Look Up and See It: What Tolkien Teaches Us About Hope in Dark Times

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"The people who sat in darkness have seen a great light, and for those who sat in the region and shadow of death, light has dawned."

In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

There’s a part near the end of the The Lord of the Ring’s 3rd book, Return of the King, when Samwise Gamgee, is exhausted and lost all hope in the wasteland of Mordor, looks up and sees a star breaking through the cloud of shadows. JRR Tolkien writes: "The beauty of it smote his heart, as he looked up out of the forsaken land, and hope returned to him. For like a shaft, clear and cold, the thought pierced him that in the end the Shadow was only a small and passing thing: there was light and high beauty for ever beyond its reach."

Even in the land of shadow, light cannot be fully extinguished.

I think of Sam in Mordor when I read Isaiah's promise this morning: "The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light; those who lived in a land of deep darkness - aon them light has shined."

And something really stands out in this call back to Isaiah’s prophecy by St. Matthew. When Jesus heard that John was arrested, he withdrew to Galilee. He went to a fishing villiage in Capernaum, which is around the area of Zebulun and Naphtali, which Isaiah called “Galilee of the Gentiles.”

Just like everything in Matthew’s Gospel, there’s so much more going on here. Matthew shows Christ as the long-awaited Messiah and the fulfillment of the Old Testament. He’s telling us something about how God works. Let’s take a minute to look at the Old Testament here. When Isaiah wrote about light dawning in the land of Zebulun and Naphtali, he was prophesying to a people who understood loss. These were part of the northern territories of Israel who were the first to fall when the Assyrians attacked Israel in the 8th century. These people were conquered, sent into Exile, and Assyrians were living in their land. They sat in the land of deep darkness.

So Isaiah’s promise was that this place will see God’s light dawn. Joy will come, as at harvest time, as when plunder is divided.

So here, in Matthew’s Gospel, Jesus had just been tempted by Satan in the wilderness. The verse right before our Gospel reading today tells us Then the devil left him, and angels came and attended him. – this is the traditionally seen as the start of Christ’s earlthly ministry, and he withdraws to the same place Isaiah prophecized about it. St. Matthew finds the pattern – where darkness once hung over God’s people. Today, light dawns, it breaks through.

When Christ gets here, he repeats the same call as John - "Repent, for the kingdom of heaven has come near."

Repent is an interesting word. Today most of us think of it as feeling guilty or sorry, but the word used here is metanoia, which means so much more. It is a very real, a very profound change of your mind, a transformed way of seeing reality. In other words, it is to have your whole way of thinking reshaped, because the kingdom of heaven has drawn near.

Sam almost missed the star. He was so tired and overwhelmed by the darkness around him, but when he reoriented himself and looked up, hope returned.

This is what Jesus offers to people sitting in darkness. Not some kind of quick self-help. Not religious advice. But he tells us that reality itself has changed. Light has come. The kingdom is breaking in. Look up and see it.

And then Jesus goes throughout Galilee, teaching in synogoues, proclaiming the kingdom, and healing people. The Kingdom of heaven is a restoration of what sin has broken.

Jesus calls His Apostles here, promising to make them fishers of men. The fishermen leave their nets immediately. Peter and Andrew follow Christ. James and John leave their boat and their father immediately. When light breaks into your darkness, when you finally look up and see the star, the only response we can have, like that of the Magi we followed on Epiphany, is to follow.

I’m sure we have all known what it is to sit in that darkness. Maybe some of you are there in grief, in fear, in illness, or just living with the weight of a world that feels more and more like Mordor, full of shadows and darkness.

In a few minutes, we will come up to the altar and receive the Body and Blood of Christ. This is the light made tangible, Christ has given himself and is here for us for the journey through whatever darkness we face. We do not come alone. We come together, as those first disciples were called together, a community gathered around the Light of the World.

The people who sat in darkness have seen a great light. The light is Jesus. And we, who have been baptized into His death and resurrection, are called to receive that light and to carry it, to reflect Christ’s light so others can see the star breaking through the clouds.

So, repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand. May we all find grace from God to answer the call of Christ and to proclaim the Good News of his salvation, that we and the whole world may perceive His glory.