Sermon for the Third Sunday of Epiphany 

11am Eucharist with baptism

Isaiah 9.1-4; Matthew 4.12-23.

‘The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light: those who dwelt in a land of deep darkness, upon them the light has shined.’

The words of the prophet for his day, the promise of a great light, is in our Gospel seen to be fulfilled by Jesus as he called his first followers. And that promise of great light was fulfilled for each of us in our baptism – and will be fulfilled for Florence this morning.

It doesn’t need much light to make a huge difference: if you think of being in a darkened room – perhaps as a small child afraid of the dark, or playing hide and seek, as soon as the door from outside is opened even a tiny crack, the light floods in in a great swathe. And even a tiny bit of light helps us to see so much – we become aware things around us that we couldn’t see at all in the dark. Things we didn’t know were there suddenly appear and become clear.

The great light of Christ, the light of the world, the light of life, shone out in our world at his birth; and it was something about his light and truth and grace that led the first disciples to follow him. To set off for a new life, new hope, new purpose.

In the early church people used to mark the new commitment that baptism represented by the symbolism of turning away from darkness and turning to the light. There is much that can go wrong in life, there are things that can hurt us and harm us, there is real evil in the world. Florence’s Godparents shortly will promise that they will work with God to direct Florence’s whole life towards the light: to turn away from sin and darkness and evil; and each time she has a decision to make – each time she thinks which way shall I turn, to help her and guide her to turn to Christ, the light of the world, the light of life in all its fulness.

There is another turning to the light which baptism represents, and which we can all remind ourselves of today as we witness Florence’s baptism and recall our own: and that is a turning away from the darkness of illusion and pretence and falsehood.

A Greek writer called Plato, who lived between the time of Isaiah and Jesus, had quite an influence on early Christian thinkers – almost as if he anticipates the Gospel of goodness and truth and beauty. Plato used a vivid image so show that many people live their lives thinking that their values and experiences were real and important; when in fact the things they thought they were experiencing and reacting to were simply shadows.

It’s as if they were sitting in a cave and the bright light was outside – but they were sitting facing away from the light. All they were actually seeing were the shadows that the light cast onto the cave wall. For them that seemed to be real, that is their reality. But the call of faith is a call to dispel illusion and fantasy and ignorance. To turn from the shadows to reality; to turn around and turn to the light that is shining beyond us and ahead of us. To leave the narrow existence of that cave of unreal projections and step out into the day.

In the promises that Florence’s parents and godparents will make, as her brother Hugo’s godparents made for him, they say they will always encourage her to turn away from darkness and death and choose light and life.

And from today, for Florence, and from the day of our baptism for each of us, God promises to lead us onwards into that light of life, into real truth, into lasting value, into eternal joy. As the first disciples responded to the light and followed Jesus, leaving everything behind, so we may be asked to make some brave decisions along the way. But the fulfilment that we are promised outweighs everything: for in baptism we are made children of God, fellow heirs with Christ and inheritors of the kingdom of heaven.

Amen.