Seeing The LightDr. James Mayfield CHRISTMAS EVE
Text: Isaiah 9:2, 6-7 On nights like this we remember Mary and Joseph, and their trip to overcrowded Bethlehem and a baby whose first crib was a feed trough. We remember an angelic serenade sung to shepherds and their going to town in curiosity and amazement to find the baby the heavenly messenger proclaimed as savior of the whole world. We remember foreigners who came a great distance, following a star in search of more than a baby who was born to be a special king; they came to pay homage to hope for the world. We remember these stories. But if all we do is remember these stories, we will not really discover what Christmas is, and certainly not what Christmas means. Some of you may remember the radio and later TV show called “Dragnet.” In episode after episode, the Los Angeles detective Joe Friday would say to someone being interrogated: “The facts, m'am; just the facts.” But as important as the facts are, (and facts are important) the facts, just the facts, only scratch the surface of reality, and point only vaguely, like a sign pointing the way in a dense fog, to deeper meaning. Christmas, the meaning of Christmas, the truth and reality of Christmas cannot contained and isolated in facts about the birth of a baby in Bethlehem 2000 years ago, anymore than the truth and meaning of the fourth of July, can be contained and limited to remembering the facts of what happened in Philadelphia , one hot summer day in 1776. The truth in our celebration is more than and deeper than what is contained in merely remembering the facts of what happened once upon a time. Christmas is rooted in the actual birth of Jesus, to be sure, but the meaning, the significance, the truth of what happened was and is more than mere facts and details about Jesus' birth can ever convey. The meaning and truth of Christmas leads us into areas of profound mystery too deep for simple analysis and easy explanation. The meaning and truth of Christmas is what keeps bringing us here year after to do again what we have done before because we sense meaning and truth that is so deep and yet so profoundly simple, it is more than we can ever adequately express. And so, we sing carols because poetry and music are much better than lectures and analysis of details for conveying deepest truth. But even they are finally inadequate because what we are dealing with is the majesty of God. We are dealing with the awesome mystery of God's grace. And we are dealing with even more. We are dealing with the amazing truth, that God's grace has come among us as one of us, in order to show us, to reveal to us the truth that God's grace has been, is and will be among us. The truth and meaning of Christmas is just as the poetic proclamation in the Gospel of John declares: the light that was coming into the world was the light that gave birth to the world and has always been shining in the world, a light that simply and profoundly cannot be extinguished by all the darkness set loose by our human sin and evil. This light that has been and always will be, full of grace and truth, has come among us as one of us. The eternal took on our mortality. The Word beyond all human words has become flesh and dwelt among us. This is the mystery of that long ago birth; and in this mystery is the ongoing meaning, reality and truth of Christmas. Some may think they are asking a deep question when they ask how the baby, Jesus of Nazareth, came to be born. But as deep a mystery as that may be, it is nothing compared to the truth that is revealed and set loose in the world by that birth. When Christ was born, Christmas was set loose in the world, the ongoing, never-ending miracle and mystery of God's grace coming alive among us -- not just once upon a time, but even today, even here, even now. And when we discover the truth of all this, we experience one of those moments when profound insight happens and we say: “ Ah! I see the light.” This is what the prophet Isaiah was talking about when he wrote: 2 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. This is the message for tonight. It is not only the proclamation of what has happened, but also of what is happening and what will happen. 2 The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light.” Where we had been almost on the edge of despair, we see life in a new light and live with a sense of hope -- hope that comes by the grace of God hope that is the fulfillment of God's promise to deliver us from our bondage to sin and death, our bondage to all that prevents life from being what God intends life to be. This hope comes among us not as an overwhelming power, rolling into our lives like an infantry division with tanks and heavy artillery but rather this hope for our lives comes alive in easily overlooked places, behind some motel, in a barn where a couple far from their home experience the fear and delight of a baby being born by starlight. Hope comes in the words that declares there is hope and somehow, by the grace of God, we know it is true and we believe it. We recognize its coming and the significance of its coming by seeing what is in the eyes of people as ordinary as shepherds. We begin to appreciate just how wonderful it is by the response of strangers and the gifts they bring into our lives. Like Mary and Joseph we are amazed. We sense the magnitude of the gift and yet we do not fully understand. Christmas is a gift -- a marvelous mystery of the most profound truth about life. We are, in a sense, like a baby given this special gift. We have no words to adequately describe or define it. We are not mature enough to grasp it properly. Yet we know it is a special gift that has been given to us. And so we babble as best we can, the way a baby delighted with life babbles. Like babies we do not know what we are saying but we know what mean. And what we mean is something like “Alleluia” which defies our ability to define and yet expresses eloquently all we mean but cannot say. Christ is born in starlight and hay, in a place not really his home and yet in a place God chose to come among us as one of us. Why God chose to take on what is ours is a mystery lost in the wonder of amazing grace. But it happened and it happens. God loves the world so much he sent his son; which is another way of saying God himself came among us as the Word made flesh, the Word that was in the very beginning, through whom all that is was made. Full of grace and truth, a baby crying like a baby came into our midst, a bundle of needs to meet our need. It is a mystery beyond what any lecture can contain and only the very best of poetry and music can vaguely point toward. Into our darkness, the light has come. Alleluia and Amen.
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