Sermon for Christmas, Proper I, 2024.
“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.”
Happy Christmas! What a warm and wonderful time and place to be together. The opening of our service in darkness with candles and music is a beautiful reminder of the night of Jesus’ birth, with shepherds watching and angles singing, it was a birth that brought true light into this world.
The first Christmas Elizabeth and I spent together was in a little town in England, 4 miles from Oxford. We were living in a converted rectory, priest’s house, on a 16th century Jacobian manor that had become the Oxford Centre for Postgraduate Hebrew and Jewish Studies. That little parsonage was converted into flats for 5 people, and our little place consisted of two rooms, a small bathroom, and a kitchen made from a converted closet. Everything was small, except the goose. We had a goose for Christmas dinner that year, it seemed fitting since we lived in England. When I opened the oven door to put the goose in, I had to back into the sitting room. Our tree was about 6 inches tall and sat on our table with paper ornaments. I wouldn’t change a thing.
What I remember most about that first winter in England, however, was how early it got dark. Or rather, how short the days were. One day, walking through the Oriental Institute library I stopped at the globe that stood in the middle of the reading room. I put my finger on Oxford, then slide the globe around to North America. It turns out Oxford, England is just below Juneau, Alaska and north of Vancouver, Canada in terms of latitude! No wonder it only had 9 hours of sunlight (compared with our 10.5 hours in Lexington). That hour and a half may not seem like much, but those long, dark days would really get me down.
There is a reason that in all cultures throughout all time, darkness has been associated with fear and danger. In the dark you cannot see whether the path is flat and smooth or if there is a pit opening up before you. Someone can hide in the darkness, and you will never know they are there. Yet the light of a single lamp can illuminate a whole room.
That is why the very first thing God created was light, וַיֹּאמֶר אֱלֹהִים יְהִי אוֹר וַיְהִי־אוֹר׃ God created light to push back the darkness and chaos and make room for humanity and all creation to live and thrive. That is also why perhaps the greatest verse of comfort in all of Scripture is, (Psa. 23:4) “Even though I walk through the darkest valley, I fear no evil, for you are with me; your rod and your staff, they comfort me.”
The promise and assurance that God is with us, even in the darkest days and most dangerous passages of life, is the bedrock, the foundation of our faith. Christmas is that promise come to life. Jesus is the light that entered into the world and to drive out all darkness.
Gloomy night embrac’d the place
Where the Noble Infant lay;
The Babe look’d up and show’d his face,
In spite of darkness, it was day.
It was thy day, Sweet! and did rise
Not from the east, but from thine eyes.
So the 17th century poet and priest Richard Crashaw envisioned the way in which Jesus’ birth brought light flooding into this world. It was as if the sun shone, even in the midst of the darkest night. It was that and something far more miraculous; it was God coming to live with us as one of us.
All those centuries before, the psalmist affirmed his faith that he could walk without fear because he knew God was present, walking with him. Now, for a time, God really did walk among us, by the side of other women and men. But before he walked, he was an infant, loved and cared for by his parents, taught the ways of his ancestors, how to pray and how to eat, and how to love as the Father in Heaven loves us.
This is all very poetic and yet very real. It is theological and personal. It is paradoxical and true. Jesus is the light of the world that drives away all darkness and he is God made flesh, Emmanuel, God living with us. Words fail to fully express what happened on the night that Jesus was born. The very notion of God’s humanity is about bringing to humanity those things that words cannot express.
The fact that Jesus lived and walked among us, that he had friends and followers, that he was a child growing up with hunger and sleeplessness, weariness and pain, temptations and troubles, all of this embodies God’s love in relationships. He is not only transcendent, creating all things with his word, but he is immanent, here with us, feeling and knowing what life is like for us as humans. He was fully human, so that our Savior, rather than being “unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, [is] one who in every respect has been tested as we are, yet without sin.” (Heb 4:15)
The day-to-day life of Jesus as seen in the Gospels shows us the companion, the friend, that he was to his disciples and still is to those who follow him. He lived, slept, and ate with those men and women. He cried with them and held them. He walked with them in the valley of the shadow of death and he comforted them.
Jesus lived in this dark, scary, and broken world, endured it even as we must endure it, and loved us as we must love one another. He is our example, he is our companion, and he is the light that guides us on our journey through life. No more need we fear the darkness of life, sickness, loneliness, grief; in the Light of Christ all are now seen clearly to be fleeting moments, important yes, but temporary, on our journey to eternal joy and life. It is the terrain of life, rough and craggy, but with a clear path before us with opportunities to love, cry, feed, clothe, help, and be the companion to others on the path.
God became human, Jesus was born for nothing so much (or so little) as the be with us. Emmanuel, “God with us.” Many of you have travelled far tonight, some will travel tomorrow, or will make the virtual trip via FaceTime and Zoom to be with your loved ones. God travelled all the way from infinity into the form of a baby human to be with you; to be with you in your joy and grief, love and anger, hunger and feast. Jesus remains our companion even now since, when the time came for Jesus to finish his physical presence on this earth, he sent the Holy Spirit – not to prophets or preachers – but to all who follow him, and his Spirit remains with us always. Emmanuel, God IS with us. The physical presence of Jesus gave us the eternal presence of the Spirit. Because Jesus walked the earth, we will never walk alone or in the dark.
In this dark night, see the Light breaking through. “Do not be afraid, for see, I am bringing you good news of great joy for all the people: to you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, who is the Messiah, the Lord.” (Luke 2:10-11)
Amen.
