"Ever-Evolving Eyes" - Sermon for 3rd after Epiphany, 1-25-26

The human eye has not evolved to see confidently in darkness. Unlike others of God’s creatures, we are not a nocturnal species. Absent the light, our steps are unsteady, the grope of our hands tentative and erratic. In the familiarity of our own home, we worry about a stubbed toe. In stranger settings, we fear greater dangers. There is little wonder, then, that biblical literature uses darkness as a metaphor for things gone wrong, for being listless and lost. And light, in contrast, as a symbol of safety and salvation.

The great canticle of the Morning Office, the Song of Zechariah, ends thus: In the tender compassion of our God the dawn from on high shall break upon us, to shine on those who dwell in darkness and the shadow of death, and to guide our feet into the way of peace.

And you just heard Isaiah write, and Matthew reiterate, the people who walked in darkness have seen a great light; those who lived in a land of deep darkness—on them light has shined.

We can apply these lines of problem and promise to an individual person or, as the biblical writers suggest, to a plural society. Are we a people – a nation – walking in darkness? Have things gone wrong? Are we listless and lost? It depends on whom you ask. Pundits and pollsters often include “Is the country on the right track or wrong track?” in their list of questions. Answers inevitably vary.

In the time of the Hebrew prophets, it was the true spokesmen for God who said that the kingdoms were on the wrong track – walking in darkness, listless and lost. The prophets aligned with the monarchy defended the monarchy and derided any prophet who dared say otherwise. The same is true today.

It is not just nations who walk in darkness. Other collective institutions have done the same, including the church. A congregation may have suffered scandal or schism; a denomination an era of systemic injustice. Even in familiar settings we grope about in the dark; we stub and stumble and fall.

And who among us has not walked in our own darkness and shadow of death? A dark night of body, mind, or spirit, brought on by our own wrongs, or by wrongs committed against us, or by no fault of anyone: just bad luck or ill health or our mortal nature that comes for us all and binds us all in common. And still, the true prophets promise light.

The light comes in Jesus, the true light which enlightens anyone who awaits the dawn from on high and looks to the eastward horizon in anticipation and hope.

What we know by science and experience is that sunrise is followed by sunset. In the summer the light is longer; in the winter darkness has the upper hand. Day follows night, night follows day. This holds true for our personal and our collective days of light and nights of darkness, too. It is not all one or all the other. Not for us; not even for Jesus, the light of the world.

Jesus endured the dark night in the garden before his arrest. The midday sky drew dark as he suffered on the cross. And nothing, I expect, is as dark as death, entombed.

The dawning new day of Jesus’s resurrection defeated death and darkness, once and for all – his light shines in the darkness, and the darkness does not overcome it. The eyes of our mortal flesh are not yet evolved to perceive this eternal daylight. This evolution only ends at our own resurrection from the dead.

For now, our eyes keep evolving. Our eyes evolve each time we gather to worship and pray. Our eyes evolve each time we hear God’s Word broken open and share Jesus’s Body broken at the altar. Our eyes evolve each time we plead for God’s tender compassion to help us find our way out of the darkness of despair and fill us with a new day’s light of hope.

But for now, our eyes keep evolving. Jesus never promised us a pain-free, problem-free life. But he took our life on himself and teaches us, day-by-day, to see his light ever more clearly. And it is this light, his light, that he invites us to follow.

Father Daniel S.J. Scheid, SCP

3^rd after Epiphany, January 25, 2026

All Saints’ Episcopal Church, San Francisco

“Ever-Evolving Eyes”