161. Year A - 4th Sunday of Lent - Ephesians 5:8-14 - "Children of Light"

Scripture

Ephesians 5:8-14

8 For you were once darkness, but now you are light in the Lord. Live as children of light 9 (for the fruit of the light consists in all goodness, righteousness and truth) 10 and find out what pleases the Lord. 11 Have nothing to do with the fruitless deeds of darkness, but rather expose them. 12 It is shameful even to mention what the disobedient do in secret. 13 But everything exposed by the light becomes visible—and everything that is illuminated becomes a light. 14 This is why it is said:

“Wake up, sleeper, rise from the dead, and Christ will shine on you.”

Pulpit Notes

Today is the fourth Sunday of Lent and we continue with Lenten themes as we prepare ourselves to remember and celebrate the death and resurrection of our Saviour Jesus Christ.

Our text this morning has us mediating on the resurrection life, but in a way where we are looking through the binary battle between light and darkness, the world of light and the world of darkness.

The message here is actually a hard sell. It is not one that will resonate with us, given the ways that we have been influenced by the culture around us. Ours is a world steeped in propaganda and propaganda messaging. Many people think of propaganda as the process of making you believe lies. But that is not the true point and goal of propaganda at all.

The real purpose of propaganda is mostly to integrate you into modern life, and to support and reinforce the main messages of modernity. One such message is that human beings are always progressing towards a better future. This progress will cost you nothing. It will largely be achieved through social engineering. You will not have to make any hard moral choices and instead will be free to pursue those things that make you happy. Modernity also tells us that there is no God and that all of our needs can be satisfied through material goods.

As a cornerstone of this, we are told that because we are free to pursue whatever makes us happy, that the things we do privately to seek happiness are our business and we have a right to privacy.

Every day we are bombarded with messages that reinforce these ideas of our fundamental freedoms and the right to do what we please on our own without anyone else meddling in our business.

You do your thing and I will do mine. I will leave you alone if you leave me alone.