HarperOne Reading and Discussion Guide for Secrets in the Dark

Reading and Discussion Guide for

Secrets in the Dark:

A Life of Sermons
by
Frederick Buechner

The Magnificent Defeat

1. Frederick Buechner highlights two conflicting truths:

that Jacob profited from his dishonesty, and that when
an angel confronted and wrestled him, he saw some-
thing that changed him, something “more terrible than
the face of death—the face of love” (p. 7). Why might
the “face of love” in the angel’s gaze be more terrible
than the face of death?

2. Buechner calls God our “beloved enemy” (p. 7). How

can both be true—God as beloved and God as enemy?

3. “Remember Jesus of Nazareth, staggering on broken

feet out of the tomb toward the resurrection, bearing

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on his body the proud insignia of the defeat that is vic-

tory” (p. 8). The suffering and death of Jesus seemed a
catastrophic loss until the resurrection. By his rising,
the loss became a stunning victory. Have you ever
experienced a devastation that was transformed into an
unexpected victory?

The Birth

1. Buechner assumes the perspective of various charac-

ters in Jesus’s birth narrative. As the innkeeper, he says:
“All your life long, you wait for your own true love to
come—we all of us do—our destiny, our joy, our heart’s
desire. How am I to say it, gentlemen? When he came, I
missed him” (p. 11). Has there been a time when you
failed to see the nearness of God even when he was
coming right to you?

2. As the shepherd, Buechner says: “[That night was like]

things just coming into focus that had been there
always. And such things! The air wasn’t just emptiness
anymore. It was alive. Brightness everywhere, dipping
and wheeling like a flock of birds” (p. 14). What does
Buechner mean by “the air wasn’t just emptiness any-
more”? Have you experienced this emptiness? Have
you ever felt it come alive?

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Message in the Stars

1. “If God really exists, why in heaven’s name does God

not prove that he exists instead of leaving us here in
our terrible uncertainty?” (p. 16). How would you
answer this question?

2. According to Buechner, God speaks to us more than we

realize (or choose to realize). He adds that often “God
speaks to us most clearly through his silence” (p. 19).
Have you experienced God speaking through silence?
What implications does this carry in a world filled with
the clamor of cell phones and other distractions?

3. He concludes the sermon: “It is precisely into the non-

sense of our days that God speaks to us words of great
significance” (p. 20). In what, if any, nonsensical
moment in your life have you felt convinced that God
had a message for you?

The Face in the Sky

1. Buechner recalls a particularly ridiculous scene in the

Italian film La Dolce Vita, in which a Jesus-like statue is
dangling by a harness from a helicopter over a scene of
revelry and sensuality. He describes a moment in the
film when the audience went silent upon seeing a close-
up of the face: “There was no sound, as if the face [of
Jesus] were their face somehow, their secret face” (p.
23). The scene then takes on a sublime quality. How, in

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your life, has the sublime been juxtaposed with the

ridiculous?

2. “Once they have seen him in a stable, they can never be

sure where he will appear or to what lengths he will go
or to what ludicrous depths of self-humiliation he will
descend in his wild pursuit of humankind” (p. 24). To
what “ludicrous depths” has Jesus gone to reach you?

The Sign by the Highway

1. Buechner writes that we often “wince” when hearing

the name of Jesus: “We wince because there is some-
thing in the name ‘Jesus’ itself that embarrasses us” (p.
28). Have you ever winced at the name of Jesus? Is it
fair to suggest that we all wince at times? Why do you
think we do so?

2. Do you agree with Buechner that truth can be seen

only “on the other side of pain” (pp. 32–33)?

The Calling of Voices

1. During his temptation in the wilderness, Jesus answered

the devil’s misguiding voice with his own authoritative
one: “Man shall not live by bread alone” (p. 39). Have
you ever listened to the wrong voice? What were the
consequences?

2. Buechner writes about the importance of living a

meaningful life: “There is nothing moralistic or senti-

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mental about this truth. It means for us simply that we

must be careful with our lives, for Christ’s sake” (p. 39).
What might being careful look like in your life? Could
you be more careful? If so, how?

