The Darkness and the Dawn

My name is René, I'm one of the pastors here, and Merry Christmas! Merry Christmas! Wait a minute, that was like very unconvincing. Is it merry? Is it Christmas? Let me try one more time. Merry Christmas! Merry Christmas! Okay, that was much better. And you're gonna have another chance before the service is over, but I want to take just a few minutes before our candle lighting to talk about our theme tonight.

Did you guess from all the songs and the imagery you've seen so far, the theme is light? Because lights are everywhere at Christmas time, aren't they? In fact, even the Jewish Festival of Lights, Hanukkah, starts tonight, which is a wonderful synchronicity. And you see Christmas lights on people's houses, they're in parks, they're all over stores. In fact, lights are so much a part of December that a major television network, ABC, even has a show called The Great Christmas Light Fight. Has anybody seen this? It's neighborhoods competing for a prize. It's fascinating what lengths people will go to.

I just want to show you just a few seconds of one of the winners this year, because I don't want you to miss a moment of such cultural importance, all right? So brace yourselves. Watch this. Wow! How many of you just show hands? How many of you are super glad this Christmas that you do not live next door to that person? Yes, me too. Listen, why are lights such a part of the holiday? Well, there's a lot of reasons, but believe it or not, it all goes back to the Bible, which uses the metaphor of light to talk about what happened at Christmas so many different times, just a few of the verses.

You already heard John 1:9 tonight, where it says, "The true light that gives light to everyone was coming into the world." That's Jesus. Luke 1:78, I love this one, very under-known, under-appreciated verse. "God's sunrise will break in upon us, shining on those in the darkness." Isn't that good? And Jesus himself said, you just heard Billy sing it, "I am the light of the world." I could show you dozens more, but tonight I just want to focus on two verses from Isaiah 9. They might be familiar to you from Handel's Messiah.

Let's look first at Isaiah 9:2, and let's read this familiar Christmas verse out loud together. Ready? Here we go. "The people walking in darkness have seen a great light, and on those living in the land of deep darkness a light has dawned." And then let's just skip a little bit ahead to verse 6, and let's say this out loud together too. "Unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given." I love these verses. Love them.

And I just want to zoom in on just three words from these two verses for a few moments before our candle lighting. First the word "darkness." What does it mean of people living in darkness? Well, this is Isaiah 9, and right before Isaiah 9 comes what? Just guess. Isaiah 8, you're brilliant. That's right. And in Isaiah 8, we find out that there's some dark stuff going on in the land. They've got an evil king. They're surrounded by an enemy army. The moral fiber and the morale of the people is shattered, and so at the end of Isaiah 8:22 it says, "The people look toward the earth and see only distress and darkness and fearful gloom." They have no hope for the future. They're totally bummed out.

And when you look at this verse, doesn't this sound to you like how a lot of people are feeling right now? Distress and darkness and fearful gloom, and sometimes for good reason. But did you notice where they are looking? Toward the earth? Turns out that's their problem. They're looking around for hope for the future. And Isaiah says, "What about looking up?" And that's our key verse. He says, "On those living in this land of deep darkness, a light has," what? "Dawned." And that's the second word I want to look at tonight. "Dawned." Because he does not say, "From those living in the land of darkness, a light has sprung."

Those living in darkness are so clever they've found a way to generate their own light. No, he's saying we can be lost in our darkness. And so upon us a light has come. God brings the light to us. That's good news. Think about the sun dawning for a second. What does the sun do? Someone said it does three main things. The sun gives life, right? Ultimately, no life on earth is possible without the sun when it comes onto it. The sun shows truth, right? Ever get ready for work or school and you look at yourself in your bathroom mirror in bathroom light and you go, "I'm good."

Then you get down the road and you're past the point of no return on your way to work or school or whatever and in the car you catch a glimpse of yourself in the sunlight, in the car rear view mirror or something and suddenly the sun shows the truth. And you see that giant ear hair or that zit or does that ever happen? Well, it happens to me. You don't have to raise your hand. And third, the sun is beautiful, right? The sunset, sunrises are dazzling. And it turns out that we actually need the sun's beauty. We need it. In countries where the sun doesn't shine very much in the wintertime like Sweden or Alaska, people get depressed because they don't have the beauty of the sunshine.

Now look at these three things the sun does. The exact same three things are true of the sun, S-O-N of God. The sun brings life to our spiritual deadness. The sun shows truth to guide our way in the darkness and the sun is beautiful. And it's when my imagination is captured by the beauty of Jesus and what he did for me on the cross and in his resurrection, that's when Jesus is so beautiful to me that I'm distracted from other obsessions with money or fame or anything else because I'm captivated by the beauty of Jesus.

So that's what it means when it says his light has come into our darkness. He does these things for us. But how do I get that light? How do I receive that into my life? Well, that's the third word I want to look at. He says it is given. Unto us a son is simply given. He's just a gift like a Christmas gift. You just receive him. And that's why candle lighting is such an appropriate metaphor for this. Everybody get out your candles for just a second and look down at your candles and get them all ready for that candle lighting.

