Lectionary: Isaiah 9:2-7; Psalm 96, Titus 2:11-14; Luke 2:1-14(15-20)
In the name of God, Creator, Redeemer, and Sanctifier. Amen.
For whatever reason, when we think about the birth of our Savior, we picture it happening in the dark of night. I think of the hymn Silent Night, which we will sing later in this service.
Darkness is such a powerful spiritual symbol. It’s a place of quiet in which God creates. In the deep, dark soil of the earth, God transforms a seed into a fruitful harvest. In the dark quietness of a woman's womb, God creates new life.
Darkness is attractive to us. We sleep in the dark, restoring our bodies and minds. In darkness, the world is at rest (unless they are at war).
We love a candlelit dinner or prayer service, like our weekly Taizé service. The quiet calms us. The peace enters us. God enters us.
Darkness can also seem frightening. Unable to see our surroundings can put us off balance and make us afraid to move.
That’s the beauty of darkness, though. When we’re off balance or can’t move, we have the opportunity to walk by faith, not by sight. In the darkness, we can rest in the faith that God loves us, protects us, and is always waiting to be known to us in a new way, which is what Christmas is all about.
Culture tends to judge darkness as bad and light as good. Even church culture often does that. But there can’t be one without the other, so instead of holding them as opposing, we can appreciate them as symbiotic, mutually beneficial.
Without darkness, the light would overwhelm us. Without light, the darkness would swallow us. Both are of God and both give us life.
One of my favorite modern-day theologians, Episcopal priest and author Barbara Brown Taylor, gave a lecture in 2013 at the Rothko Chapel in TX. Seeing the paintings in that chapel in person, Barbara+ noted that what stood out for her were the deep royal blues, violets, and the gold she saw. She said, “The darkness of these panels is the luminous kind, and not the bossy kind. They don’t tell me what to see. They make room for me to see whatever I see, even if that is gold in the dark.” (Source) (Image: Philip Jonson)
Christmas is this luminous kind of darkness that opens us to see the gold.
The world teaches us to be afraid of the dark. God demonstrates to us that darkness is sacred, fertile, and life-giving. The world teaches us to fear and sometimes scorn our humanness, but by becoming one of us, Jesus revealed to us our own sacredness and the sacredness of all humanity. This was the reconciling work Jesus started and asked us to continue in his name.
How are we doing with that? Do we respect, protect, and honor the dignity of every human being as we vow to do in our Baptism?
I’m a real fan of British and Russian literature: Bronte, Austin, Tolstoy, Dostoevsky. Part of what I like, apart from the brilliant writing, is the cultural mirror it provides. Humanity may not be where we should be yet, but we’ve come a long way from the entrenched classism of the19th century Golden Age… or have we?
Whenever we hear rhetoric that dehumanizes or denigrates anyone or any nation, language that elevates one group above another, we have turned away from our faith in the reconciling work of Jesus, the Incarnate Word of God, whose birth into the human race, we celebrate today.
Whenever we glorify earthly or military power or coerce of people through threats of destruction or starvation, we have turned away from the way of love established by the Prince of Peace who is born in us again at Christmas.
We, individually and a a church community, are the manager where Christ is born today because we are the dwelling place of God in the world. The reason God is born again in us this day is so that we might live into our divine purpose, which is to bear the love of God into the world until all people, all nations know that God’s love is real, present, more powerful than anything or any way devised by humans, and already working to redeem all things, all people, all the time.
Our Bishop, Deon Johnson, said this about Christmas:
“As we walk once more to the manger, we do so in a world marked by division, fear, and deep uncertainty. This is nothing new. Jesus was born into a time much like our own, a world shaped by anxiety and unrest, where the powers of authority were firmly in control, where fear was weaponized to still and to silence. And yet, God chose not spectacle or force, but vulnerability. God came among us as Emmanuel, God-with-us, disarming the powerful through the ordinariness of love made flesh, redeeming the world not from above, but from within.”
We are partners with Christ in this continuing work of redemption. In the ordinariness of our flesh dwells the powerful, transforming love of God. I think Marianne Williamson was right when she said, “Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure.” We are powerful beyond measure, not because of us, but because of God’s spirit in us.
Tonight (today), I invite us all to bask in the Christmas experience as we worship. After sharing the holy food of Communion, we will pause, dim the lights, kneel before the Lord (in our bodies or our spirits), and sing Silent Night. As we sing (or listen), we have the opportunity to open ourselves to enter the luminous darkness where we find that the love of God in Christ has entered us, making us all holy, sacred, reconciled, and powerful through him.
Christ is born in us this day. Alleluia!
Merry Christmas!
Amen.
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