A Sprig of Hope

1. Buechner highlights the absurdity of Noah’s predica-

ment when the Lord tells him to build an ark. “Only a
fool would heed such a voice at all when every other
voice for miles around could tell him, and probably
did, that our proper business is to keep busy: to work,
to play, to make love, to watch out for our own interests
as everybody else does” (p. 46). In the past, what fool-
ishness did God call you to? How did you respond?
What do you feel God is currently calling you to do?
What does Noah’s story teach us about how to respond,
even when God’s instructions seem nonsensical?

2. Buechner concludes, “We must build our arks with love

and ride out the storm with courage and know that the
little sprig of green in the dove’s mouth betokens a real-
ity beyond the storm” (p. 48). What do you make of
this image? What has served as the “little sprig of green
in the dove’s mouth” in your storm?

Come and See

1. Regarding the birth of Christ, Buechner writes: “Ever

since the child was born, there have been people who

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have gotten drunk on him no less than they can get

drunk on hard liquor” (p. 53). What does it mean to get
“drunk” on Christ? Does this suggest losing your criti-
cal faculties? Have you ever felt this way? If so, did you
feel it was a good thing?

2. Jesus “says to follow him, to walk as he did into the

world’s darkness, to throw yourself away as he threw
himself away for love of the dark world” (p. 54). Do you
agree with the notion that Jesus threw himself away?
What might throwing yourself away look like in your
life?

A Room Called Remember

1. We receive hope in looking back on our lives because

God was always present (p. 61). Can you recall a time
when you felt alone but now can see that God was
near?

2. Buechner believes that we all must “remember our own

lives” (p. 63). What about the axiom “forgive and for-
get”? Does remembering suggest not forgetting trans-
gressions against us? Can we have it both ways?

Faith

1. Buechner speaks of a place in our interior lives where

we can go “to find healing and hope” (p. 72). Do you
have an interior place like this where you can go?

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2. Faith requires us to believe even when we don’t quite

see “the homeland we have seen from afar in our dear-
est rooms and truest dreams” (p. 72). What does
Buechner mean by this? What are your dearest rooms
and truest dreams?

Hope

1. “If we come to a church right, we come to it more fully

and nakedly ourselves, come with more of our human-
ness showing, than we are apt to come to most places”
(p. 75). What might this look like in your local congre-
gation? Are you able to feel this vulnerable in your
church? Why or why not?

2. Of the church, Buechner says, “In spite of all the devas-

tating evidence to the contrary, the ground we stand on
is holy ground because Christ walked here and walks
here still” (p. 81). If this is true of physical church
buildings, would it not also be true of any place where
“two or three are gathered” in Christ’s name (Matthew
18:20)? If so, is a church any more holy than other
places?

The Two Stories

1. Buechner draws a distinction between peddlers and

storytellers, describing peddlers as those who commu-
nicate to sell something (p. 84). In what ways might

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one “peddle” Christ’s story? Do you think you have

ever peddled it?

2. Christ’s story is “full of darkness as well as light” (p.

85), and the same is true of our stories. In telling
Christ’s story, what elements of darkness and light
would you include? What about in your own story?

Emmanuel

1. Buechner colorfully describes the frenzy of the holiday

season: “Canned carols blast out over shopping-center
blacktops before the Thanksgiving turkey is cold on the
plate. Salvation Army tambourines rattle, and street-
corner Santas stamp their feet against the cold” (p. 94).
Even so, he says, “the world speaks of holy things in the
only language it knows, which is a worldly language.”
What holy things do you hear amid the cacophony of a
consumer-based Christmas?

2. Buechner likens the moment of Christ’s birth to the

image of ice being split “starwise”: “The child is born,
and history itself falls in two at the star. . . . The world
of ad is one world, and the world of bc is another” (p.
94). He then applies the metaphor to our own lives.
What is the closest you have come to experiencing a
star-splitting moment in your life?

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Love

1. Do you agree with Buechner that one can truly love

God only after passing through grief, terror, and near
hopelessness? Why or why not?

2. Buechner describes the kind of love that followers of

Christ must move toward: “Through the wilderness
times, on broken legs, and through times when we
catch glimpses and hear whispers from beyond the
wilderness” (p. 103). Have you loved Christ on broken
legs? What “whispers from beyond the wilderness”
have you heard?

Delay

1. Buechner refers in this sermon to the “darkness of our

time,” when light is “random and elusive” (p. 112). Even
so, we as God’s people are to make advances, if only
tentative, toward these glimpses of light. How do you
understand the “darkness of our time”? How could it
apply to an individual’s circumstances in life?

