Isaiah 9:2–7
The people
who walked in darkness have seen a great light; those who dwelt in a land of
deep darkness, on them has light shined.
A blessed
Christmas Eve to you.
There is a
reason we light candles tonight. We do
so often, even every church service. We
have the seven and the seven – reminding us of the Holy Spirit’s presence among
the churches, as pictured in Revelation 1.
We have our
Advent Wreath here, which helps us countdown to Christmas over the course of
four weeks, with a white Christ-candle in the center. We light it to symbolize his birth.
Then of
course there are other candles – the paschal candle (the tall one), the
baptismal candles (over on the wall), and many other churches have many other
traditions when it comes to lighting candles.
And I
suspect that even a young child can usually tell you the basic symbolic
significance of light. As children are
often afraid of the dark, and need a night light or hall light left on for
comfort, they understand the basic implications of light and darkness, good and
evil, fear and comfort.
It is no
accident that we celebrate Christmas this time of year. I won’t get into it, but there actually is a
good argument that Jesus was born on or about December 25th (or the
evening of the 24th by another reckoning). But it is also the time of year, at least in
the northern hemisphere, in which the days are the shortest. The Winter Solstice falls on the 21st,
and from that point on, they days get longer.
In a way, nature itself testifies to the dawning of the light.
But to put
it bluntly, we live in a world of darkness, and it doesn’t take too much
looking around to see it. We could even
wallow in it. There’s no shortage of
pain, heartbreak, loss, and grief. Time
and circumstance rob us of our youth and health, and the darkness of death
encroaches. Selfish cares uproot and
supplant godly desires, and people wander off into all sorts of
self-destruction. Families, the
God-given safety net and cradles of love and affection, become warzones and
bitterness and resentment grow like weeds, sometimes even the whole thing burns
down. And then there’s death itself, not
far from the mind for many of us at the holidays – when everyone else seems
joyfully ringing jingle bells, and you’re feeling the sting of loved ones
unable to join the festivities. The
holidays can be some of the loneliest, darkest times, for many of us.
But light a
candle tonight, friend, for the Light has dawned. The light scatters the darkness, and the
darkness has not understood it. The
people who sat and walked and dwelt in darkness have seen a great light. On them a light has dawned.
Nothing is
better in a power outage than when your one friend who is prepared lights up a
flashlight. Nothing is more hopeful when
the night never seems to end, than the dawning of the sun in the east. Nothing is more joyful to world darkened by
sin than the appearing of the Light of Lights, the Light of the World, the
eternal one himself – shining through all of it. Christ the Lord is born this day.
And what an
apt metaphor light is for this great happening.
Consider
what we know about light, just from Science:
It is still
a great mystery to physicists, as for more than a century the brightest minds
have been trying to crack open its secrets.
It travels at a constant speed.
Nothing can outpace its speed, a hard limit, it seems. It exhibits the properties of both a wave and
a particle, depending on how you look at it.
And there are even crazier aspects like quantum entanglement, that far
exceed even our biggest brains.
Christ, our
Light, far exceeds all of this. He is
the light that exists from eternity, his divine nature, shared with the Father
and the Spirit, and yet born unto us men in humble form, laid in a manger. Christ, our Light, cannot be contained or
conquered, even death had no hold on him, but he became its master. He must ever shine. Christ, our light shines in the darkness, and
the darkness has not understood him – and so his divine wisdom and majesty far
exceed our paltry understanding, for, after all, he is our God and we are his
creatures.
But maybe
most importantly for us, is that Christ, our Light, scatters the darkness of
our sin. He chases away the shadow of
death, accompanying us through its valley to bring us safely to the other side. Therefore we fear no evil. He is with us.
One of my
favorite secular proverbs that can be understood even better in the light of
Christian truth is this, “It’s always darkest before the dawn.”
I don’t know
what darkness you face in this hour, in this year now ending, or in your
life. But I know the world is full of
it. We’re all under the same shadow of
sin and death, we all have the same darkened understanding and murky heart full
of dark desires. We simply can’t help
ourselves. But help is on the way. The darkness breaks at dawn of day. And that bright spot, that spark that turns
to flame, that burning sun of righteousness and glory is Christ our Lord.
Whatever
your darkness, let the light shine.
Christ brings hope and healing.
Christ brings love. Christ brings
the promise of better days ahead, if not in this life, then certainly in the
one to come.
For here is
the good news: The babe born in
Bethlehem has come to do more than give us a sentimental holiday. He came with a purpose – to save the world
from sin. To chase away the
darkness. And he does it, on a dark day
called “Good Friday”, when the sun itself stopped shining, and the light of his
life was snuffed out. There, it seemed,
the darkness had finally won, for good.
But all is not as it seems.
There, instead, darkest before the dawn, hope was born anew. The Christ who died in agony would rise in
glory. Good Friday gave way to
Easter. Dark drear to bright morn. And as Christ burst from his tomb and
trampled death’s power, the light dawned for us, too – death has no power over
him, or us. Darkness is a blip on the
radar, and brighter days are to come.
“He who lives and believes in me, even though he dies, yet shall he
live.” So says our Lord.
And light,
it has one more quality we might ponder this holy evening. It reflects.
Whether in a mirror or the face of a pond, light bounces all around and
reflects here and there, and fills the darkness with its presence. So, too, the light of Christ.
As we
receive that light, that joy, that hope, that peace, that love. So we also reflect it. It all starts with him, but it doesn’t stay
with him. His word goes forth from
Jerusalem, to Judea, to Samaria, and to the ends of the earth. Jesus shall reign where'er the sun does its
successive journeys run, his kingdom stretch from shore to shore, till moons
shall wax and wane no more.
And in our
lives, among us, let it also be so.
As tonight
we partake of that yearly tradition, the lighting of candles, ponder anew. Christ, the light has dawned. His light is shared with others, and others,
and finally, with me. But I, also, share
that light in my life, as the love of Christ reflects to those neighbors he
places in my path.
And let it
be so, in far more than the symbol of a candle, as you share the light that has
dawned upon you. As you bask in his
promises and walk by his word - the lamp that lights your path.
And as you
celebrate his birth.
For to us
a child is born,
to us a
son is given;
and the
government shall be upon his shoulder,
and his
name shall be called
Wonderful
Counselor, Mighty God,
Everlasting
Father, Prince of Peace.
For to us a child is born,
to us a son is given;
and the government shall be upon his shoulder,
and his name shall be called
Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God,
Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.
No comments:
Post a Comment