O Holy Light
Isaiah 9: 2-9
Luke 2: 1-20
Christmas Eve Meditation
The Reverend Odette Lockwood-Stewart

We know the power of light--
to illumine, expose, warm, nourish.  
Light grows food and changes moods.  
Light is energy that comes in waves.

We know the power of light harnessed by human beings can heal... or harm; sustain life... or kill.
We know the power of light.  And yet...we forget...

In an article on “How Light Works,” Craig Freudenrich reminds us,   “Every day... we look at everything around us using light.  ...Children’s drawings, fine oil paintings, swirling computer graphics, gorgeous sunsets, a blue sky, shooting stars and rainbows...mirrors ... Did you ever stop to think that when we see any of these things, ...  We are, in fact, seeing light? – light that somehow left objects far or near and reached our eyes.  Light is all our eyes can really see.”  

At Christmas time,... we spend... we spend a lot... we spend a lot of time and money and energy looking for light in all the wrong places.
Some even try to sell the light that we cannot reach.  Today I heard yet again a radio ad for one of a number of companies that will sell us the right to name a star for $54. ... Now that is the illusion of control.  

Christmas is about light -- as intimate as one candle, and as vast as the sun. But Christmas is about the Light of the World, not a light to be harnessed, or sold -- by companies or by presidential candidates.

“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.”

The power of light, according to the prophet Isaiah, is about radical illumination — This light breaks the burdens of the poor and oppressed, this light burns the boots of tramping warriors.  This light grows into endless peace upheld with justice and right relationship.

Palestinian Christian, Munib Younan spoke these words from Bethlehem:  “Our hope is in the One who, by his willingness to enter into the darkness and sufferings of this world, forges a new path of light through them.”

Darkness is not an endpoint or an adversary.  It is a threshold.

There is darkness in daytime and there is light in shadow. Astronomer David Lynch wrote, “a shadow is filled with light reflected from the sky.”  We need not turn away from or shun the shadow in our lives. The shadows we struggle to hide can become our teachers.  
And the glory of God shines round about us.

We gather tonight, guided to community by luminaria, welcomed to mystery by candles and music. Here and now we are free to let the Light of the World shine in us and through us.

Light can be reflected, scattered, absorbed, refracted,... but at all times, light radiates outward.                    (NGM “The Power of Light”)

Earlier this evening at our Celebration for Children of all ages, over 50 children helped us enter anew the story of the first Christmas.

Sue Monk Kidd tells a story about when her small daughter played the part of the Bethlehem star in a Christmas play.  She writes, “After her first rehearsal she burst through the door with her costume, a five-pointed star lined in shiny gold tinsel designed to drape over her like a sandwich board.  “What exactly will you be doing in the play?”  I asked her.  “I just stand there and shine,” she told me.  I’ve never forgotten that response.”
(When the Heart Waits)

Whatever our wonderings, wanderings, failings, blessings or burdens, tonight we welcome the Light of Christ.  An old Christmas carol sings it, “The middle of the night is the beginning of the day. The middle of need is the beginning of the light.”

The World Council of Churches invites us to consider this Christmas resolution:

        I will light a light in the name of God
                Who lit the world and breathed the breath of life into me.
        I will light a light in the name of Christ
                Who saved the world and stretched out his hand to me.
        I will light a light in the name of the Spirit
Who encompasses the world and blesses my soul with yearning.
Amen.