2. These glimmers of light are a prelude to seeing God in

his glory (p. 113). What glimpses of light have enabled
you to keep going?

Air for Two Voices

1. In this sermon, Buechner juxtaposes two voices that

speak to the human soul: the cantor’s voice (a sung

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voice) and an interrupting voice (“a little nasal”) that

tries to get everything straight (p. 115). Which of these
voices speaks to you most in your own spiritual journey?

2. Buechner continues, “The poetry of the first voice [is]

fleshed out in the prose of the second” (p. 118). What
does this statement mean to you? How do the poetry
and prose voices complement each other?

The Clown in the Belfry

1. Buechner cites a record of the repair of a New England

church belfry in 1831: “When the steeple was added . . .
[o]ne agile Lyman Woodard stood on his head in the
belfry with his feet toward heaven” (p. 129). He sug-
gests that this is an apt image of what it looks like to
follow Christ, where “everything goes topsy-turvy” (p.
130). In what way, if any, have you experienced this
kind of topsy-turvy obedience?

2. He concludes, “Let us join him in the belfry with our

feet toward heaven like his, because heaven is where we
are heading. That is our faith and what better image of
faith could there be? It is a little crazy. It is a little risky.
It sets many a level head wagging” (p. 130). Is it possi-
ble to be both faithful and levelheaded, or must one be
a little crazy?

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The Truth of Stories

1. Buechner suggests that many Christians have heard

Jesus’s stories so often that they have lost the ability to
hear them (p. 133). Is this the case for you? If so, how
might you look at these stories with new eyes?

2. Jesus enters our individual stories by overlapping them

with an aspect of his own, “like searchlights in the
dark” (p. 137). Have you experienced Jesus coming into
your story like a searchlight? What did he find?

Growing Up

1. Buechner asserts that real growing up means listening

“farther back than the rhymes of our childhood” (p.
139). Is there something else we can hear beyond our
memories and experiences? Have you heard it?

2. Kindness, Buechner says, is not itself holiness, but the

way into holiness (p. 144). Do you agree? Can any
other attribute lead to holiness?

The Church

1. Buechner highlights the definition of church based

upon the Greek word ekklesia, which means “those
called out” (p. 148). If ekklesia is the true sense of
church, what, if anything, does this suggest about the
present model of the local congregation, in which peo-
ple live settled lives in comfortable homes?

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2. In manifesting Christ’s church, “we are called to be

Christs to each other” (p. 152). What does this look like
in your local congregation?

3. Ultimately, Buechner suggests that the Kingdom of

Heaven is everywhere—“in the movie theater as the old
woman gets up to leave, shaking popcorn crumbs out
of her lap” and when “the fat man goes driving by in his
pickup with the bumper sticker he can’t believe in” (p.
153). Does this suggest that one can experience God
somewhere other than church? If so, what is the pur-
pose of the local church?

The Kingdom of God

1. When John the Baptist announces that the Kingdom

of God is at hand, he is referring to the time when it
will no longer be humans in their lunacy who are in
charge of the world but God in his mercy who will be
in charge of the world” (p. 157). How does this affect
the way we think about the end of the world?

2. Buechner remembers New York City: “Buried beneath

the surface of all the dirt and noise and crime and pov-
erty and pollution of that terrifying city, I glimpsed the
treasure that waits to make it a holy city—a city where
human beings dwell in love and peace with each other
and with God” (p. 159). What do you think of Buech-
ner’s description? Have you experienced any such
glimpses where you live?

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Two Narrow Words

1. In this sermon, Buechner cites Sir Walter Raleigh, who

wrote of death: “Thou hast drawn together all the far-
stretched greatness, all the pride, cruelty, and ambition
of man, and covered it all over with these two narrow
words: hic jacet.” These words, which mean “here lies,”
are a reminder that darkness and death form “shadows
[that] gather around us and within us” (p. 164). Is it
helpful or disturbing to feel as if one’s existence is shad-
owed by the constant specter of death? Do you find
hope or despair when you think about living in the
shadow of these two narrow words?

2. Referring to Job’s suffering, Buechner describes how

these shadows rendered hope: “What Job was really
after was not God’s answer, but God’s presence” (p.
167). Have you ever felt that God answered your ques-
tions with his presence? Was this enough?

