Sermon “Like the Sea at Sunset, Like a Lighthouse”

2025 has come and gone and here we are already four days into 2026. We say it every year, don’t we? “Time flies.” “Where did the year go?” But sometimes we really do stop and think 52 weeks… how did they just slip away like that? With all these thoughts in our hearts, we step into our march through 2026.

For many of us, the new year begins in small and familiar ways around a table with family, in quiet conversations, or simply with a gentle hope that this year might unfold differently.  And as the days begin to unfold, we start responding to the new year in our own ways.

Maybe someone buys a fresh diary and writes down their resolutions. Maybe someone joins a gym. Maybe someone simply hopes this year will be different. And then there is what usually happens: Week 1 brings enthusiasm, week 2 brings adjustment and week 3 brings negotiation, week 4 brings grace.

As the year was drawing to a close, I went down to Frankston Beach on the last evening of December to watch the sunset. It was meant to be at 8:45, but clouds covered the sky. I wasn’t sure I’d see anything. Then the sun broke through. Gold and orange light stretched across the water between the clouds — and somehow, the clouds made it even more beautiful. There is something about a sunset breaking through darkness that never stops feeling mysterious. For a moment, I wasn’t reflecting or analysing anything rather, I simply stood there in silence, letting the beauty wash over me. The sun slipped toward the horizon and in just a few brief moments, it disappeared into the line of the sea.

And as I sat there watching the water, something became clear the sea has no light of its own. It doesn’t shine by itself. But when the sun rests upon it, the whole surface of the ocean glows with brightness. As I kept watching the light on the water, I saw that the sea wasn’t creating light.  It was simply receiving it… and letting it be seen.

And this is the insight of today’s reading. Isaiah says, “Arise, shine… for your light has come.” In other words, your light is here. I have shone my light upon you. We do not generate this light. We do not produce it. It comes to us and our work is to receive it and reflect it.

We know this in our own lives too. New life does not always begin in bright places. A seed begins in the darkness of the soil. A child grows in the darkness of the womb. And resurrection begins in the darkness of the tomb.

Isaiah does not deny the darkness. ppt “Darkness shall cover the earth and thick darkness the peoples…” He acknowledges it. But then he says, “The LORD will arise upon you, and his glory will appear over you.” Darkness is real but it is not the end of the story. Hope does not begin when everything is fixed. Hope begins because God has already drawn near because a light has come to us.

And perhaps that is how God’s light so often comes to us as well not suddenly, not dramatically, but quietly… taking root in the ordinary days of our lives. The light does not erase the shadows but it opens a way through them.

So, we might ask, where does this light come to us? Where does it meet us?
Think of the Magi, they discovered Christ not by abandoning the world they knew, but by paying attention to what was already in front of them the sky they studied every day. Their everyday work became a doorway into God’s mystery.

Their everyday work became a doorway into God’s mystery. And I wonder whether it is the same for us. Where does this light meet us? For some of us, a morning tea gathering with friends.

A workplace, a kitchen table, a bedside visit, a conversation we didn’t plan to have. Places we return to day after day. Moments when we choose patience instead of the last word, when we reopen a door we had almost closed, when we offer kindness that no one else will notice.  These moments do not look impressive. But in God’s eyes, they shine.

There is an old story from the Scottish coast. One stormy night, the waves were rough and the wind was fierce. The lighthouse keeper stayed awake through the darkest hours; not inventing new light, not being the source of brightness himself, but simply tending the flame so that it would not go out and so that it would shine outward across the sea.

And that night, several boats found their way safely home. His task was simple: Not to create the light but to care for it and to let it be seen. Sometimes, discipleship looks very much like that.

And this light that we receive and reflect, it is for everyone. Isaiah continues: “Nations shall come to your light…” That is the heart of Epiphany. Light does not stay inside boundaries. It does not discriminate or divide. The light of Christ is not a private possession of the faithful. It is a gift for the world.

The Church is not called to collect light inside our walls but to let it flow outward into places of loneliness, grief, searching, and hope. Grace does not build fences. Grace creates pathways. The Magi discovered this. After meeting the Christ child, they went home “by another road.” They could not return the same way because they were no longer the same. When we have encountered light, we cannot walk back into life unchanged.

And as we step into 2026, we do not shine with our own brilliance but like the sea at sunset, like the lamp in the lighthouse we receive and we reflect the light that has already come to us.

But here’s what we need to hear: You already have the light. It’s not coming. It has come. It’s resting on you right now. So the real question for 2026 is not: “When will I finally have enough light?” The real question is, “What am I doing with the light I already have?” Am I keeping it safe? Am I waiting until I’m “ready”? Am I hiding it because I’m afraid of what it might cost? Or am I letting it shine:  messy, imperfect, but real into the world that desperately needs it? Take a moment. Listen….. What is God saying to you? Amen.