Sermon for the 8th of December - Second Sunday of Advent
This season of Advent is one of hope and expectancy, but it’s also a time to grapple with the hard truths about ourselves, our world, and the forces of darkness that often seem overwhelming.
Today, I want to reflect on someone who isn’t a biblical prophet, but a modern one—a man who lived out the call to bear witness to the light amidst the darkness. It’s just over fifty years since the publication of The Gulag Archipelago by Alexander Solzhenitsyn. It was a monumental and haunting work with particular Advent themes.
The Power of Lies
Solzhenitsyn’s life was shaped by a regime that depended on lies to sustain itself. The Soviet gulag system, which imprisoned millions of innocent people, was a regime built on deception, cover-ups, and the systematic crushing of truth. Much like what’s going on now in Russian, this regime fed on deceit and fear, convincing a nation that cruelty and aggression was justifiable.
The secret police tried to poison him, he was arrested in 1945 as an “Enemy of the People” for disrespecting Stalin in a letter sent to a friend, and spent eight years in several labour camps.
Yet he knew the power of truth and the power of words: “One word of truth outweighs the whole world.” He exposed the falsehoods that sought to control the human spirit and reminded the world of the power of a single voice standing against darkness.
Advent invites us to face the lies that surround us—and the lies within us. We’re challenged to ask ourselves, what lies are we called to confront this Advent? Perhaps it’s the lie that we’re not responsible for the brokenness around us, the comfortable belief that darkness is only someone else’s problem. Advent challenges us to strip away these deceptions and to embrace the light of Christ’s truth.
Prophetic Courage and the Call to Repentance
Solzhenitsyn's life and work were prophetic, not just in what they exposed, but in the way they called people to a deeper truth. He wasn’t one of those self-righteous tellers of truth. He was willingness to look at his own complicity in the brokenness he saw. He confessed to his own moral failures as a former Marxist who once endorsed ideas that justified violence. In the gulags, Solzhenitsyn encountered people of deep faith—Catholics, who would make rosaries beads from chewed bits of bread, Protestants from the Baltic states, and Jews. He committed himself to remembering everything, including the unexpected moments of grace.
Like John the Baptist, he became a voice calling not for self-justification but for repentance and renewal. Which is of course the message of John the Baptist in wilderness: “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven has come near!” It’s a call to acknowledge the darkness within, and to prepare the way for the Lord. Solzhenitsyn’s witness reminds us that the path to redemption, of wholeness, begins with repentance—a painful acknowledgment that the line between good and evil doesn’t run between nations, political parties, or ideologies, but “through every human heart.”
Judgment and Hope
The theme of judgment can be uncomfortable, but it is central to Advent. John the Baptist spoke of the One who would come with a winnowing fork in His hand, separating wheat from chaff. Solzhenitsyn’s Gulag Archipelago is, in many ways, a book of judgment—a moral reckoning with the past, a clear-eyed assessment of the capacity for evil within each human heart. He knew the depths of human cruelty. And yet, he never lost hope. He spoke of a “bridgehead of good” that exists even in the darkest times—a space of resistance to evil, a place where the light can begin to shine.
As St John’s Gospel so beautifully puts this: The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.
Solzhenitsyn’s story—surviving imprisonment, overcoming cancer, and witnessing the collapse of a regime that once seemed unshakeable—testifies to the enduring power of hope. It holds to the belief that darkness doesn’t have the final word.
Putting on the Armour of Light
As Paul urges us in Romans, the season of Advent calls us to “cast away the works of darkness and put on the armour of light.” This is not just a passive waiting; it’s an active preparation. It’s a call to live differently in the present because of the hope that is to come.
Solzhenitsyn’s journey—from a Marxist idealist to a Christian witness, from a prisoner in the gulags to a Nobel laureate—is an inspiration. He shows what it means to put on the armour of light, to let the truth of Christ transform our hearts and actions.
It’s a bit of a cliché to say this, but it’s true! Advent isn’t just about the coming of Christ in Bethlehem; it’s about his coming into our lives now, the light of Christ breaking into our darkness, his truth confronting our lies. Lighting these Advent candles is an encouragement and invitation to live in the light of Christ, to be truth-tellers in a world of deception, to be bearers of hope in a world of despair.
Alexander Solzhenitsyn, Alexei Navalny, Martin Luther King, James Baldwin, Nelson Mandela, are inspirations major figures in world events… the prophetic calling isn’t just for them, but in small ways our calling. To have the courage to speak the truth, the humility to repent, and the faith to hold onto hope. In doing so, we prepare our hearts for the one who is to come—the true Light of the world, Jesus Christ our Lord.