Sermon delivered on Christmas Eve 2013 at St. Augustine’s Anglican Church, Columbus, OH.

If you would like to listen to the audio podcast of this sermon, usually somewhat different from the text below, click here.

Lectionary texts: Isaiah 52.7-10; Canticle (from Isaiah 11.1-9); Hebrews 1.1-4; John 1.1-14.

In the name of God: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Amen.

Merry Christmas, St. Augustine’s! Tonight we celebrate the birth of Jesus our Savior and I want us to look briefly at why that should matter to us and everyone else. Each of our lessons tonight in its own way declares that Jesus is Lord and that the light of God’s love and presence has entered human history. Yet mysteriously, even though Jesus is Lord the forces of evil are allowed to oppose that entry. John puts it this way: The light shines in the darkness and the darkness has not overcome it. It shines in the midst of the darkness of our fears, from health to finances to loved ones to how we really stand with God and our future with (or without) him. It shines in the midst of the enigma of unanswered prayer and the bitter disappointment or disillusionment that can often follow. The cumulative effect of the darkness that besets us can make us wonder if John really was mistaken in what he wrote. After all, if we look hard enough (or selectively enough) we can see darkness swallowing up light all around us and this can make us doubt God’s promise in Scripture that God really is in charge and actively involved in the life of this world and its people. This, in turn, makes us afraid that we really are left to our own inadequate devices to deal with the darkness in our lives, both externally and internally. Where is God and why isn’t he setting things aright, we ask?

We ask these kinds of questions because we expect God to make himself known to us through dramatic displays of power and glory to bring about real justice. After all, this is God we are talking about, right? Or we think that God has become some kind of absentee landlord who only comes around on occasion to see if he can catch us misbehaving. But neither of these notions is biblical and this typically isn’t how God’s light shines in his world, i.e., how God makes himself known to us, especially when we consider how God has made himself known to us in Jesus. To be certain, God has demonstrated his presence using shock and awe. God’s delivering his people from their slavery in Egypt comes quickly to mind, where God brought his people through the Red Sea and rescued them from the hands of their pursuers, or his awesome presence in the pillars of cloud and fire to his people wandering in the wilderness.

But as the Christmas story attests, God usually makes the light of his presence shine in much more ordinary (and human) ways. I fear we have become so familiar with the story of Jesus’ birth or have sentimentalized it so much that it ceases to shock and awe us any more. But wrap your mind around what John and the writer of Hebrews are telling us. God, the creator of this vast and beautiful universe, chose to become one of us and enter human history. Stop for a moment and let that really sink in. God become human. Emmanuel, God with us. The light shining in the darkness of our broken world and lives to rescue and heal us from evil, sin, and death.

We see the very heart and character of God being revealed in the humble circumstances of Jesus’ birth. God did not choose to enter our history as some celestial superstar, but as a baby, the most helpless of all creatures, born in a cave and in almost utter obscurity. And yet even in these humble circumstances, the darkness attempted to overcome the light. We think of how wicked king Herod murdered innocent babies in and around Bethlehem in an attempt to eliminate any future contenders to his throne or how Satan himself tempted the Lord in the wilderness in an effort to get Jesus to disobey God’s call to him to be the light of the world so that God could finally heal us through him. Then there was the opposition Jesus faced from the religious establishment of his day despite his mighty acts of healing and salvation, all because Jesus didn’t fit their preconceived notions of how good Jews or God’s Messiah should act. But Jesus would not be deterred. He kept on preaching good news, healing the sick, raising the dead, giving sight to the blind, and hearing to the deaf. The dark powers and their human agents finally sought to get rid of Jesus by killing him, but even here God turned the tables on them. As the writer of Hebrews reminds us, in his death, Jesus bore the awful consequences of our sins himself so that we could be reconciled to God and find our ultimate healing. Because of the cross of Jesus, there is no longer any condemnation for those who believe in him. There is no more reason to be afraid.

And in raising Jesus from the dead, God has shined his light on even the ultimate darkness, death itself, so that not even death could overcome the light of God’s love and faithfulness to his human creatures. When God raised Jesus from the dead, God showed us without a doubt that he has not given up on his creation and human creatures, even in our stubborn rebellion and brokenness. Instead of destroying his creation and us, God has healed and redeemed us in Jesus and given us a glimpse of the day when the darkness will be destroyed forever and there will be nothing but the light of God’s healing presence in the midst of his new creation, the new heavens and earth. And until that day arrives, God assures us that he is fully in charge and present with his people in the power of the Spirit. This is what the writer of Hebrews means when he tells us that Jesus sat down at the right hand of the Majesty. The death and resurrection of Jesus are the turning point in history and it all started with his birth at Bethlehem that we celebrate tonight.

So how do we embrace the light so that the darkness does not overcome us? We do so by taking the chance and living out our faith. It is the only way we will learn if God’s ways and promises are trustworthy and true. This means we must stop and think things through carefully. As we saw a couple of Sundays ago, too often we focus on what God is not doing (or on what we think God should be doing but isn’t). This will inevitably create doubt and lead us to try to take matters into our own hands and live our lives as we think best rather than trying to live our lives as the truly human beings God created us to be by imitating Jesus, God with us. Consequently, we will never be in a position to see if God’s promises are true or trust his ability to bring us real purpose of living and joy even in the midst of all that can go wrong in our lives.

But when we focus on the biblical record and all that God has done and is doing in our lives in the power of the Spirit—through the love of others, through answered prayer, in all our faithful kingdom work, to name just a few—our faith is strengthened and we find the courage to trust in God’s good purposes for us to be agents of God’s great love for all people. We don’t let setbacks and suffering discourage us because we have seen Jesus’ cross and his empty tomb, and know they stand as powerful witness to the truth that his light shines in the darkness and the darkness has not overcome it. And because Jesus’ light shines in us in the presence of the Holy Spirit, the darkness cannot overcome us. This is why we know that nothing we do faithfully in the Lord’s name is ever really in vain, not even our prayers that apparently go unanswered. And this is precisely why Christmas will always come, not only when our houses are brightly lit and decorated and we have all our family and friends gathered around us, but also when we are languishing in the darkness of loneliness or bereavement or infirmity or suffering or sorrow.

The birth of Jesus reminds us creation matters to God. We matter to God. This is why God became human and this is why we celebrate Christmas. This Christmas if you have not done so already, I encourage you to dare turn toward the light of God’s love manifested in Jesus and embrace him in ways you have never done before so that you might discover what the hope and promise of Christmas is all about. It starts by taking to heart the breathtaking promise that the light shines in the darkness and the darkness has not overcome it. That’s Good News, folks, now and for all eternity. Merry Christmas, my beloved in Christ. To him be praise, honor, and glory forever and ever.

In the name of God: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Amen.