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December 24, 2007 - Christmas Eve
The Rev. John Auer
Scripture: Isaiah 9:2, 6-7, Micah 5:2-5a, Luke 1:26-35, 38,
2:1-20, John 1:3-5
“Light of Light, Very God of Very God”
Christmas always arrives in the proverbial “best of times, worst of times.”
Times of shortest days and longest nights. Winter timidly turning face to
summer again. We come to the stable in Bethlehem this night. We come
to grasp the biggest possible picture of what is happening. On the one
hand, represented by the very imperial political context, the census ordered to
shore up the occupation. On the other, the “army” of angels, the multitude
and the host, the glory to God on the side of the people -- extolled to the
highest heaven and calling for peace! That’s the big picture of what’s
happening. Earth and heaven are desperately joined.
We also try to grasp all the smallest details: Mary in her youthful pregnancy,
her revolutionary passion for the poor, unable to find or afford a room in the inn.
Joseph in his working-class sensibility, wanting to keep up appearances under the
law, but loving life enough to do the right thing by Mary. The shepherds
as social dregs and rejects cut off from all “normal” life. Eventually Herod
as desperate to keep a lid on the rabble. The “wise men” as eastern mystics
caught up in western politics – nearly costing Jesus his life before we ever hear
of him!
The gospels of Matthew and Luke tell us what Jesus does. They detail
stories of conception and birth. The gospel of John tells who Jesus is!
John presents Jesus in context of whole new creation, new beginning, fresh
starting place for the whole world. Jesus in John expresses the fullness
of God. His birth brings rebirth as well – of wonder, awe, majesty,
mystery, justice, joy, peace, plenty – for all persons, all creatures,
everywhere! Founders of the establishing Church, fourth century, sought to
express this fullness of God in Christ in a creed. They settled upon the
image of a cosmic universal Light, glimpsed in earthly human Matter!
Hence, Christ is the Light of the World: “God of God, Light of Light, very God
of very God!” We who see his fullness become Christ’s lights in the world.
The full light of God reveals again to the world on this night how much the world
and we lie in need of brand-new creation! We need a new Word about life itself.
A Word that IS life itself and light to all. A Light of Creation that shines
in the darkest of times and places – a light the darkness cannot overcome.
How do we recreate the cosmic and universal imagination of God in the heavens tonight
in our own hearts and minds, relations and nations? How do we receive this
baby tonight, not only as Mary’s first-born child, but first-born of a new way of
being, new way of seeing and doing, in every last part of our lives and our life
together? Jesus enters the world tonight not only from Mary’s
womb but from God’s heart.
Our Advent/Christmas/Epiphany seasonal theme has been and remains, “Let There Be
Light/s!” – light of the world, lights of our lives. Albert Einstein said
early last century, “All I want to do is study light.” Life is all through
light and about light. “Light drives all energy systems,” observes Matthew
Fox. “Plants and we eat light, breathe light, drink light and transform light
into energy. Light is far more prevalent in the universe than matter – indeed,
for every molecule of matter there are one billion particles of light!” We
owe it to light and to life as a way of love for all to insist on sustainable energy
systems again! Someone has said the “soul” of Christmas must become “solar”
again! “We must rediscover light, or perish!” Just as God gives up all
aboveness, apartness, aloofness to become incarnate, Word made flesh in the heart
of the world this night – so we are called to fit our human selves back into the
whole of creation – as humbly, as gently, as permeably, as vulnerably as this baby
born in a manger.
We who hunger for hope tonight come to behold this very same Jesus seen and
received for 2000 years as one of God’s brightest, most lasting lights for the
life and the love of this world. We seek the best – not only of
“light-bulbs” -- as we watch our incandescent ones now fade officially -- making
way for fluorescent ones! We seek the best of all “life-bulbs,” of
“love-bulbs,” as well! We seek what all peoples seek: Let there be
peace on earth, good will among all peoples! And we ask not of
light-bulbs, how many of us (especially us Methodists!) does it take to change
one of them? Rather we ask of life-bulbs, of insights into new life of
love for us and the world -- How many of them does it take to change one of us?
