Reflection on the Nativity (Christmas)
By the Rev’d. Allison K. Dean
(Read/listen to last week’s reflection here.)
Listen to this week’s reflection here.
The collect for the First Sunday after Christmas Day reads,
Almighty God, you have poured upon us the new light of your incarnate Word: Grant that this light, enkindled in our hearts, may shine forth in our lives; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen.
If there’s only one thing you remember about this collect, remember this: Jesus is the light of the world.
And in what appears to be an ever-deepening darkness in our country, we desperately need the light of Christ to shine brightly. We need to have the darkness of our life illuminated and dispelled by the light of Christ.
Not a day goes by that we don’t hear at least one story of theft, rape, murder, drugs, physical and sexual abuse, corruption in high and low places. The complete breakdown of home and family life that is at the root of many of our problems is part of this darkness too. As are hardened hearts, despair and feelings of hopelessness, drunkenness, sexual immorality in every form, fear, neglect of vulnerable persons, and loneliness caused by lack of human connection and relationships.
Many people are asking what the Church is going to do about this situation in which we find ourselves. But I have said before, and I’m going to say again, that institutions do not exist apart from the people who inhabit them. I am the Church. You are the Church. We are the Church. So, when we ask what the Church is doing in the face of such deep darkness, what we’re really asking is what are we, the people, going to do.
I put to you that there is only one thing for us to do as Christians, and that is to live in the light of Christ.
This light is already shining. We don’t have to go looking for it. Jesus is the light of the world, and in him God has already done his great work of salvation. In Jesus Christ the infinite one became finite; the immortal put on mortal flesh.
It’s crazy, strange, and wonderful. It’s too much for our minds to ever fully comprehend, and yet, it is, in a way, simple, because God did everything by his almighty power. But some complexity gets introduced when we begin to understand the implications of the light of Christ coming into the world.
When light begins to shine it reveals all the things that the darkness hid. When light begins to shine it shows us all the potholes in the road of life that threaten to hurt and break us if we fall into them. When light begins to shine it exposes all the attitudes, desires, and behaviours which are contrary to the will of God. This is why embracing and living in the light of Christ is complex, has many layers, because it requires that we become different people. And many of us don’t actually want to truly live in the light of Christ. We say we do, but when it comes right down to it, we don’t want to be inconvenienced by Jesus’ demands on us. Indeed, Scripture tells us that “people loved the darkness because their deeds were evil” (John 3:19).
My friends, the fullness of the Christian life extends far beyond the day of our baptism, far beyond the day of our confirmation. Those are moments in time which must be lived out in the rest of our life if they are to have any meaning at all. Thus, we ask in the collect, Grant that this light, enkindled in our hearts, may shine forth in our lives.
Jesus did not give up his divine existence, his “equality with God” in Paul’s words, to enact the world’s greatest feel-good story. Jesus was born in a dirty manger, surrounded by animals, so that you, me, and the whole creation, could live a different kind of life. We read in Paul’s letter to Titus that “the grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation to all, training us to renounce impiety and worldly passions, and in the present age to live lives that are self-controlled, upright, and godly…” (2:11-12, 14).
The Christian life calls for total commitment to the will and ways of God. If we put as much time and energy into praying, meditating on Scripture, worshipping God, and discerning his will as we put into making money, and into politics and junkanoo, we’d really see what living in the light of Christ can do in our life and in the life of the world.
Yes, we are living in a time when the darkness feels impenetrable and permanent. But as John so beautifully reminds us in the opening of his account of the Gospel, “The light shines in the darkness, and darkness did not overcome it” (1:5).
Jesus came as light into the darkness of the world.
And is he calling us even now to come to the light, to live in the light, to be the light by which others may see his light.
Amen and thanks be to God.