All Saints’, Dorval
December 24, 2021
The aurora borealis in Alaska
Before the current situation necessitated a pivot back to worship online for Christmas Eve, we had to think about how to handle the candlelit singing of “Silent Night” that is traditional during this service. A room full of people taking their masks off to blow out their candles was obviously not the solution. So we decided that we would move “Silent Night” to the end of the service and actually walk outside with our lit candles, so as to be able to blow them out in the relative safety of the outdoors (or possibly stick the lit end in a snowbank!).
And I thought, “Great, there’s my sermon! I can preach about how we carry the light of Christ from our Christmas worship out into the darkness of the world!”
We all know how that turned out.
But perhaps this is a chance to think more deeply and subtly about light and darkness.
We are so accustomed to associating darkness with bad things and light with good things. And Scripture itself frequently reinforces this association. Yet this language can often slide casually into associating dark things – and dark-skinned people – with evil, which is obviously not OK. And even aside from that, at this darkest time of year, could we not take a second look at the darkness to see if it might actually be concealing any blessings?
My friend Mindi Welton-Mitchell, a Baptist pastor, wrote on the solstice four days ago:
Winter Solstice has long been one of my favorite days and nights. Where I grew up in Alaska, we had just over four hours of daylight on this day. The nights were long, but beautiful. Light reflects off of snow, even in the night, so moonlight and starlight glow off the landscape. On clear nights, one could often see the aurora borealis. I love the dark. Cozy by the fire with hot cocoa and thick wool socks and a good book, or just staring out the window at the snow falling. Or, bundling up and taking a walk to look at the Christmas lights. Happy Solstice, everyone. The world is about to turn.
So many of our Christmas images have this same feeling: a glow of light, but surrounded by rich darkness. And it is not only in the light that God is present, but in the darkness as well. Wonderful things can happen in the darkness. Babies grow in the warm dark of the womb, and as any doula or midwife will tell you, they often seem to choose to be born in the dead of night; a dark, quiet room is most conducive to a calm and focused labour. And babies have to be fed in the middle of the night, and those can be some of the most precious moments of nurturing a newborn: the dark room, the tiny intent face at bottle or breast, the exhausted but besotted caregiver marveling at the simple presence of this new life.
If we are awake in the middle of the night, it is probably for something important: a great joy, a great grief, or a crisis requiring prompt action and expert attention. God is present in those moments in the darkness, calm or frantic, agonizing or exalting. After all, some of the most intimate, joyous, and consequential moments of our lives take place in the dark.
And if we are not awake in the middle of the night, then we are sleeping: an underrated activity in our go-getting, productivity-obsessed culture, but one so important that God’s own self gave us the commandment and the example of rest. Sleep is a gift and a wonder, and our sleep honours the darkness in which it takes place. So many of our Christmas hymns emphasize the sweet innocence and divine serenity of the baby Jesus’ sleep, and while we may roll our eyes at the claims that “no crying he makes,” we can recognize the beauty wrapped within the restful dark.
The shepherds are half-asleep on the hillside, in the dark of the wee hours of the morning, until the angel startles them nearly out of their wits. “The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light” – and God is present in both.
The God who spoke into the primal darkness before Creation and said “Let there be light!” became, at Christmas, a tiny, helpless baby who was rocked to sleep in darkness. And then became a man who, in the cold darkness of the tomb, worked the greatest miracle of all time, ending death’s power over us once and for all.
And perhaps that is the most important thing about darkness, for those of us who follow Jesus: that darkness is the home of mystery. At Christmas, we celebrate the great mystery of God coming among us, to live alongside us, in our darkness and in our light.
My seminary classmate Craig Loya, now the Episcopal bishop of Minnesota, shared this reflection upon that mystery this week (and did not avoid making a couple of easy light-and-darkness comparisons, but it’s still worth hearing):
The absolutely crazy claims we make in affirming things like the Incarnation and the Resurrection remind us that God is not a concept we understand, but a mystery we encounter. … When I look at the depths of the world’s darkness, when I look soberly and wide-eyed at my own sinfulness and limitation, then I know I need a savior who is utterly beyond my ability to understand or imagine.
I have decided to live my life as if [this mystery is] true because, over and over and over, I have seen light shining in the deepest darkness. I have been shown extraordinary grace by others I have not earned and do not deserve. I have seen love being done against all odds. I have seen relationships reconcile, people find new life after unimaginable loss, and small, quiet acts that make God’s presence and reality unmistakable to me. So I’m going all in on Christmas. I’m here for the whole story. The God of the universe showing up in a forgotten place, as a vulnerable baby, to two scared young parents on the run. Those are the cracks where God seeps into the world. I pray that I, and you, and all of us together, might make more space for God to move in and make all things new.
At Christmas, God comes to us in darkness, bringing comfort and joy, peace and hope, infinite love, and a mystery beyond imagining.
Amen.
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