November 16, 2025

Indianola Presbyterian Church, Columbus

“Drawn toward the light"

Sermon by Rev. Trip Porch

November 16, 2025 Based on Isaiah 9:2-7

Last week, I was down in Hocking Hills at our presbytery retreat for pastors. On the last night, a big group of us decided to go to the John Glenn Astronomy Park, a relatively new public park that takes advantage of the minimal light pollution down there to showcase the night sky. And what did a bunch of tired, slightly extraverted pastors do almost instinctively? We all lay down in a big circle in the dark, taking on the quiet of the night and looking up to the heavens and to let our eyes adjust. Soon, we were tracing constellations, making guesses at which star was which—when almost universally an audible “Whoa!” rippled through the group. There was this bright streak across the sky that we all saw. All our heads turned instinctually toward the flash. I felt my arm move to point before my brain caught up. It felt like it took another five seconds for my mouth catch up to finally say what my brain had already registered: a shooting star. It struck me later how natural that reaction was—how our bodies sitting in the dark turned, without needing to be told, toward the light.
We are creatures drawn to light. Even in the deepest dark, some part of us strains toward it. Isaiah begins this passage with people walking in darkness—not metaphorically at first, but literally, historically, politically. The Northern Kingdom had fallen. The land of Zebulun and Naphtali had been invaded by the Assyrians. Families displaced. Fields burned. Trust in leaders shattered. In Jerusalem, where Isaiah preached, things weren’t much better. The southern kingdom had its own corruption, its own leaders who were more interested in consolidating power than pursuing justice. Isaiah dares to speak a word of light into that reality: “The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light.” This is not Hallmark-movie light. This is the light that comes after a long night of war. This is the light that flickers before dawn when the world is still cold and uncertain. Isaiah’s audience did not know Jesus. They didn’t have a Christmas story. They didn’t know about shepherds or mangers or angels singing “Glory.” What they had was a promise—a vision of something not yet real but fiercely hoped for: “A child has been born for us… and the government shall rest upon his shoulders… and his name shall be Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.” For them, this might have been about a young king like Hezekiah, whose leadership would mark a new dawn after the devastation. It was about real justice, real peace, real safety—something they could barely imagine but longed for. The Prophetic Tension: Promise, Not Fulfillment For us who hear this text today, it’s almost impossible not to hear Handel’s Messiah playing in the background. For unto us a child is born! It’s impossible not to jump straight to Jesus. And yet Isaiah’s vision remains a vision. The light he saw still shines toward us—it hasn’t fully engulfed us. It’s the shaft of light in a darkened room, calling us forward. That’s the paradox of prophecy. It names what isn’t yet true as if it already were—so that we might begin to live toward it. Isaiah’s words are not sentimental optimism; they’re defiant hope. He looks out at violence and injustice and says, This will not be the final word. That word—defiant—reminds me of an essay I read this week by Marion Sarkisian Ramón Pareja, who works with the Telos Group, a Christian peace-building organization that has primarily been focused on building peace in Palestine and Israel. She wrote, “In my work, I’ve learned, Hope is not optimism; hope is defiance.” Working daily amid war, atrocities, and political upheaval, she says her calling in this work, her role, is to not look away—it’s to stay attentive to suffering and still believe change is possible. “Systems of oppression,” she writes, “don’t just thrive on power; they also thrive on silence.” Her piece names a truth Isaiah knew: Hope isn’t pretending everything’s fine or bright siding. Hope is refusing to look away, hope is refusing to surrender to despair. It’s small acts of faithfulness like this that keep hope alive—a conversation across difference, a hand extended to someone in grief, a prayer spoken aloud when no one else will. It’s not everything, but it’s something. And in a world paralyzed by fear, doing something hopeful is a sacred act. That sounds a lot like Isaiah’s kind of hope to me. Not cheap optimism. Not denial. But the stubborn insistence that God’s light is still real and still coming, even when the world feels unbearably dark. But not everyone can use the word hope so easily. Writer Ta-Nehisi Coates, one of the most perceptive voices on race and history in America, has long been skeptical of the word. Interviewers often ask him, “Can you offer a word of hope?”—and he usually refuses. Hope isn’t my job, he once said. It’s not cynicism that drives him; it’s honesty. Coates sees the depth of generational suffering—the legacy of slavery, racism, and exploitation—and refuses to smooth it over with easy words. He insists that to speak of hope without reckoning with history is to tell a lie. In Between the World and Me, he writes to his son, “You must struggle to truly remember this past… The enslaved were not bricks in your road… perhaps struggle is all we have.” For Coates, struggle is not despair—it’s survival. It’s endurance. It’s choosing to keep working for a better world even when you can’t yet see it. He calls it verbs over nouns, actions over states—struggle over hope. The theologian John Slattery pushes back at Coates and argues that Coates actually is holding the tension of Christian hope quite well. It’s something he calls costly hope—a hope that doesn’t look away from pain but carries it, honors it, refuses to forget. It’s hope that works, hopes that sweats, hopes that remembers. Honestly, I think Isaiah would nod in agreement. Because Isaiah’s hope isn’t the kind that floats above the battlefield—it’s the kind that rises from the ashes. His promise of a child, a prince of peace, is not an escape from the struggle but born through it. This is hope as resilience. Hope as faithfulness. Hope that refuses to give up because generations before us refused to give up. And maybe, as Coates shows us, the truest hope is found not in forgetting the darkness, but in struggling within it—trusting that the act of struggle itself is sacred, that even in the long night, God’s light still calls us forward. When I think back to that night under the stars, I remember that moment our heads all turned—how our bodies sought the light before our minds could name it. Maybe faith is like that. Maybe it’s less about having answers and more about allowing ourselves to be pulled toward what we know is true. God’s vision of peace—justice with righteousness, the light Isaiah describes. We live, as the prophets did, between darkness and dawn. We are not yet where we hope to be, but the light is real enough to move us. So when you feel weary, when the world seems consumed by violence and deceit, remember that hope is not something we manufacture—it’s something that catches our attention, like a flash across the night sky, like a star over Bethlehem, like a promise we can’t yet hold but still trust is there. Because, As Isaiah writes, the zeal of the Lord of hosts will do this. May it be so in our darkness and in our struggle, Amen.

