Christmas Eve Message
Christmas Eve 2005
In the church in New Paltz where I grew up there was a Candlelight Service every year.
It didnt happen on Christmas Eve, but took place about a week before Christmas on a Sunday evening.
The event was really created to feature the various choirs and the service was mostly music and always began with a grand procession.
As a life long member of some kind of church choir I worked my way up the ranks from Junior, to Youth, to Senior Choir and when you were in the Senior Choir you got to carry one of those battery operated flashlight candles in the procession.
I remember the whole thing being a very big deal.
There were five or six real candles in each window and more candelabras positioned around the church so that the atmosphere was very much like it is here tonight, except the sanctuary was much larger.
People came from miles around and the church was always packed to over-flowing.
That was back in the 1950's when going to church was the thing to do.
So, walking in that opening procession felt like being at the center of a very important gathering, which really was a concert (not a worship service) as I look back on it?
The evening was about the music of Christmas, and the minister played a very minor role in the whole affair.
But I do remember he was always in that procession--probably the last one in.
He might have offered an opening prayer or said a few words of welcome, but there never was a sermon.
But one year he read a poem.
I must have been in high school by then because I remember being very moved by it, so much so that I asked him for a copy of it afterwards.
Back in those days that didn't mean running it through the copier, but really making a copy--writing it out in long hand or typing it.
So, several weeks later I got the copy, and this is what it said:
Christmas always comes at night
When men grope blindly for a light.
Christmas could not come by day,
That is not God's or Nature's way!
Can Wise Men see a star at
Can Shepherds hear the Angel's tune
When sun is bright?
Death on the Cross will come at eve
When weary daylight takes its leave--
And Resurrection fits the dawn
When patterns for new days are drawn,
But Christmas comes in deepest dark--
Through black despair men see a spark
Embattled with the night!
O Mary, Mary, mother by the stall,
Exhausted in the darkness did you sense at all
That God had brought a brilliant star to birth,
Matching your lonely labor there on earth?
Did you know that from your anguish
Angels made a song
To cheer the hopeful few who kept long
Vigil for the right?
"I heard the song, I saw the star--
But chilling visions plagued my mind to mar
My peace; Children being born far down the years
In poverty and bloodshed, in famine and in tears;
Men steeped in hate, cruel in war,
O, I had hoped, had prayed for more.
And I was sad."
"I saw the star, I heard the song--
And deep within my heart I knew that long, long
After he and I were gone, my son would be
A song of hope in every evil night--that he
Would stand alone against all human power
As strong and pure as any star in any tragic hour--
And I was glad!"
So, Christmas always comes at night
When men are hungriest for light!
Can Wise Men see a star at
Can Shepherds hear the Angels' tune
When sun is bright?
Christmas comes in deepest dark
When in despair man sees a spark
Conquering the night!
Franklin D. Elmer, Jr.
Now why do you suppose a 15 or 16 year old boy would be so taken by a poem like that?
And why do you suppose all of us are so enchanted by candles at Christmas.
Why is lighting a candle such a Christmas thing to do?
And, why, when we do it together on Christmas Eve is it all so sacred and special?
I think it has to do with catching a glimpse of light in the darkness--that spark embattled with the night--catching a glimpse of the light which is the light of the world.
I think I saw in that poem something of the radiance of Jesus.
I don't need to name for you the darknesses that cover this world tonight.
Some of them are personal.
Some we bring upon ourselves or others.
Some of them, like war, are the result of our collective human failings.
But all of them are places where the light of God can be seen if we look hard enough.
The message of Christmas is that God has chosen to live within the human family and has given each one of us a piece of the light.
Sometimes that light is hidden or buried with pain.
Sometimes that light is pushed into a corner.
But it is there in each of us, even in the ones we consider enemies.
Seen or unseen, the light is there, ready to kindle, eager to expand, and always refusing to be contained.
As St. Francis said, "There is not enough darkness in the whole world to extinguish even a single candle flame."
When I try to remember now why I was so taken with that poem, I think it was because I was making the connection for the first time--the connection between the birth of Jesus and the joy and hope his birth inspires.
The world can be a very dark and brutal place, and the nights can be long.
But there is now one in our midst who is the light we need.
And that light continues to shine in our world whenever someone emulates his example--whenever we stand with Jesus against all human power that would thwart the purposes of God.
So, dear friends, watch for that light, trust that you will see it in every dark place if you look long enough, and know that when we shine our lights together there is rejoicing in heaven.
"Christmas comes in deepest dark
When in despair we see a spark conquering the night."
posted by HillChurchNews at 11:22 AM