Faith and Fiction

1. “In the world of fiction it may take many pages before

you find out who the major characters really are” (p.
174). Could this be true of your life? Why or why not?

2. What is the difference between a photograph and a

portrait? How does the latter reflect a deeper “invisible
truth” (p. 175)? Why do you think Buechner likens fic-
tion to a portrait?

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The Good Book as a Good Book

1. Buechner describes the Bible as a book of drama, law,

tragedy, treachery, skulduggery, poetry, and prophecy.
He adds, “It is a world where, although God is some-
times to be known through his life-giving presence,
there are other times when he is known only by his
appalling absence” (p. 191). Why would biblical writers
include such despairing narratives? What, in your
opinion, is the Bible for? Why should we believe it?

2. “The Bible is held together by having a single plot. It is

one that can be simply stated: God creates the world,
the world gets lost; God seeks to restore the world to
the glory for which he created it” (p. 194). What role do
you play in the plot of the book?

Paul Sends His Love

1. Buechner introduces Paul as one of the most complex

personalities in the New Testament: controversial, iron-
ical, often biting and irascible (p. 204). Are Paul’s com-
plexities and human failings indicative of someone to
be dismissed? Pitied? Reverenced?

2. Paul’s teachings, in part, call you “to start becoming

yourself fully by giving of yourself prodigally to who-
ever needs you, to love your neighbors” (p. 199). What
would “giving of yourself prodigally” look like? How
might it help you become yourself?

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Adolescence and the Stewardship of Pain

1. Buechner defines adolescence as growing toward some-

thing (p. 205). He observes that this often means expe-
riencing pain, and that, rather than burying, ignoring,
or becoming trapped by it, we ought to become stew-
ards of it. Have you ever buried, ignored, or been
trapped by pain? Explain. How might you become a
steward of it instead?

2. Buechner quotes Walter Brueggemann: “Living right is

trading what you have been given, Jesus says in his par-
able. It is living out your humanness in a way to call
forth the humanness of the people with whom you are
living and your own humanness” (p. 219). What does
this mean? How can you trade what you have been
given to call forth your own “humanness” and that of
others?

The Longing for Home

1. Buechner defines home as being more than a place

where you live, in fact the place where “you belong” (p.
221). What elements do you think make a place a
home? What about your own home makes you feel as
though you belong—or don’t?

2. He concludes that the closest to being “home” we can

get is when we become and experience “life-giving, life-
saving, and healing power” (p. 236). Do you agree with
this statement? Why or why not?

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The Great Dance

1. Reflecting upon a graceful show of killer whales and

their trainers at a water park, Buechner writes that he
caught a glimpse of “the Peaceable Kingdom . . . the
great dance that goes on at the heart of creation” (p.
240). The message of the Peaceable Kingdom, he says,
is that “we are above all things loved” (p. 241). Have
you witnessed anything like “the great dance”? Did it
invoke a similar sentiment?

2. Buechner describes “the joy of not just managing to

believe part of the time that it is true that life is holy,
but of actually running into that holiness head-on” (p.
242). Unless you are open to it, that holiness can easily
be overlooked. Can you recall an occasion when you
encountered holiness head-on but did not recognize it
as such?

The News of the Day

1. Buechner contrasts the news of the day, which often

includes war, poverty, and tragedy, with the security
and abundance of his own existence. He reproaches
himself for his position amid the unending heartache
of so many. Do you agree that this is an appropriate
response to the news? How do you respond to it?

2. “To be really at home is to be really at peace, and our

lives are so intricately interwoven that there can be no
real peace for any of us until there is real peace for all

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of us” (p. 250). Is this attainable? If not, how should one

respond to the ongoing news of the day?

The Secret in the Dark

1. Reflecting upon the obliviousness of the travelers on

the road to Emmaus who encountered the risen Christ,
Buechner asserts that we don’t always see, and even
when we see, we don’t always recognize. Have you
experienced an “Emmaus moment,” when the active
presence of God was right in front of you but you did
not recognize it? Do you think the travelers should
have recognized Christ when they saw him? If you
were a traveler on the same road, would you have
responded similarly?