WE GATHER IN AWE AND PRAISE

PRELUDE                                                                 “Teach Me to Walk in the Light”                                                      arr. Anne Britt

INTROIT                      “All That Hath Life and Breath, Praise Ye the Lord”                              Rene Clausen

WELCOME                                                                   

One: This is the day that the Lord has made

All: Let us rejoice and be glad in it.

*CALL TO WORSHIP

One: In the midst of darkness that feels too familiar,

Many: God calls us by name.

One: In a world that does not yet look like peace,

Many: God speaks a promise of justice and joy.

One: The Light shines, not in some distant future,

Many: but here, now, breaking in at the edges.

One: Come, let us look toward that light.

All: We gather to worship the God who is not finished with us, or with the world.

*HYMN 12                          “Immortal, Invisible, God Only Wise”                                                             ST. DENIO

*PRAYER OF CONFESSION                                                                                                                                         Rebekah Gayley

God of Promise, we confess that we are weary from the waiting. We look at the world and see violence, division, and despair, and we lose sight of your light. We confess that sometimes we choose cynicism over hope, comfort over courage, apathy over love. Do not leave us where we are. Draw us toward the light of your vision, that we may join you in building a world where justice and peace are real. Amen.

*ASSURANCE OF PARDON

*RESPONSE OF PARDON 695            “Change My Heart, O God”                   CHANGE MY HEART

*PASSING OF THE PEACE                                       

     One:   The peace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you all,

     All:      And also with you.

We LISTEN FOR GOD’S WORD

ANTHEM                                                “Purpose”                                         Glenn Burleigh

CHILDREN’S MESSAGE                                                                   Ruth Harold

PRAYER OF ILLUMINATION

SCRIPTURE   Isaiah 9:1-7  CEB

The people walking in darkness have seen a great light.
    On those living in a pitch-dark land, light has dawned.
 You have made the nation great;
    you have increased its joy.
They rejoiced before you as with joy at the harvest,
    as those who divide plunder rejoice.
 As on the day of Midian, you’ve shattered the yoke that burdened them,
    the staff on their shoulders,
    and the rod of their oppressor.
 Because every boot of the thundering warriors,
    and every garment rolled in blood
    will be burned, fuel for the fire.
A child is born to us, a son is given to us,
    and authority will be on his shoulders.
    He will be named
    Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God,
    Eternal Father, Prince of Peace.
 There will be vast authority and endless peace
    for David’s throne and for his kingdom,
    establishing and sustaining it
    with justice and righteousness
    now and forever.

The zeal of the Lord of heavenly forces will do this.

One: Holy wisdom, Holy Word,
All: Thanks be to God 

SERMON                                                                                                                                                                                      Rev. Trip Porch

WE RESPOND TO GOD’S WORD

*HYMN 314                                   “Christ, Be Our Light”                                                     CHRIST, BE OUR LIGHT

 PRAYERS OF THE PEOPLE  

Time of Offering   online giving is available at  www. indianolapres.org/give  

OFFERTORY                                  “Andantino”                                                   Ceasar Franck

*OFFERTORY RESPONSE 717      “For the Life That You Have Given”                   PLEADING SAVIOR

*PRAYER OF DEDICATION 

God of promise, receive these gifts as signs of our hope. Use them to shine light where there is shadow, justice where there is suffering, and peace where there is division. Amen. 

*HYMN 79                             “Light Dawns on a Weary World”                       TEMPLE OF PEACE

TIME OF COMMUNITY SHARING

CHARGE & BENEDICTION

CHORAL RESPONSE           “God Be With You Till We Meet Again”                William G. Tomer

POSTLUDE                       “Immortal, Invisible, God Only Wise”                 arr. Michael Ware

 Acknowledgments: Unless otherwise indicated, all texts and music are printed and broadcast under OneLicense.net license #A-702452