Sermon transcript:
If you want to see the light, go into the dark. You can’t see the stars during the light of day. Fireflies are just bugs in the afternoon light. The northern lights provoke no awe once the sun comes up. If you want to see the light, go into the dark. That’s what’s at the heart of Luke and Matthew’s stories—don’t look for God in a temple, a palace or leading a military campaign. When you picture the Messiah, don’t fixate on a king, a soldier or a priest. Picture a saviour whose birth is witnessed by vagrant shepherds and suspicious foreigners from the east. Picture the Messiah on the run from the powers of this world: a refugee. If you want to see the light, go into the dark. The dark is love’s womb.
This is not a Christmas reflection about belief; it’s more about healing. It’s about how the birth of Jesus reveals how God heals and how we can position ourselves to be carriers of that healing in our lives, our families, our communities, our world. If you want to see the light, go into the dark.
We know this already though, don’t we? We might have a hard time living by it because our world entices us with an intense light that blinds: success, power, independence, control. But, if we look deep within ourselves, we know: if you want to see the true light, the light of love and faith, you have to go into the dark. My mother who grows up very poor, commenting once on seeing the grandchildren growing bored of opening Christmas presents mentions to me what joy she feels as a child in receiving an orange at Christmas. If you want to see the light, go into the dark.
The spiritual writer and educator Parker Palmer says this of a very dark episode of depression in his life:
“Blessedly, there were several people, family and friends, who had the courage to stand with me in a simple and healing way. One of them was a [friend] who…stopped by late every afternoon, sat me down in a chair…removed my shoes and socks, and for half an hour simply massaged my feet…He rarely spoke a word, and when he did, he never gave advice but simply mirrored my condition. He would say, ‘I can sense your struggle today,’ or ‘It feels like you are getting stronger.’ I could not always respond, but his words were deeply helpful: They reassured me that I could still be seen by at least one-person, life-giving knowledge in the midst of an experience that makes one feel annihilated and invisible.”1
If you want to see the light, go into the dark. The spiritual writer Anne Lamott shares this story in the voice of her recovering alcoholic friend, Tom. It’s Tom’s first AA meeting. He is accompanied by a guy named Terry:
“Ten minutes before we began, Terry directed me to a long flight of stairs heading up to a windowless, airless room … Well, all of a sudden, the man in front of me soils himself … But he keeps walking. He doesn’t seem to notice (or care) … (He) stumbles forward and plops down in a chair … Terry approaches the man … ‘My friend,’ he says gently, ‘it looks like you have trouble here.’ The man just nods. ‘We’re going to give you a hand,’ says Terry. ‘So, three men help him to his feet, walk him to the recovery house next door and put him in the shower. They wash his clothes and shoes and give him their things to wear while he waits, they give him respect…
“I was just totally amazed by what I had seen … until that meeting, I had thought that I would recover with men and women like myself; which is to say, overeducated, fun to be with and housebroken. And that this would happen quickly and efficiently. But I was wrong. So I’ll tell you what the promise of Advent is: It is that God has set up a tent among us and will help us work together on our stuff.”2
If you want to see the light, go into the dark. The dark is going to come anyway, suffering is inevitable. Why not treat it as if it were a womb—a place where we wait, watch and listen expectantly, confident that grace is nurturing love, that the pain might just be the pain of labour birthing something unexpected and life-giving for our healing.
We are not healed through success, control, independence or power. We are healed through humble, vulnerable love, the kind that breaks down barriers, that calls us into community, that meets us where we are—in the muck and messiness of human living. Not when we’ve got it all together. That is the gift of Luke and Matthew’s stories, to take us into the dark that we may clearly see what we miss in the binding light of our anxiety driven striving for perfection, that God heals not in acts of overwhelming power but in the solidarity of accompanying us on our human journey.
In the dark, ordinary things become healing things—an orange, a foot rub, a shower, sitting in silence, dreams, a star, a stable for shelter, a feeding trough to hold a babe, the words of shepherds, and of course a child. If you want to see the light, go into the dark. In the words of the poet,
It is not over, this birthing…
There are always newer skies into which God can throw stars.
When we begin to think
that we can predict the Advent of God, that we can box the Christ
in a stable in Bethlehem, that’s just the time
that God will be born in a place we can’t imagine and won’t believe.3
Merry Christmas
Rev. Joe Gaspar
1 Parker Palmer, https://coevolvewithkiran.wordpress.com/2010/06/05/a-love-that-doesnt-invade-or-avoid-suffering/
2 Anne Lamott, https://annelamott.substack.com/p/here-we-are.
3 Ann Weems in her book, Kneeling in Bethlehem, also https://www.itemissaest.org/resources/daily-reflections/6064-december-26-2022-it-s-not-over-this-birthing