Light Shines!
December 25, 2013 | Anita Retzlaff

Rejoice! A holy day has dawned. Today a great light has come upon the earth!  Jesus is born. In the glow of our celebrating we hallow the faithfulness of God come to us. We have made a substantial emotional investment in the official observance of this birth: a cattle-shed delivery, in pretty rough circumstances. Today, 2000 years later we gather in family groups, attend community events, exchange gifts, eat specially prepared foods, attend concerts and send greetings. We do it all as response to this great thing that has happened. And so it remains for us, every year, to interpret and re-interpret the significance of Jesus' birth: the birth of an infant that we testify to through faith as earth-changing and death-shattering.  Suddenly a light shines in the darkness. How do we explain incarnation: God come into our world like all people come into this world – baby first? Listen to the poetry of Lucy Shaw:

Mary’s song
Blue homespun and the bend of my breast
keep warm this small hot naked star
fallen to my arms. (Rest…
you who have had so far
to come.) Now nearness satisfies
the body of God sweetly. Quiet he lies
whose vigour hurled
a universe. He sleeps
whose eyelids have not closed before.
His breath (so slight it seems
no breath at all) once ruffled the dark deeps
to sprout a world.
Charmed by doves’ voices, the whisper of straw,
he dreams,
hearing no music from his other spheres.
Breath, mouth, ears, eyes
he is curtailed
who overflowed all skies,
all years.
Older than eternity, now he
is new. Now native to earth as I am, nailed
to my poor planet, caught that I might be free,
blind in my womb to know my darkness ended,
brought to this birth
for me to be new-born,
and for him to see me mended
I must see him torn.

It is through such imagery that we just might begin to conceive of the magnitude of God’s gift to the world in Jesus. Nothing catches the glory and grace of God like the sparse words of poetry and this poem in particular.  The power of miracle is captured in describing the infant Jesus as “this small hot naked star”: the essence of the divine, palpable, believable in these words: “Quiet he lies whose vigor hurled a universe.” We are rendered speechless overcome, awe-struck by the gift of love freely given in this way: a gift that lightens the dark reaches of our world and finds the despairing corners in our lives. This love is tiny - just a baby - yet larger than the galaxies; warm and intimate yet the genesis of a movement of self-sacrifice and passion for people that changes the world.  We have this picture of Christmas Eve: a peaceful tableau of mother, father, holy child, surrounded by shepherds, angels and livestock under a star-studded sky. We have romanticized the coming of Peace on Earth and yet there is no doubt that a new and bright light has come!

The Psalmist too uses the image of light to remind Israel first, and us today, that through God light is given to those who stand up for what is just and good; that right relationships are an occasion for rejoicing and gratitude.  From Psalm 97, as was read: “Light dawns for the righteous, and joy for the upright in heart. Rejoice in the LORD, O you righteous, and give thanks to his holy name!”  So it is that God works in the world; the same way light breaks through darkness, warms, illumines, clarifies and beautifies. Our advent readings this year have focused on light as an image of this in-breaking hope. Patrick lit candles with the children on Sunday. The entire assembly last evening held in their hands a flame that represented to each person a variety of heart-stirring realities, memories, dreams and hopes. Throughout advent, this tree, graced and glistening with many, tiny bulbs has testified to the beauty and joy of light.  The light has many meanings: each one of us warms to the light and the many symbols it holds.

The coming of God in the birth of the baby, Jesus, is a sign for all of us that this love, described as light, is the hope and the standard for all of us who call ourselves children of God. So that when we struggle with our own demons, find ourselves in the shadowy places of unethical compromises and search for meaning in a really fractured world we can call upon God, the source of all light. The God who created galaxies, formed a people, sent a baby to grow and walk this earth, this God brings hope into our world – just like even a tiny light can push back the darkness and within a moment dispel fear, this God breathes into our world new possibilities, renewed hope.

I have asked Geraldine to share with us the experience of returning light as she, Gordon, Kirsten and Alina experienced it when living in our country’s far north.

Geraldine - the miracle of the return of the light

The relief of light come, finally!  It is not unlike our own experience of the coming of spring after the long, dark days of winter even though our nights are not as long and drawn out as is the case in the far north.  There is reprieve, new life after deadening, bone-chilling cold.  There is rescue.  Light comes into our lives. The birth of Jesus, the one whom we call our Saviour, is such a rescue for us, a reprieve from the things that bind us, that we get caught up in which confine and restrict. Jesus is this light for the whole world – an all-inclusive gift, if you will. So now, when we hear the pronouncement of the angel to the shepherds, “Do not be afraid” we can take it to heart that we need not be paralyzed by the limits we face.  The coming of Jesus dispels the gloom of hardened hearts and opens us to set things right because God has first and lovingly set things right. "Glory to God in the highest heaven and on earth peace among htose whom he favours." (Luke 2:14)  Today we give thanks to the God who brought life and light to our world of grace, of beauty, of joy and of pain.

For life within God's light is not always joyful for though we seek to love rightly and do justice there is much to our ordinary days that reflect sadness and turmoil and loss.  The coming of salvation through Jesus our Saviour does not prevent a certain heaviness of heart or sanitize the cruel twists and turns that make up our lives. Especially in this season where we count our blessings and hopes are high we are brought face to face with the beautiful gifts of light that have come for us -- and gone.  In the glow of redeeming light God gives us grace to remember and to draw close to the goodness that we can no longer touch.

Sheila - the gift of the crystal star 

In the birth of God’s Son Jesus the Christ we have been given a dynamic and power-filled image of love; a unique path toward God, the Good News of which the shepherds first heard on that Holy Night and in the 2000 years since, we continue to proclaim to the world. God knows the human heart: rescues, redeems, restores us according to the promises of Isaiah.  The world in which we live is not a perfect world.  The perfect love of Jesus is our hope in a world that has great need.  I offer a poem written by Madeleine L'Engle:

First Coming
He did not wait until the world was ready,
till men and nations were at peace.
He came when the Heavens were unsteady,
and prisoners cried out for release.

He did not wait for the perfect time.
He came when the need was deep and great.
He dined with sinners in all their grime,
turned water into wine.  He did not wait

till hearts were pure.  In joy he came
to a tarnished world of sin and doubt.
To a world like ours, of anguished shame
He came, and his Light would not go out.

He came to a world which did not mesh,
To heal its tangles, shield its scorn.
In the mystery of the Word made Flesh
the Maker of our stars was born.

~ Madeleine L’Engle  

Light shines!  - giving testimony to our joy, putting words to our struggles, restoring hope time and again when we lose sight.  This is the joy that we celebrate today; God come to earth as a child, who then grew to manhood to show the world what is right and to love us. And so we decorate trees and make parties and lighten each other's lives with memories, gifts and prayers.

I leave you with the beautiful assurance from the Book of Titus, a portion of which you find on your bulletin cover this morning:  "...when the goodness and loving kindness of God our Saviour appeared, he saved us, not because of any works of righteousness that we had done, but according to his mercy, through the water of rebirth and renewal by the Holy Spirit.  This Spirit he poured out on us richly through Jesus Christ our Saviour, so that, having been justified by his grace, we might become heirs according to the hope of eternal life." (Titus 3:4-7)

May the grace of Christ, born to bring light to the world, bless your lives today and in all your days.  AMEN