In just a few minutes you're going to take that candle. We're going to light our candles but here's how it's not going to happen. You're not going to look at it and wave a magic wand and go lumos like in Harry Potter and have a light suddenly appear. You're not going to create your own light. What's so cool about this is the ushers are going to get their light from one central light that Kyle will have and then they're going to take that light that came from that one flame and they're going to hand it down the rows and people are going to pass that flame along to one another so that all fifteen hundred of us are going to have our candles lit by one flame essentially. All the flames are going to be related.

And then I'm going to ask for all the lights to be turned off so that only our candle light remains and we're going to hold up the light. It's going to be an incredible beautiful moment but you'll see the power that you and I have when we shine the light we've received from God to the world. It's going to be amazing and it's exactly like the light of Christ. We can't generate it. We can only receive it and then we can pass it on and when we all shine our light together we can make a real difference in the darkness and it all starts by simply receiving the gift.

Now this is probably the hardest part of Christianity to believe that God just gives us the gift of his Son of salvation of heaven and we just receive it as a free gift. Most people I think or many people think that Christianity has a message that can be summarized as try harder. Do more. Be better. And God's up there there's bearded judgmental grandfather throwing lightning bolts down in the sky and he doesn't like you and he's constantly telling you you just don't measure up. Most of us a lot of us kind of grew up with that image of God.

But here is what Christmas tells us. God became a man so that he could bridge the gap between you and us. He wants to have a relationship with us with all of us. It's like this. I just found a brand new Christmas story that I think puts it so well. It seems simple but this has a very deep point. It's called The Christmas Fox by Anik Magrory and I think you'll love this. You ready? Come drummed the woodpecker. A baby is coming. There's work to be done. There's news to spread. But the little fox stayed to dance with the snowflakes.

Come load the cow. A baby is coming. There's a place to make warm with sweet smelling hay. But the little fox stayed to splash in the stream. Come bleated the lamb. There are gifts to get ready with soft, cozy wool. But the little fox rolled around in the cold snappy snow. Come whistled the blue bird. There are songs to sing the baby to sleep. But the little fox stayed to pounce in the snowdrifts.

Come whispered the stars. There is light to shine to brighten the path. But the little fox had no light to shine. He had no song to sing. He had no soft wool to collect. No warm home to share. And so he stood outside the stable alone. Come, said the donkey, just come. It is enough. And so the little fox crept into the warm glowing stable. And the baby smiled. And the little fox brought joy. Man, I really love that. And I can tell some of you love it too.

You know one of the reasons I love this? Because it's kind of a corrective to another children's story. Anybody here remember the story of the little red hen? Does anybody remember this one? Okay, if you do, you can help me tell the story. At the beginning of the little red hen, the little red hen says, who will help me plant the grain and all of the other farm animals, the pig and the dog and the cat and the mouse, they all say what? Not I. Then she says, who will help me water the grain? They all say, not I. Who will help me pick the grain? Not I. Who will help me bake the bread? Not I.

And then she says, who will help me eat the bread? And they all say, I will. And she says, fat chance. You did not do diddly squat, so I am eating the bread all by myself. And in the version of the book that I've got, it really does end with a picture of all the animals having sad dreams of what might have been. They are left with their regrets. What kind of a children's story is this? And so the animals were sad. The end. Night, night, sweetheart, right?

I think a lot of us follow me here, have little red hen theology. We think God's like the little red hen saying, you did not do what you should have done, and so the door is barred to you. Or you did what you shouldn't have done. Same result. But really, it's more like the story of the little fox. Some of you tonight may feel like that little fox a little bit on the outside. And you feel like, but I don't have anything to offer to God. But I got to prove myself first. But I didn't do some things I know I should have done, and I did some things I know I shouldn't have done. Am I really welcome in his presence?

Tonight, listen to the whisper of Jesus saying, just come. That is enough. He says, come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. That's the beautiful invitation of Christmas. And somehow when we let him in, just start with a step of faith, it catalyzes change, real change in our hearts. Obviously, in a 10-minute talk, we don't have time to get into it. I wrote a book called Jesus Journey, and we just decided this afternoon to give this away for free to you if you want to explore the rest of the life of Christ.

Okay, he was born, then what? Well, that's what this book is about. And if you want to grab it, it's at the info desk until we run out. You can pick this up for free. You don't even have to give us your name or anything. Now, don't pick up, you know, 10 for stocking stuffers tonight. That's your problem if you didn't shop for stocking stuffers. But I hope that this will give you a little bit of insight into what the life of Christ means.

We're moving into our candle lighting, and I want to invite you to imagine this scene as being part of the original nativity. We're very crowded, just like that inn was. We even occasionally are hearing babies crying, just like at that first Christmas. Just imagine that's the baby Jesus. Those are actually prop babies. We rented them just to establish the atmosphere. And just like back then, in a moment, all we will have to light this room will be the flame from your candle. But I invite you, even as the candle lights with the flame, receive the light of Christ into your heart.

Let's pray together. Heavenly Father, sometimes we can all feel like that fox outside the stable. And so, Lord, I just want to invite everybody in this room to pray. And the words aren't magic. Everybody's words might be different than mine. It's the intent of the heart. To pray something like this, God, thank you for the invitation to just come home. And so tonight, right now, I come, a sinner in need of a Savior. Thank you for this free gift, even as I receive the light into this candle I hold, I say, Jesus, I receive you into my life.

I don't understand it all, but as much as I understand, I receive you. Help me to learn and grow more, and help me to light up my corner of this dark world with your light. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen.