A Light Wardrobe

This is a sermon preview for a sermon in the "Arise! Your Light Has Come" Advent 2025 series. The live stream recordings can be viewed online.

“The night is nearly over; the day is almost here. So let us put aside the deeds of darkness and put on the armor of light.” - from Romans 13:11-14 (NIV)

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The following is excerpted from the Pastors' Column in the upcoming The Visitor newsletter. You can find current and previous issues of our church newsletter at fbcmuncie.org/publications.

A Light Wardrobe

Advent is upon us: the great time of anticipation and preparation. Get ready! No, not in the sense of hurry: the frantic pace of the adverts and the expectations placed upon us by the digital, algorithmically-powered 21st-century equivalent of the Madison Avenue advertisers and influencers pushing us to buy, spend, and consume. Rather we prepare ourselves for the light: for Christ is the light of the world. 

Theologically, this means we take full inventory of the darkness, within and without. We recognize the fallenness in the world and ourselves for what it is. But this leads us not to despair or to cynicism. Because we do not end there. We put on the armor of light, trusting: “The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.” That means that we live as Christ lived, and not according to the ways of sin and the world which seem, often, so powerful.

Personally, it is the prayer of your Pastors that the light and warmth of awaiting Christ be palpably present to each of you this Season. While we might rightly take inventory of the darkness during Advent, and while it is wise to guard against the compulsion to turn the season into one which is only about new gadgets and fancy gifts, none of this should suggest dreariness. 

There is great joy to be found in the waiting, the preparation, and the promise of the once and future coming of Jesus Christ. As Christmas arrives, take joy, eat, gather with family and loved ones new and old, sing songs and laugh deeply. And do not let the darkness of the world rob you of joy.

"Arise, shine, for your light has come, and the glory of the LORD rises upon you." - Isaiah 60:1 (NLT)