Posted by: pastor on 02/24/2009 17:28:49
Christmas Sermon
Rumors of Dawn's First Light
In the Name of Jesus:
The NES Hammonassett youth weekend was abbreviated this year, so I didn’t get to go; thus it’s been a couple of years since I’ve camped at all—apart from “Hammo” I haven’t camped at all in some years. It’s been much longer still since I’ve camped in a truly remote and secluded, wooded location. The appeal of such an experience is completely lost on many, but exists for others, I believe, in the small comforts afforded by a sleeping bag against a brisk night, the minimal protection of canvas against wind & rain, of camp stove coffee on a chilly morning, the dance of flames against a pitch-black sky. We appreciate these in those settings as we could not with the nearness of a box spring & mattress, insulated walls & a roof overhead, flush toilets and electric lights.
From our home on Lincoln Street we can always see the lights of the Central Street fire station; our house in Connecticut sits directly opposite the police station, with an EMT facility to its rear, and so at least one bright light always shone. Most of you, I imagine, don’t live in such close proximity to the emergency services that require such bright & constant lights; but few of us live, anymore, in places where the darkness is so all-enveloping that a single small beam of light or lone star stands out against it.
But it is rare that physical darkness is the kind that disturbs us, and we are all familiar with darkness of other kinds:
Within the realm of our personal lives it may come as loneliness, isolation; it may come as a relationship dies or goes sour; it may come in the form of fear for a child—or a parent—or partner; it may come as a life-constricting job—or no job at all.
We are aware of the darkness in our nation and within our communities as well—darkness that seems to deepen by the day, as we wonder whether there is any good news to be heard among reports of climbing unemployment and mounting numbers of home foreclosures, greater numbers of families, some with children whose entry into the world seems as precarious as the infant Jesus’; and in the midst of worrisome economic reports come stories of corruption among so-called leaders.
Darkness envelops our international realm as well, with hundreds of thousands engaged in this new brand of war in Iraq & Afghanistan, and a new brand of piracy bearing no resemblance to either Captain Hook or Jack Sparrow’s; as hopes for peace in the Holy Land flicker ever dimly; as unimaginable brutality goes unchecked in Sudan and Congo; and the earth grows frighteningly warmer by the year.
If we’re not numbed into oblivion by chronic busy-ness or or compulsive shopping—it’s good for the economy, we tell ourselves—or alcohol or gambling or plain studied avoidance, then we are likely to find ourselves bound in tightening cords of darkness.
Is there any release, any good news at all?
“In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God…and the Word became flesh and dwelled among us, full of grace and truth…”
“The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.” Into this darkness—our darkness—the deepest darkness that we have known or can know—God has come. God in Christ has come, introducing to our darkness a single, small but unwavering light.
St. John writes that The Word became flesh and dwelled with us. It’s a curious word: dwelled with us, from the Greek meino. Another way to express it is to say that God came and pitched his tent with us. As God sojourned with the Israelites throughout their meandering movement to the promised land, camping with them, as it were, in the desolate desert, so God has come in Christ to journey with us, and to be, in the darkest of our nights, a constant light: a light to guide, to be sure; but more than that, to be our hope, our shield against despair and crippling fear.
Night of Silence is a contemporary hymn written by Daniel Kantor to be sung along with Silent Night. The text of its first two verses reads:
Cold are the people, winter of life.
We tremble in shadows this cold endless night.
Frozen in the snow lie roses, sleeping,
Flowers that will echo the sunrise.
Fire of hope is our only warmth;
Weary, its flame will be dying soon.
Voice in the distance, call in the night,
On wind you enfold us; you speak of the light.
Gentle on the ear you whisper softly,
Rumors of a dawn so embracing,
Breathless love awaits darkened souls.
Soon will we know of the morning.
We gather this Christmas morning in the sure and certain hope that the “rumors of a dawn so embracing” are more than idle gossip; they are the Good News of Jesus Christ, the Incarnate Word, who has come to pitch his tent with us, to live among us, to be for us God’s own unquenchable light.
He is the dawn of endless day; and while we know not when high noon will come, dispelling the last shadows of darkness and scattering clouds of despair, his cross and resurrection are the pledge that the first light has shown and cannot be extinguished. Amen.
