Christmas Eve Sermon 2011

Sermon

Text: Luke 2:1-20

Grace and Peace to you from God our Father and our Lord Jesus Christ who is born to us this night, and whose light sends us streaming forth into the world to shine.

I just got a new alarm clock for my bedroom. It's rather hard to find a good one these days. I want one that has a radio, and uses red numbers, since red light doesn't impact our eyes as much, so it's better for not losing your night vision just by looking at the alarm clock. The one I ended up getting is ok, but it's taking some getting used to. The numbers on it are a lot brighter than my old one, so now I find that once my eyes have really adjusted to the room, I see little shadows that I didn't before, but all in all, my room still stays rather dark.

Getting it so close to Christmas, and thinking about night darkness, has made me wonder what the night was like out in the field with the shepherds. Was it a full moon? I've been out on nights with a full moon and no other light, and after a while, it really lights up, more than some little alarm clock. Or was it just stars? Part of me thinks it was just stars that evening. The Shepherds sitting in near darkness, extremely faint shadows.

And when the Angel of the Lord turned up? I always have imagined it lighting up the night. The glory of the Lord, bursting forth, eliminating all shadows. The whole host of angels certainly lit up the sky as if it were day.

And, when they get to the manger. Our mangers in movies, and story books are always lit up.

I've always wondered why we light everything. Or more to the point why do we want to fill all these places with light?

There is really very little light when you go to the places now. The Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem is a very interesting building to see. In order to get inside you need to duck through a very low door, once inside it's rather dark and dim. There is very little decoration, mostly old smoke darkened images and mosaic work. To get to the actual site of the birth you go down some ancient stairs, which even though made of marble, or some other dense rock, are worn by the millions who have come there in the past 2000 years. Once in this little cave/cavern below the main church there is a small inlet with a metal star above the bare stone, in the middle of the stone is an opening so you can reach through and touch the spot of birth, behind is set up a small manger and a place to put candles.

But, I didn't get it. It was neat to see, but nothing hit me. It was interesting, but it didn't impact me.

We had gotten there early, and it had been pretty empty, but then the next day, just before we left Bethlehem, it was Orthodox Christmas, they celebrate Christmas 12 days after we do because they use a different calendar. And as we stood in the plaza outside the church and watch a huge parade of people playing drums and bagpipes it struck me.

What is important is not the place, but the people. We think about how dark the field was, we imagine how much the angels lit it up, we look at the bright manger.We are thinking of the places. But, what is important is the shepherds, who hear the angels words, and go forth to Bethlehem, and then from there go out to tell what they heard and saw. What's important is the people streaming forth like light from a bulb.

Light is an interesting thing, a light bulb does nothing really, it is the light made up of trillions of small ions which when they hit something are changed, their wavelengths change, their amplitudes, and other properties change, and then they bounce off and enter our eyes where we register those properties, and see. What's important about light is not the bulb, but the ions streaming forth.

What struck me about the Church of the Nativity was not the building itself, but the countless millions who have come there, and then have gone forth from there. The Church of the Nativity is like our light-bulb, it itself is nothing, what's important about it is that it emits the faithful.

This church building is also just a building, even after paying off the mortgage, it's still a building, the only way to make it a church is for us, the true church, to go out from here, streaming out into the world which is so dark around us. Dark with sin, dark with pain, dark with loneliness.

Like the light particles from a bulb, we are called to stream out of this place, moving out into this dark world to interact with it. Light is only light when it interacts with something, like light, we are only the church, when we connect with the world, reaching into the darkest places telling and sharing that Christ's light shines even there.

And so on this night of Christmas Eve we celebrate God's light coming into this dark world to interact and connect with us. Lighting up the places of darkness within us, forgiving our sins, healing our hurts, filling our lives.

This night we celebrate that Christ's light is full and bright. It shines in the darkness and the darkness has not overcome it. It shines like nothing else can, it fills us, it gives us purpose, we can't hide it under some bushel basket even if we wanted to. It is a light that when it fills us, it fills us to bursting, it flows out of us, it lights up the world around us. It is not changed by encountering us, it changes us.

May the light of Christ forgive you, heal you, and fill you, impact, and change you. May you stream forth from here a people full of light, the darkness overcome.

Amen and Merry Christmas.