The Darkness Endures But the Light Prevails

Tomorrow morning somewhere, a single mother of three will be awakened by squealing children celebrating Christmas. With only a few gifts under the tree and a pot of beans for lunch, that family will share a moment of faith. Darkness endures but light prevails.

At Methodist hospital tomorrow morning, an elderly woman I used to work with will gather her children around her comatose husband, their father, to celebrate one last Christmas together. Laughter will be heard. Tears will flow. Darkness endures but the light prevails.

An old man will get out of bed tomorrow morning - there's no one to share breakfast with him. He'll read from Scripture about the Savior born in Bethlehem. The darkness endures but the light prevails.

A couple I know will struggle to keep peace with each other tomorrow. Counseling is going well but it is difficult. The darkness endures but the light prevails.

Here on this blessed night, a group of folks with bills to pay, health problems and job difficulties gathers together to hear a story, to light candles, to break bread, to share a cup, to lift hearts and voices in praise of our Savior. The darkness endures but the light prevails.

We're not called to pretend we see what we do not see. We have been given the gift of light, an illuminating light, a light by which we see and make our way - alone and together. We who the Spirit of God has gathered here this night are called to retell the memories other people cannot remember. We are called to renew our trust in the promises other people cannot dream true. We are called to reclaim an identity and a vocation others do not know about or take seriously. This is the invitation this story, this history of God for us and God with us, extends to us this holy night. The story of this God is our story.

When we introduce ourselves to someone new, when we describe to someone what we do, when we recount how we've lived, when we share with someone our dreams and hopes for the future, that telling is incomplete unless it also relates how we have experienced this God with us and for us. Why do we find sharing that piece of our own self’s being and becoming so daunting a task? The reality is we do it all the time, especially at this season.

If I said to you, close your eyes and put yourself inside this story. “'Twas the night before Christmas and all through the house, not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse…” – you could do it in a flash. But it's not so easy to write ourselves into the history of ancient people from a time long ago.

Ours is a culture that sees and hears and follows only what we can prove. To do anything else requires a new kind of light. A light that offers not just a new insight, but a kind of vitality that enables a believing community to recognize possibility and promise, to receive newness and healing where other folks only measure and count and analyze.

To claim this history, with all its possibility and promise, does not require us to blind ourselves to our reality. This is not the best of all possible worlds. We can admit that because it's consistent with the history of those who have known God with them and for them down through the ages.

Those histories, those memories, are not dull and closed. They are not some boring rendition from days long gone. Passed on from generation to generation, they press into our present with power to shape and inform what we see, how we feel, and what we do.

From the vantage point of his present day, the evangelist we call John looks back on three thousand years of his people's memories and stories. Borrowing the poetic style and images of those who passed to him their experience of this God, he pushes back his own timeline to when he orients the story’s start: In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things came into being through him, and without him not one thing came into being. What has come into being in him was life, and the life was the light of all people. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it. John 1: 1-5.

The darkness may endure, but it is light that prevails.

The light prevails because this is such a different sort of God. Despite every generation's efforts to mold this God into the shape of the gods of the nations, despite our own efforts to:
• bargain with this God
• berate this God
• belittle this God
• betray this God
• even to bury this God
the light reveals a God who is with us and a God who is for us.

In the beginning when God created the heavens and the earth, the earth was a formless void and darkness covered the face of the deep, while a wind from God swept over the face of the waters. Then God said, "Let there be light"; and there was light. And God saw that the light was good; and God separated the light from the darkness. Genesis 1: 1-4.

God made it so we could see what God sees, from that time and forevermore: The Lord said, to Moses, I have observed the misery of my people... I have heard their cry...Indeed, I know their sufferings...I have come down to deliver them...to bring them up. Exodus 3: 7-8.

This is where God's story becomes our story. This is where the fullness of God's revelation begins. The fourfold statement builds. The first two suggest only that God sees their trouble. The third assures that God takes it seriously. But the fourth is decisive. God is actively engaged for the slaves, coming into the crisis on behalf of the helpless ones. The darkness endures but the light prevails.

When Pharaoh's heart hardened eight times, God sent a ninth plague - darkness throughout the land of Egypt, but there was light in the places where the Israelites lived. The darkness endures but the light prevails.

God began, back then, to dwell with the chosen ones, to travel with them – a pillar of cloud by day, and a pillar of fire by night so that they might have light. The darkness endures but the light prevails.

Sometime before the Spirit prompted John to write, the author of the Book of Hebrews said it this way: Long ago God spoke to our ancestors in many and various ways by the prophets, but in these last days he has spoken to us by a Son, whom he appointed heir of all things, through whom he also created the worlds. He is the reflection of God's glory and the exact imprint of God's very being, and he sustains all things by his powerful word. Hebrews 1: 1-3

The darkness endures but the light prevails.

He was in the world, and the world came into being through him; yet the world did not know him. He came to what was his own, and his own people did not accept him. But to all who received him, who believed in his name, he gave power to become children of God, who were born, not of blood or of the will of the flesh or of the will of man, but of God. John 1:10-13

The Word became flesh. God with us. God for us. Emmanuel. Jesus Christ. Giving us the power to live as we were made, in God's image and likeness - to observe the people's misery, to hear their cries, to know their sufferings, to come down to them and to deliver them, to be with them and to be for them. The darkness endures but the light prevails.

How will the people who walk in the darkness of this day see a great light? To all who received him, who believed in his name, Emmanuel, he gave the power to become children of God, heirs to the light: You are the light of the world…let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father in heaven. Matthew I 5:14-16

In the story of the borning Christ, in our story, we can enlighten the memories of the people who cannot remember. In the story of the borning Christ, in our story, we can illuminate trust in the promises other people cannot dream true. In the story of the borning Christ, in our story, we can enflesh an identity and a vocation others do not know about or take seriously. The darkness endures, but the light prevails. God with us. God for us.

In that light we see ourselves:
• freed from the denial of who we are
• sprung loose from distrust about whose we are
• liberated from the deceit that we must make our own meaning
• released from the dread that we are alone
• delivered from the defeat that concludes every other story.
Saved from the slavery and helplessness of our sin we bask in the light of a covenant-making and covenant-keeping God.

As the light of the tiniest candle powerfully dispels the darkness, so our trust, renewed this night in a tiny, dependent baby sends us forth to live the rest of our borning days in the power of the promise the grown baby, named Emmanuel, last spoke, All authority on heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go therefore and make disciples, baptizing, and teaching. And remember, I am with you, always, to the end of the age. Matthew 28: 19-20.

The people - we people - who walked in darkness have seen a great light: those who lived in a land of deep darkness – we who've lived in a land of deep darkness, on them - on us - light has shined. Emmanuel. God with us. Jesus Christ. God for us.

It's a strange name for a baby, an even stranger name for a God. It's a promise for a time to come. It's our assurance for now. Until he comes again, the darkness will endure, and the light will prevail.