Luminescence, Volume 2. C. K. Barrett
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cause of his conversion. How many influences were playing on his mind God knows—the sermons of Ambrose, the prayers and life of Monica, his mother, the hymns of Milan Cathedral, the writings of the Neo-Platonists, St. Paul. But suddenly a voice, calling him to read, imposed itself upon his mind; he turned to the book, it was a volume of St. Paul, he read, “not in reveling and drunkenness, not in lusting and wantonness, not in strife and jealousy, but put on the Lord Jesus Christ.” “No further word I read, nor needed I; for instantly at the end of the sentence, a light as it were of serenity was infused into my heart, all the darkness of doubt vanished away.” Now I am not going to preach about Augustine, I’m going to preach Christ. But I could not but be led by that event to those Pauline words. And you will find that now and again Augustine is in my mind. First of all, if we are to think of the text as a whole, Paul directs us to think of night and day.
NIGHT AND DAY
It is clear what he means by them. In the last few years, one has met many illustrations of his thought. “Night over Europe” runs the phrase, and we know something of what it means, just as we know something of what it costs to keep the torch burning alone in a dark world. In a world that contains a good many commonplace grays, it has been possible from time to time, to see the blacks and whites stand out in unmistakable, and one hopes, unforgettable contrast. I can find it in my heart to be as cynical as most people about the ‘values’ that are being fought about in Europe today. But we must not carry cynicism too far. There is black, and there is something not so far from white, and we forget that at our peril. I do not think that we have forgotten yet the thrill that came to most of us, when we heard last week of the liberation of Paris. The sense that the burden had been eased, the shadows had been pushed back. Augustine knew all about this.
I want to take this contrast of night and day further. I shall not do Adolph Hitler the honor of equating him with the Devil, but every national form of evil is surely a small-scale shadowing forth of the great night, the outer darkness. Perhaps you are not familiar with the great theme of the great missionary religions of two thousand years ago, which, fantastic though they were, were real and dangerous rivals to Christianity. It is striking to observe how many of them used the terms of darkness and light, night and day. Much of their mythology was crude and even ludicrous, but behind it was a real and genuine truth. The things people do, whether good or bad, are but signs of something bigger and deeper. The more deeply people think and feel, the more surely are they aware that this world is a battlefield, that the powers of light and day ceaselessly engage. We don’t use the old language, but the facts do not change. And Augustine knew Manicheanism.
I will take the contrast further still. You might say not so far, but I say—further. The battle of night and day is not merely visible on the huge scale of world events; it is not merely being fought out on the procession of the universe. It is going on inside you and me. And for us, since we are what we are, that is the most significant thing there is to say. I am quite sure I shall not be contradicted here. You’ve felt this; you know what I mean. You know the hideous monster of darkness that lives in your heart, you know the contendings of day and night in your own soul. You know the burning and shining light that sometimes beams so fair within you. And have you not seen, as, God forgive me, I have seen the inky mist come rising up with wispy choking fingers, smothering tentacles, that blot out all the light. You have watched the moon at night, sailing in a clear sky, and then a cloud, windblown, catches it in its folds, and gradually puts out the light. You remember one of Shakespeare’s sonnets-
Full many a glorious morning have I seen Flatter the mountain-tops with sovereign eye,Kissing with golden face the meadows green,Gilding pale streams with heavenly alchemy;Anon permit the basest clouds to ride With ugly rack on his celestial face And from the forlorn world his visage hide,Stealing unseen to west with this disgrace. (Sonnet 33)
How many a day has been like that! The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness speedily overtakes it. Augustine knew this too.
But, and this is the great biblical “but,” St. Paul is not merely reinforcing this contrast, this conflict, like any moral pedagogue. He says, “the night is far spent, the day is at hand.” I wish I could make you feel the power that throbs through Paul’s words here. Some of you do; if you do not, you must simply live with St. Paul, until you do. He sees the battle swaying this way and that, now night, now day, prevails; but suddenly something happens that changes the whole course of events. The Prince of Light leaps into the arena and strikes the decisive blow. Therefore, “the night is far spent, the day is at hand.” Evil is beaten, the shadows retire. He sees the conflict as we see the conflict in Europe today. D-Day is past. That was the day of Bethlehem and Calvary. Now Victory Day is not far ahead. You Christians are living in the stirring days before full dawn. Therefore, but this is our second point: cast off the works of darkness, put on the armor of light.
CAST OFF THE WORKS OF DARKNESS, PUT ON THE ARMOR OF LIGHT
Or to put it in prose instead of pure poetry—“be consistent, be what you are.” If these Christian facts are true, if there was such a Christ who wrought such a salvation, you must be what he has made you. “Cast off the works of darkness which are antithetical to Him.” How necessary is this warning to Christians! Only recently I have heard of another case (not in Darlington) in which a certain man, a very active leader in his own Methodist Church, antagonized many people, including his own employees against the faith simply because his business methods were not those of a good program. You who are children of light, cast off the works of darkness! Be consistent! I have been reading recently the diary of Thomas Turner, who lived about the time of John Wesley. In his pages you read the pious comments on sermons and Scriptures which alternate with descriptions of drunken debauches in a manner which would be amusing if it were not downright revolting and painful.
Therefore, I am under obligation to you and to myself to cast off works of darkness. Be consistent. There are some things that must be purged out of the life of a Church, I almost said, at any cost. Rivalry, faction, cliquishness, must be cast off. Evil-speaking, scandal-mongering, detraction must be cast off. Trifling with our high calling, the pursuit of all lower ends, and ideals must be cast off. We cannot afford these things.
Do not think that I am being merely negative, far from it. That is something I dread. In Ambleside there are little stone fountains, each with a text. One said, “Ho everyone who thirsts.” But the well was broken down and dry. I have never seen a more dreadful parable of a failing Christian life, a failing Christian Church, a life of a Church without a supply of the water of life.
Therefore, I speak of no “negative way.” Not only must we “cast off” we must “put on.” And note the change. This time not “works” but rather “armor.” Here is the Church on its military mission. It is a continual astonishment to me, to find out how many people think of Christians in general, and parsons in particular, as meek pacifying people, whose main task in life is to go about giving offense to no one, living dull colorless lives of silent acquiescence. How can they think such a thing? Obviously because they have never read the New Testament. I tell you, if I get through my life without ever offending anyone I shall be mighty disappointed, and I shall know I have been completely unlike my Lord. There are quite literally millions of people whom it is a simple Christian duty to offend. There are unnumbered evils which we must fight, anxiously, desperately. There are parts of the New Testament that read almost like the King’s Regulations.
You have to fight the darkness in yourself first and foremost. Never be so busy offending other people that you forget to offend yourself—to beat yourself black and blue as Paul said. You have to fight every evil thing of night that you meet in the world around you. I know that we cannot all fight on all the fronts, but each of us has his own responsibility. Probably I am the only person here who has a responsibility in the field of critical theology. Some of you can do in the world of business, what I could never do as an outsider. Some of you have access to local and national government that I have not. Some of you fight our country’s battles. But each of us in his own order, has his own responsibility. Let him look to it.
We have a Gospel to preach, which, though it is indeed the power of God unto salvation, is a scandal and an offense to the natural person. Here is our prime task as a Christian. For this task, I urge you to put on the armor of light. Let us leave behind our