2. “I believe that whether we recognize him or not, or

believe in him or not, or even know his name, again
and again he comes and walks a little way with us along
whatever road we’re following” (p. 257). Does this
statement suggest that even those who deny God are
covered under his grace? Do you agree?

The Seeing Heart

1. Recalling Thomas’s doubt after the resurrection, Buech-

ner writes, “What we have to remember is that our eyes
are not all we have for seeing with, maybe not even the
best we have” (p. 261). He refers to the “eyes of the

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heart” (p. 262). What do you see with the “eyes of the
heart” that your physical eyes miss?

2. “Blessed are those who have not seen and yet believe.”
Jesus’s words, cited by Buechner, highlight the impor-
tance of seeing Jesus with our “hearts peeled”: “What
makes all the difference in the world is the one whom
from time to time, by grace, I believe we have seen with
our hearts or who is there to see always if we will only
keep our hearts peeled for him” (pp. 263–64). Do you
keep your heart peeled? If so, what have you seen?

Let Jesus Show

1. Buechner concludes that Jesus “does not say the church

is the way. He does not say his teachings are the way, or
what people for centuries have taught about him. . . .
He says he himself is the way” (p. 270). What do you
think Buechner is suggesting about the function of
these other significant traditions? Can they get in the
way of knowing Jesus? If so, how?

2. To find “the place where Jesus is” requires an act of

hope, such as the time Buechner called his deceased
brother’s phone in a moment of sadness only to hear it
keep ringing without answer (p. 269). How might such
a gesture take a person to where Jesus is? Have you ever
made this kind of nonsensical assertion?

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Jairus’s Daughter

1. In the face of the death of Jairus’s daughter, Jesus says

to him, “Do not fear. Only believe.” Buechner empha-
sizes that Jesus does not specify what, exactly, to believe
in, but interprets it to mean “believe that there’s noth-
ing to be afraid of ” (p. 276). Would these words con-
sole you if you were in Jairus’s situation? What would
you believe?

2. Buechner describes the words Jesus spoke to the little

girl as a “life-giving” message for all: “Get up” (p. 278).
Has there been an occasion in your life when you heard
these words or needed to hear them?

Waiting

1. According to Buechner, each of us, at the depths of our

being, is waiting for something, even if we do not know
what we are waiting for (p. 281). Do you possess a pro-
found sense of waiting for something? If so, what do
you think it is?

2. “To wait for Christ to come in his fullness is not just a

passive thing, a pious, prayerful, churchly thing.” To
wait for Christ is, he says, “to be Christ to those who
need us to be Christ to them and to bring them the
most we have of Christ’s healing and hope” (p. 284). In
your life, what is the “most you have of Christ”? How
can you bring it to a person in need?

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The Word of Life

1. Buechner recounts a ceremony he attended in which

two friends of the same gender united in commitment
(as if in a marriage). He came to the ceremony with
ambivalence but left feeling “that something honest and
loving and brave was happening before our eyes” (p.
290). How do you feel about this statement? Do you
think God’s presence can show itself in ways that seem,
on one level, to contradict certain passages in the Bible?

2. The above celebration reflected a kind of joy Buechner

didn’t expect, noting that often churches seem “lifeless
and joyless” (p. 290). How do you feel about this state-
ment? Do you think churches would show more joy
and life if they embraced unconventional celebrations
such as the ceremony of these two women?

A 250th Birthday Prayer

1. Celebrating the 250th anniversary of the founding of

his alma mater, Princeton, Buechner urges the univer-
sity and those in attendance to “keep going”: “Because
to keep going is to keep living and to stop going is to
stop living in any way that matters” (p. 296). What
might it look like in your life to keep going on a partic-
ularly bad day?

2. “Christ sleeps in the deepest selves of all of us, and

whatever we do in whatever time we have left, wher-
ever we go, may we in whatever way we can call on

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him” (p. 297). Where is your deepest self? How do you

access it?

The Newness of Things

1. Buechner proposes writing a letter to yourself and then

asking someone to send it to you in fifteen years’ time.
Rather than doing that, ponder a few of the questions
he says we should ask ourselves:

• What is the last thing that made you cry?

• What is the most beautiful place you’ve seen?
• What is the nicest thing anyone has ever done for
you and the nicest thing you have ever done for
anyone else?
In answering these questions, reflect upon how you
have grown over the years and how your answers show
a newness in your understanding of life.

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