Christmas Eve

A grandmother was struggling with a life-threatening illness. She had her young granddaughter visiting with her at Christmas. The granddaughter was watching her as she lit a candle and placed it in the window. “Grandma,” the little girl asked, “why do we light candles on Christmas?”

“We light candles on Christmas, my dear, to tell the darkness we beg to differ.”

That’s why we come out on Christmas Eve, isn’t it?

Now we have candles lit in the church for all our services. But on Christmas Eve, we crank it up a notch. In addition to our usual candles, we have 88 candles in all the windows and a dozen candles down the center aisle – a hundred more candles!

Near the end of our service this evening we’ll lower the electric lights and go with candle power as we sing “Silent Night.” That’s because we all have a desire, deep within us, to tell the darkness,“We beg to differ.”

We light the candles because of what the prophet Isaiah said:

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 (9:2).

We come to St. Andrew’s on Christmas Eve not because it’s well-lighted and not because we physically need the illumination of candles. We come because something inside us calls us to this place.

Maybe you can’t put a name to it, this power that calls you. Maybe you’re not even sure if you believe in it — but you feel better, somehow, when you’re in a church with others, enjoying the candles and singing familiar carols. Call it sentimentality if you want. But something about this season of Christmas speaks even to the most cynical of hearts, something that can bring even the hardest of hard-core doubters and the most self-absorbed of self-convinced skeptics to the edge, to the border, between doubt and faith.

Something rises within our souls and warms to the glow of the Christmas candles. The power that calls us to this place is not a light of our own creation. It’s not jolly “Christmas cheer.” As we gather amidst the candles, we acknowledge that we are already in darkness — that we possess not, within ourselves, the power to push back the gloom of human or natural evil. And we hope that the light of these candles will come to us from beyond ourselves.

It’s a most particular kind of light, not a finite source. It’s quite unlike the flickering candles that will burn out and die once their wax is consumed, their wicks burnt down to nothing. This is the distinctive light of Jesus Christ, who is himself the light of the world.

The greatest wonder of it all is this: that same light took on human form and was laid down on the prickly straw of a Bethlehem manger. He cried, slept, and ate. He loved, taught, and healed.

 “The light shines in the darkness,” as John puts it in the prologue to his Gospel, “and the darkness did not overcome it.”

 A church in Switzerland lost its historic building to a tragic fire. After grieving for a time, the congregation moved on to construct a new sanctuary.

An architect in the congregation offered to design the new church for free. However, he wanted absolute freedom to design the building as he saw fit. Knowing him to be a fine architect, the people agreed.

What they saw, eventually, was very pleasing indeed. Some called it a masterpiece of simplicity and elegance. The materials were all natural and were displayed to their best advantage. The space was airy and open, the doorway inviting. A place was even found to display some of the old stained glass, salvaged from the former building.

It was when the church was nearly completed that one of the children looked up and noticed something that seemed to be missing. “Where are the lights?” she asked.

Sure enough, there was not a single light fixture in the building — and nothing to indicate where any could be installed. Members began talking to one another — you know how churches are — and in no time at all the church board had gathered for a rump session, right there in the half-completed church.

They summoned the architect. When he walked in, they besieged him with questions. Surely, he’d made a terrible mistake, they said. He’d left the lights out of the blueprints!

“There’s been no mistake,” he replied. “Trust me. Wait and see.”

The night of dedication for the new building finally came, and it happened to be Christmas Eve. As the members walked through the doors, each one was handed a small oil-lamp of gleaming brass. The architect had specially designed those lamps to match the design of the building. As one worshiper after another walked into the darkened sanctuary, the room was bathed in a beautiful glow, as light and shadow played upon the ceiling.

The pastor asked the architect to come forward and speak. He explained to the people that the lamps were his gift to the church. They were theirs to keep. He urged them to bring their lamps with them whenever they came to worship.

“You are the light of the world,” he continued. “If you are not present in worship, there will be a dark corner in need of light. When worship is ended, take your light home with you. Allow it to shine in your homes and in your lives, a reminder of the presence of Christ, to whose glory this building is dedicated.”

When the Christmas Eve service was ended, and the company of worshipers wended their way back down the hill, lamps in hand, it was as though a river of light was flowing from that church back into the community. Those who lived in a land of deep darkness — on them light had shined.

On Christmas Eve, we are surrounded by candles. We sing those beloved carols, feel the warm embrace of Christian community, and celebrate the presence of the Christ child in our midst. Afterward, we will leave this place to go home, or to the home of others we may be visiting.

But how will we journey? Will we leave this church the same as when we entered? Will we step out into that dark night unaffected — untouched — by the vision of Mary and Joseph and the babe lying in a manger?

He expects more of us than that, this Jesus, the babe of Bethlehem. “You are the light of the world,” he once told his disciples. The light of this Christian faith of ours is for sharing.

During the most trying and desperate days of America’s early history, a man wrote a notably gloomy letter to Benjamin Franklin. He concluded his letter with these pessimistic words: “The sun of liberty has set.”

Old Ben wrote back to him the briefest of notes. It said: “Then light the candles!”

You are the light-bearers who have answered the call of the gospel and whose task it is to “proclaim the mighty acts of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light” (1 Peter 2:9). As we leave here tonight, we become light-bearers to a dark and troubled world. Keep your lights burning brightly so others can follow as you illuminate the path to salvation. May others find Jesus, the light of the world, through you. Go shine. And have a blessed and glorious Christmas!