What is the meaning of Life?
John 1: 6-8, 19-23
December 1, 1991
You are only young once, but you can be immature forever. And when we ask, when is the time of maturity? Is it in the afternoon of life or do we have to wait until the evening of life?
For those of you in the evening of life, I have some bad news. Because you’re past 60 you’re not necessarily mature. Wrinkles and Gray hair are not signs of maturity. Experience and longevity are not the same as wisdom.
So, when do we grow up? I was at a meeting a few days ago, and someone said, When are you guys going to grow up? All of us spontaneously admitted we still had a long way to go. When, then, do we approach maturity? When can we say we’re getting wiser, gaining understanding, growing up? When can we honestly say, with the passing of years, we’re not simply getting closer to dying?
TS Eliot once put it this way:

all our knowledge leads us near to our ignorance,
all our ignorance near to death,
but nearness to death known nearer to God.
Where is the life we have lost in living?
All our knowledge leads us nearer to ignorance. In school you can find out why and everything about the world except as you get older you learn how to cope and maybe how to die, but never why. For that’s the key question, that’s the religious quest which no amount of education or living can begin to answer.
Where is the life we have lost in living? Where is the search for meaning that is so much a part of maturity?
What is the meaning of life? A professor at a university asked this question to every class, and only once did he get any serious answer. It happened on the island of Crete, at a seminar on human understanding and reconciliation. The director of the institute had just finished a lecture and asked, “Are there any questions?” Silence greeted the director. Finally, a student asked, What is the meaning of life? The usual laughter followed, and people stirred to go. But the director had heard a serious question and decided to answer it.
Taking out his wallet from his hip pocket, he fished into the leather billfold and brought out a very small, round mirror about the size of 1/4. What he said went like this. When he was a child during the war years, he had found this piece of mirror on the road where a German motorcyclist had been killed by partisans. The director had not been able to find the whole mirror, but he had kept the small round piece as a souvenir.
At first, he was just a toy, but as he grew older, he found he could use the mirror to reflect light into dark places where the sun would never shine. After a while, it became a game, a challenge to see if he could get light into the most inaccessible places. Finally, as I became a man, I realized that this was not just a child’s game. This was a metaphor for what I might do with my life.
He went on to say, I came to understand that I am a fragment of a mirror whose design and shape I do not know. Nevertheless, with what I have, I can reflect light into the dark places of the world, into the black places in the hearts of people, and change some things in some people. And then he said, I understand that I am not the light or the source of the light, but light is there, and it will only shine in many dark places if I reflect it. Perhaps others may see and do likewise. At any rate, this is what I am about, this is the meaning of my life.
Our Advent gospel this morning took place 2000 years ago, it’s a description of the meaning of life. Life for Elizabeth’s son John. There was a person sent from God; he came for a testimony, to bear witness to the light. He was not the light, but he came to bear witness to the light.
The people of John’s day were skeptical, but at least they were willing to use part of the why question. But what authority have you taken this upon yourself? People always raise that kind of question to those who attempt to do God’s work and John answered, he claimed no special strengths, no wonder-working powers, no notable prophetic insights. He simply said he was a voice crying in the wilderness of his time, trying as best he could to bear witness to the light.
Advent is a disturbing time, a time of questioning, a time of waiting, and a time of watching. Will you become aware of our fragility, our feeble flesh, our inability to adequately show forth God’s light? Advent is a time when the masks slip and the world sees that we are not as grown-up as we thought we were. We expected that with age would come wisdom, and were disappointed. We expected those persons in the evening of life to have had answers and found it best, only the nature of the question.
But wait and watch, there is something each of us can do which will lead to maturity. Instead of cursing the night, instead of wallowing in despair of ever growing up, you can develop the ability to see Into Darkness, or at least you can reflect some of the light into dark places in other people’s lives.
John the Baptist started the process. You can walk in his footsteps. If you do, this Advent, you will be on the road to maturity. Are there any questions?
Amen