Light Is Born, Christmas Eve – 2009

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The stars in Africa shine brightly. Like when you were a child, and there was far less light pollution than there is now. The dark of a night without moon would ignite the stars as bright sparks. The stars in Africa are those sparks.

If you look patiently, you can see the Milky Way, as a swath of faint cloud, flowing as a stream through space. The lights of the sky, the universe itself, extend forever, as an infinity pool, where horizon and sky are as one. A magical place where the temporal kisses the spatial, and there is no longer a distinction between time and space.

It is perhaps there that you will find God; it is perhaps there that you will find eternity.

Imagine yourself as a hobo traveling through space. You speed past the star Vega, and the constellation Hercules. You spiral outward through the Orion Arm of the Milky Way into its fingers, past nebulae, and into the space of galaxies.

You race infinitely faster than light toward the edge, but now the edge is obscured, only black extending to black. Galaxies distant, planets are now unimaginably behind you. Through this darkest night, even of your own soul, this darkest night, even of the soul of humanity, an even darker space, looms unimaginably in your path, a black hole, darker than the black space that surrounds it.

You can’t actually see a black hole. You perceive it. You sense it, by the absence of matter, by the absence of light and time. And as you approach it, the black hole sucks you into itself, its gravity bearing on you as chaos; you are spiraling downward into its center.

The hole swallows you eternally, as into the abyss. The violence of the black hole is unimaginable; you are alone, and there is no hope.

But light is born.

Light is always born where there is no hope, in black holes. Light as pinprick appears, a star, bare and stark against the black. You reach to apprehend the star, but inexplicably, the light from the star apprehends you!

The light captures you, and as if by magic, and you are no longer subsumed by black hole in distant space, but by some strange Einstein phenomenon, by some wrinkle in time, you find yourself here, in this world – newly alive, freshly born. Created, or is it re-created? Oxygen fills your lungs, and you cry as a newborn. You are a person drowned, but inexplicably alive!

Do you see? The Star? The distance between the farthest star and your heart is hair’s breadth, and eternity is there, in that slightest distance, both across the universe, and within your soul – for eternity is not as you had imagined.

The star as a pinprick of light into life’s deepest darkness, the edge of your universe. Time and space are of no account, at the edge of your reality, there, at that edge, you will find the Holy.

The Divine, God as Almighty. Inaccessible. Invisible. Absolute.

Even time must account to Elohim, for with this God, a day is as a thousand years, and a thousand years is a day. Even light and dark must account to the Great “I Am,” for with this God, there is no distinction between them; for the night and the day are the same. Even distance and space must account to El Shaddai, for with this God, the edge of the universe is at the tips of your fingers.

The prophet, Isaiah, acknowledged the plight, ours and that of the human race: the people walk in darkness, and elsewhere, deep darkness enshrouds the people. A black hole without hope.

We thought we could save ourselves. They called the beginning of the twentieth century, the New Century. Optimism abounded. We found ourselves at peace, on the brink of scientific breakthroughs; there was nothing we couldn’t do. We could fly to the sky, build skyscrapers, peer into galaxies.

We awoke from that dream to the reality of two world wars, massacres in Cambodia and Rwanda, AIDS and malaria pandemics, and macabre catastrophes. It became apparent that we cannot save ourselves as we had imagined. Even now, prophets warn of a global environmental catastrophe.

Although our education and scientific knowledge can help, we are still in need of more. We are in desperate need, for the dark night is black. We are hurtling through space past galaxies and nebulae, at warp speeds, toward black holes and an uncertain end, and we are sore afraid.

We need a Savior.

The people who walked in darkness, have seen a great light.

And there were in the same country shepherds abiding in the field, keeping watch over their flock by night. And, lo, the angel of the Lord came upon them, and the glory of the Lord shone round about them. … And the angel said unto them, Fear not: for behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy, which shall be to all people. For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Saviour, which is Christ the Lord.

You imagine the Christmas star to be about a baby, born one more time, this year, the same as last, but only a baby misses the point. This night shines as day because eternity itself, El Shaddai, the Great “I Am,” the ever gentle Elohim, transcended the barrier dividing time from space, as light and life and hope, to save us from darkness.

For unto us a Child is Born, a Son is given.

Several years ago, the earth traveled through a meteor belt of some sort, and if you cared, you could sit outside at night and watch thousands of meteors etch lines of light across the sky. Imagine sitting in your backyard, 40 degrees at four in the morning, wrapped in a blanket, huddled in absolute wonder as light after light appeared suddenly – here, there, darting to and fro. Imagine the joy of discovering light.

Do you want to know what Christmas is about?

The people who lived in darkness have discovered light.

For tonight, this night, pure love has permitted itself to be pulled into your black hole, spiraling downward, chaotically and critically until it came to rest in a manger, in a stable, among barn animals and hay, on a dark, crisp night, much like tonight, when the stars shone as in Africa.

If you looked up, that night, you could see the Milky Way, as a faint stream floating across the sky.

Christmas is about a God who still condescends to earth, and that means this: Christmas is about the human soul, for the God of pure light chose to become as us, bounded by time and space, even – now get this – to bow down to us, to save us from the death, the darkness, the fear. But more than that: God esteemed your soul as worthy.

God esteemed you as worthy. For you, a light shone in the darkness, which is why the Savior beckons you out of your Christmas stupor, and into a real faith, a true and living faith, a faith in which you touch something – someone – you have never touched before, and you see a light you have never seen before.

And suddenly there appeared the heavenly host, who began praising God and saying, Glory to God in the highest, and peace to his people on earth.

Peace to his people on earth.

Amen.