We rejoice to see and receive on this night not the latest scientific breakthrough
or technological fix. The brightest and longest-lasting of bulbs will never
compare to the Light of Light, very God of very God, that is Christ. Thomas Berry
and Brian Swimme summarize the birth of the universe – with cosmic excitement we
are to find in our own rebirths, new lives and new loves, as well --
Fifteen billion years ago, in a great flash, the universe flared forth into being.
In each drop of existence a primordial energy blazed with an intensity never to
be equalized again . . . .In the beginning the universe is a great shining that
expands rapidly and then explodes into hundreds of billions of dark clouds . . .
. Later a hundred billion galaxies light up with a splendor new to the universe.
The beginning of the universe is a smooth, intense flame. A few billion years
later the large scale structure of the universe glows in great sheets of galaxies
and in their intersections in long, spidery filaments of sparkling worlds.
Ours is but one of those “sparkling worlds” for whom stars have been giving themselves
forever! This is the work of creation, the very beginning of all things, that
God continues in Christ this night. This is what we look and long for in light
of this one born obscurely and so far from home. This is the great light promised
by Isaiah the prophet to all yet sitting in darkness to this time. It is incumbent
upon us to see in this night wonders the likes of which we never have seen or even
dreamed before! A whole new world, a brand-new creation! Literally,
we ain’t seen nothing yet! On this night the angels proclaim, Light of New
Life, New Love, is Everything, Everyone! Everyone, Everything, Everywhere
is New Light!
No wonder Annie Dillard chides us for lightless, lifeless, even loveless worship
– “Does anyone have the foggiest idea what sort of power we most blithely invoke?
Or, as I suspect, does no one believe a word of it? The churches are children
playing on the floor with our chemistry sets, mixing up a batch of TNT to kill a
Sunday morning. It is madness to wear ladies’ straw hats and velvet hats to
church; we should all be wearing crash helmets. Ushers should issue life preservers
and signal flares; they should lash us in our pews. For the sleeping god may
awake someday and take offense, or the waking god may draw us out to where we can
never return.” (Those who are visiting tonight, come on out – worship with
us -- in our helmets! We promise you will not sleep through it!)
Is that not what we long for this night? For the waking God to draw us out
to a new world enlightened by Christ where we can never return – to the old world
of death and destruction? The angels announce there is hope for us!
The Light of Creation has NOT gone out! Darkness has not overcome it.
Howard Thurman, cofounder more than 50 years ago of the interracial Church for the
Fellowship of All Peoples in San Francisco, invites us in to hear and to see in
the angels tonight the light of such a cosmic and universal birth that “new and
creative relatedness is revealed.” The angels of God bring out the “better
angels” in each and in all of us. Not only do all “belong” here tonight –
especially all who like poor and pregnant and weary and homeless Mary and Joseph
have been turned away everywhere else – You are welcome here! But also, all
belong together! One birth, this birth, becomes the birth of us all!
Each one of us now beholds, and now is beheld by, promise, presence, passion, and
power of God!
Tonight we affirm in the presence of this Jesus as the Christ: there is no higher
office on earth (for all the prattle of our depressing campaigns!) than to be born
a child of the universe -- each of us invested with all of God’s hopes the world!
(We are invited back Sunday morning, January 13, to celebrate Jesus’ Baptism in
our own – affirming the whole of the universe loves us and knows us by name!)
Howard Thurman says of this night, “A crown is placed over our heads that for the
rest of our lives we are trying to grow tall enough to wear!” There is royalty,
there is nobility here tonight – as well as humility, fragility. Never again
in all the world will this particular people gather in one time and place.
All over the world tonight folks just like us will never be quite the same again
– for what we have seen, and heard, and believed and dared to hope in this time
and place.
So let us keep going! Let us keep growing! God is with us! Christ
is within us! The Spirit goes before us! The Light of New Life, of New
Love is come! Arise and shine! Greet the dawn! Lift up our eyes!
Be radiant and crowned! Light of Light! Very God of very God!
For this time and forever! Amen.
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