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Christmas Eve                                     John 1: 12                                   December 24, 2007

Welcome to winter, everyone. Despite the relatively mild weather we've been experiencing, just two days ago, on Saturday, whether we noticed or not, we all lived through another winter solstice, which, in this country anyway, is the official start of winter. Saturday was also the shortest day and the longest night of the year, so the good news is that our days are now lengthening and will do so right up until the 20th of June when they start getting shorter once again.

The seasons, when you think about it, are as much about darkness and light as they are about warm and cold, and darkness and light is exactly what our Christmas Eve celebration this evening is all about.

Light shining in the darkness is a central image in the biblical accounts of the nativity. Matthew writes about a star, shining in the night sky and leading the wise men to the place of Jesus' birth. Luke uses the contrast between darkness and light in his story of "shepherds, keeping watch over their flocks by night." "The glory of the Lord shone around them," he writes, and then he describes "a multitude of the heavenly host" brightly filling the night sky, singing, "Glory to God!"

The contrast between light and darkness is deeply symbolic. It is literally overflowing with meaning. Darkness is associated with blindness, night, sleep, cold, gloom, despair, lost-ness, chaos, death, and danger. It is a striking image of the negative side of the human condition.

Light, on the other hand, eliminates all of those things. Just the opposite of darkness, it is an image of salvation. In the light, we are awake, able to see and find our way; most of the time we are safe and warm.

In the light there is life.

For Matthew and Luke, and for Christians like you and me over the centuries, Jesus is the light shining in the darkness. The author of John's Gospel makes the same point when he writes: "The true light, which enlightens everyone, was coming into the world."

Jesus, for these Gospel writers and for us as well, is the light who eliminates the darkness; indeed, he is "the light of the world."

Fittingly, then, this Christmas Eve service is all about light - candlelight, to be sure, but more importantly, it is about the light that conquered the darkness once and for all - Jesus, the light of the world.

But there's a second image I would also like to be sure you come away with tonight - one that is a bit more subtle, but just as important.

It was no accident that the "light of the world," as we call him, became incarnate in the form of a baby. No accident that of all the forms God could have taken when God decided to enter the world and change the world, God chose an infant.

There's a verse in the first chapter of John's Gospel that helps us understand why God made that choice. It's a verse that is not generally read on Christmas Eve. It is, however, one of the verses from the Gospel text for tomorrow, and since my guess is that none of us will spend any time in church tomorrow, let me read it for you now:

"To all who received him," John writes; to all "who believed on his name, he gave power to become children of God."

When all is said and done, this is the central message of Christmas: God came to earth in the form of a baby so that you and I could have the power to become children. Children of God.

Put a little differently, if we are to receive the light of the world, and with it the power that goes along with that life-changing relationship to God, we need to receive it like a child.

What that means, for us, is that tonight, perhaps more than any other night, it is best if we just let Christmas be, and avoid any temptation to over-think it. See it, smell it and hear it, to be sure, but mostly just let the whole experience fill us with the joy of God's spirit.

One of my favorite stories is one about a little girl whose mother just had a baby - a baby brother.

When the baby came home, as the story goes, the little girl was all excited, and she wanted to spend some time alone with her baby brother.

She asked, and she begged, and she pleaded, and she cajoled her parents, "Would you please let me spend time with my baby brother?" "Please," she begged, "I have to see him alone."

The parents were afraid, thinking that there was sibling rivalry and she might hurt the child, but finally they gave in to her.

And so, the little girl went into the baby's bedroom, closed the door - though the parents opened it just a bit so that they could look inside - and this is what they saw and heard:

The little girl leaned over the crib and said, "Tell me what it's like to feel God? I'm beginning to forget."

Let's see if we can follow that child's example and feel God together tonight, shall we?

                                                                 Amen, and Mary Christmas.