“Celebrating the Splendor of the Light Eternal”

Luke 2:1-20 and John 1:1-5
Douglas T. King

Never has the same story been told in two more distinctly different tellings.  Although both of these texts are immensely familiar, the juxtaposition of them is slightly disorienting.  In our story of Jesus’ birth in Bethlehem we hear of light, the glory of the Lord, brilliantly illuminating the night sky as an angel of the Lord and the heavenly host startle the shepherds bringing them news of a savior and praises for the divine.  

But there is no talk of such bright light where the newborn Jesus is being swaddled.  In a stable the lighting is likely a candle or two providing at most a soft glow.  One wonders if those shepherds, still seeing stars from the bright light of the heavenly host, had to blink several times before they could even recognize that babe lying in the manger.
 
In the other origin story of Jesus from the gospel of John we hear of light of a totally different nature, primordial light from before time began; the light of all people; the light no darkness can overcome; the splendor of light eternal.  This is the same light we hear of as God begins fashioning creation.  God pronounced, “Let there be light” and what was chaos began to be transformed into an ordered creation full of blessing.    

In these two tellings we hear of Jesus being born some two thousand years ago and then we hear of Jesus being present when time itself began.  One highlights his humanity and one his divinity.  On this night our eyes naturally focus on that soft candlelight in the stable and the cooing baby.  But John’s telling of a light that precedes ordered existence and whose presence knows no bounds, the splendor of light eternal, has a lot to teach us about exactly who that adorable, swaddled-one truly is.

Light is a remarkably powerful metaphor for this babe we are welcoming into our midst on this dark night.  If our eyes wander to the windows of the sanctuary, the darkness seen through them, appears to have a palpable, almost physical presence.  In some contexts it can feel as if the darkness may completely envelope us.  (As children, our parents try to teach us not to be afraid of the dark but I am not sure we ever quite get there.)  

The iconic, Albert Einstein, turned his prodigious intellect toward light and darkness.  He is credited with discovering that light is both a wave and a set of localized particles, photons.  Light as a wave helps us understand how it bends and spreads out into every corner of creation.  What a wonderful metaphor for our child savior, whose presence continues to bend and spread out into every corner of creation finding a home within each one of us.  Light, as particles, photons, helps us understand how it transfers energy.  Photons are tiny packets of energy that excite the electrons in atoms causing a jump in their motions.

In John we hear how all of existence is dependent upon the energy the savior child pours into it, “All things came into being through him and without him not one thing came into being.”  And Jesus Christ’s ministry of teaching and healing and abiding with us transfers energy unto us, into us, sparking hope and joy.

Einstein once said of light and darkness, “There is no darkness in this Universe. There is only the presence of light and the absence of it.”  In John we hear, “The light shines in the darkness and the darkness did not overcome it.”  It has also been translated as the light shines in the darkness and “the darkness did not grasp it; did not overtake it, did not overpower it, did not extinguish it.”

Einstein understanding of divinity was not Christian but his description of light and darkness dovetails nicely with the gospel of John.  Darkness and light are not equals.  When Einstein describes darkness as solely the absence of light he is reminding us that darkness has no palpable power once light enters into its presence. That image in our creation myth of God inviting the existence of light into the midst of the chaos of the cosmos and beginning an ordered creation of blessing continues in the birth of Jesus Christ down to this very night as we are gathered.  God’s creative light, God’s light in Jesus Christ, continues to journey forth bringing illumination and energy.

But all this talk of light does not negate the reality we can still find our focus on the darkness and chaos of this world. We experience nyctalopia, night blindness, a difficulty to see when light is indeed present but scarce.  There is no denying there is still chaos and tragedy to be found in our wider world and sometimes in our own lives.  Particularly in this season we can find ourselves in darkness as the expectations of how things “should” be this time of year do not match our experience.  There are empty chairs around the dining room table once filled by those who have gone on to greater glory.  There are fractured and strained relationships that do not match Normal Rockwell expectations.  There is news in our world that hardly befits the splendor of light eternal. Nonetheless what is indeed most palpably powerful is God’s light being born in those first moments of creation, being born in human form in that stable all those years ago, and being born once more this night.  
In one of her poems, Emily Dickinson wrote, “We grow accustomed to the darkness, when light is put away.” But when light appears to be put away is when we most need to not grow accustomed to the darkness.  In Jewish midrash there is a story that embellishes the creation myth of Adam and Eve.  It tells the tale of the first time the sun set before the two of them and they experience darkness for the very first time and they are terrified.  Adam and Eve cling to each other all night in fear that it is the end of the world.  And then the sun rose for them in the morning.  

We need to open our eyes wide to the presence of God’s arriving light in Jesus Christ finding a home in the deepest places of where we actually live and love, despair and dream, toil and tire, illuminating God’s devotion to us.   God’s light is continuing to find its way into this world, bending and winding its way like a wave, and will continue to do so until every corner of creation and beyond is filled with divine illuminating light.  And the energy from that light, light in the form of particles, photons is transferring energy into us, enlivening usto the reality, we are God’s beloved.

There is no doubt that chaos and darkness are still present in our world. But tonight we are reminded that the light that created the world and ordered creation; the light that was born in Bethlehem all those years ago and offered us loving redemption; is the same light that is continuing to shine its way into our world this very night in a multitude of miraculous ways.

Einstein wrote, “There are only two ways to live your life.  One is as though nothing is a miracle.  The other is as though everything is a miracle.”  Or one could say, there are only two ways to live, one is that the darkness in our world is powerful, palpable, unstoppable, and the other is ”The light shines in the darkness and the darkness did not overcome it.”
In a few minutes we will pass the light through this sanctuary and be reminded of all that is miraculous, of the splendor of light eternal that no darkness will ever overcome.

Thanks be to God.
Merry Christmas.  Amen.