Eve of the Nativity of Our Lord, Year A
December
24, 2013
The Rev. Christopher L. Caddell
“The people who walked
in darkness have seen a great light; those who lived in a land of deep darkness
– on them light has shined” (Isaiah 9:2).
These days we no longer live in a world where one can experience the
complete and absolute absence of light very easily. Artificial light rules our nights as well as
our days. As soon as the sun goes down
the streetlights come on drowning out the darkness and the night sky, and the
glow of the city lights can be seen from miles away. We would need to travel a long way if we ever
wanted to experience what true darkness looks like.
Or perhaps not –
When I was a sophomore at Texas A&M, I registered for a class that
had the amazingly original course description of “Geology for Civil
Engineers.” Despite its mundane sounding
title, it turns out that it happed to be my favorite class and one that left a
lasting impression on me.
The class was taught by Professor Christopher Mathewson – a man who
was, we all agreed, older than many of the rocks that we studied. As long as anyone could remember Professor
Mathewson had been teaching this class.
And as long as anyone could remember, Professor Mathewson had been
taking his class on an extended field trip.
For three days we traveled around central Texas looking at different
rock and soil formations. We spent time
at the Highland Lakes and Barton Springs.
We went to Enchanted Rock and ended our trip on the River Walk in San
Antonio. Yet, the most memorable part of
that trip for me was our stop at Longhorn Caverns.
We had a private tour that day, and as we descended deeper and deeper
into the caverns, we learned what most people learn when visiting the
caverns. We heard about the different
formations, about when the caverns were formed, and how they were
discovered. But as our group arrived in
one of the larger chambers, Professor Mathewson confessed that he had something
up his sleeve.
He pulled out a large heavy sack and asked us to place anything and
everything that we had that might give off light – flashlights, cell phones,
even watches with glow in the dark hands.
All of this was placed in the sack, and then he told us that the lights were
going out.
A few seconds later our entire class was sitting in complete and total
darkness. It is an experience that I
will never forget. We sat there for a
long while.
As Professor Mathewson continued to talk, our eyes continued to
adjust. After what must have been a good
fifteen minutes we began to think we actually could see – that was until we
reached out to touch our neighbor or the wall, only to find that what we
thought was there, was not, and our eyes were playing tricks on us.
We were in complete and utter darkness. It is not something I can say I have ever
experienced before or since.
And just as this whole scenario started to become really
uncomfortable, Professor Mathewson did something that surprised us all. He struck a match, and an amazing thing
happened. From that small tiny flame we
could see everything – the walls, the floor, the ceiling, the faces of those
around us.
The light emanating from
this single, small flame was enough to overcome a vast cavern filled with
darkness.
Even in a world filled with artificial light, we still experience
darkness and shadow. The realities of
our own lives and the world around us do not always match up to what we hope
they would be.
Things get broken.
We get hurt.
We hurt other people.
We may even hurt ourselves.
The gap between what is and
what ought to be sometimes seems to
be widening, rather than coming closer together.
Then again, Christmas
reminds us of a different reality.
At face value it is an ordinary story. Mary and Joseph were nothing
compared to Caesar Augustus, the ruler of the known world. Bethlehem was dump in the shadow of cities
like Jerusalem, Caesarea Philippi, and certainly Rome. And a baby being born was nothing more than a
common occurrence – another peasant in a vast empire of people. An ordinary Jewish family, traveling to a
very ordinary outpost of the Roman Empire, going through the very ordinary
process of having a baby.
Nothing about this story should have captured the hearts and
imagination of the world. Nothing so insignificant should have ever made a
difference then, much less make a difference in the vastness of space and time
that separates this night from that.
And yet, it does. The seemingly
ordinary story of the birth of a small child has endured because from it shines
forth light. It is the light of God’s
promises being fulfilled, the light of a Savior being born, the light of
Emmanuel, the light of God dwelling with us.
We come back to this story again and again, year after year because in
it we see the beginning of our
salvation. It is not just an historical
event that occurred in Bethlehem, but one that reminds us of how God works in
our life now, tonight, in this very place.
God is not forceful or imposing.
God does not overpower the creation or us.
Instead, God quietly shines light into the shadows and darkness, and
invites us to look if we want to see it.
This is how God works, then and now.
To the world it may seem insignificant. It may even look to others as if we are
naïve. Yet it is there if we only care to look.
I’m not sure how much geology I learned down in the bottom of Longhorn
Caverns, but what I did learn left a lasting impression. Contrary to how we might think of it, light
and darkness are not equal and opposite realities. Light holds far more power than we tend to
think. Just the smallest, seemingly most
insignificant amount of light – whether it is the strike of a match or the
birth of one small child – holds the power to destroy darkness.
The candles that we will light later tonight are symbols of that reality. They remind us that God is breaking though
the darkness even if it seems to be in insignificant ways. No matter how vast the darkness seems it only
takes a small glimmer of God to begin to dispel the darkness.
Merry Christmas!
May you leave here knowing the true gift of Christmas –
That hope is eternal,
That light will always overcome the dark,
And that in Christ we see true Light that has come down to shine in
our hearts. Amen.
