Sermon on Christmas Eve 2024
I wonder, what are the most important Christmas traditions or rituals for you? How do you celebrate these days? Is it the time spent with family, the thought put into buying the presents, the decoration of the Christmas tree, or the food that is being prepared for tomorrow? For me, one of the most important rituals is putting up my fairy lights, and filling the house with candles. It’s actually the one night during which I leave the Christmas tree lit, and go to bed with one or two tea lights still burning. Don’t worry, I’ve got the fire phone!
‘Light in the darkness’ is one of the key themes within the Christmas story. Tonight, we hear how the Light comes into the world, and the darkness does not overcome it. In the more narrative Gospel accounts, in Luke and Matthew, we hear how the angel came to the shepherds in the darkness of the night, and how also the Wise Men were led to the stable by the light of a star.
‘Light in our darkness’, it is something we understand, and I think most of us long for. So I suspect I’m not the only one who loves to focus on this part of the story with my fairy lights and candles.
In his sermon on the Mount, Jesus encourages us to be that light ourselves: “Let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father in heaven”. It’s an important theme, how we can bring light to the darkness, but that is not, I think, what we celebrate tonight. Because tonight is not about what we can do and who we can be, but it is about what God has given us.
The most beautiful lights I have seen, were earlier this year, when we were lucky enough to be able to see the Northern Lights here at Hurst.
The only thing I had to do to see them was walk out of by back gate, and find the darkest spot on the fields.
Away from the houses, the buildings and maybe most importantly, my phone. I was able to just stand there, in the darkness and see the spectacle unfold in the night sky. I only needed to stand and watch. And even as a scientist, for a moment I wasn’t thinking about the conditions that had made this possible, about the earth magnetic field, but for a moment I was overwhelmed that this was here for me to see and to enjoy.
Often, we try so hard to create the perfect conditions: the most thoughtful gifts, the most beautiful meal, the most welcoming house, and indeed, the brightest and most beautiful lights. I’m not suggesting that there is anything wrong with that, but maybe, maybe tonight is not that time. Maybe tonight is about moving our gaze towards that faint, but most beautiful light that isn’t of our making, that isn’t because of what we have done. But it is ours to behold, if we wish to see it.
I think it is this that makes what we celebrate tonight even more incomprehensible, yet even more wonderful: it is not because of what we have done, or because of who we are, that we are given this gift, the gift of God’s presence with us.
It also means, equally hard to understand and to accept, that the Light came into the world not only for us, but also for them – whoever the people are who we consider as them, as ‘not-us’.
Therefore, amidst our own celebrations, with our own traditions and rituals, maybe even amidst our own beliefs of what it is that we are celebrating tonight, for a moment, we can turn our gaze away from our lights to the darkness that lies beyond us. Because it is into that darkness that the Christ was born, to be among us, and to be among them. To bring peace to a world that needed and still needs it.
Maybe most of all, we celebrate tonight that promise and the hope that comes with it: that the Light shines in the darkness, and the darkness will not overcome it. Hope is not optimism that there won’t be any darkness; we would have lost it by now if it was. True hope is knowing that we too have a place and a purpose in God’s story; knowing that the light is there for us to see, if we turn our attention to it. To find our place, maybe all we need to do is to behold the light that has come, and to be willing to share that moment with those whom we know, and those whom we don’t.
I wish you and your families, and those whom you will encounter a peaceful and joyful Christmas.
Doing a bit of last-minute research in advance of Shell Chapel later today, I discovered that the British Museum was one of the first buildings in the UK to be lit electrically. Candles and oil lamps would have been too dangerous and their smoke would have damaged the artefacts. This means that before the lights were installed in the late nineteenth century, often the building had to close early because it would get too dark to see anything.
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