weary hearts.
As Jesus passed by, two blind men followed him, crying out, “Son of David, have pity on us!”and Jesus touched their eyes and said, “Let it be done for you according to your faith.” And their eyes were opened.
You and I, we are the two blind men—wandering around in our own gloom, crying out for help, hoping for something better than the empty glow of a screen at midnight. And Jesus gives us what Isaiah promised: sight, clarity, joy, a new beginning.
Now imagine a second scenario:
You’re in your jam-jams (maybe you’ve grown out of Incredible Hulk. Maybe these are Fantastic Four jam-jams). You’re ready for bed, and instead of reaching for your phone…you reach for a Bible. You feel silly doing this, and part of you cries out that you need that video to fall asleep. You need to play a level of your game to put your mind at rest. You worked hard all day. You deserve a video game. But instead, just this once, you read a sentence or two of Scripture. Maybe even these words of Isaiah:
“Out of gloom and darkness, the eyes of the blind shall see.” Or Jesus’ words to the blind: “Do you believe that I can do this?” Then you turn out the light and fall asleep.
—Or you don’t fall asleep. Maybe you lie awake till one in the morning, twisting and turning. In which case, you wind up in the exact same spot! Except this time, you didn't allow TikTok to keep you awake.
This time, you stuck it to the man—the tyrant Isaiah talked about. You stayed awake on your own terms, not because the algorithm enslaved you, but precisely because you refused to be enslaved. And that’s a kind of martyrdom.
When this happens, sleep or no sleep, the world gets a little brighter. As your walk across campus, you suddenly realize that some of the trees have leaves on them, and among those leaves there are birds, and above the birds there are clouds, and that there’s a whole world to be seen and enjoyed. Suddenly, you start to see things other people don’t see. You have a certain insight that other guys don’t have. Girls start to look at you a little differently because they notice there’s something different about you. Your head isn’t full of Internet memes. You don’t care about the latest TicToc trends. You really listen to them when they speak, and when you speak, you give real advice.
Now I can’t promise this will come all at once. Or that it will come easily. Or that it won’t take some of work. But I do promise joy and peace. Because Isaiah tells us: “Those who err in spirit shall acquire understanding, and Jesus tells us: “Let it be done for you according to your faith.”
So tonight, before you go to sleep, instead of reaching for your phone, reach for Christ—even clumsily, even half-asleep—He will reach for you. And He will open your eyes.
In the name of the Father….
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