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| Gerard van Honthorst (1592-1656), Adoration of the Shepherds |
John 1:1-5, 10-14
First Sunday of Christmas
The lectionary reading
for this first Sunday of Christmas or Christmastide is Jesus’ flight into Egypt
in Matthew 2, followed by Herod’s fury that the magi tricked him, which
resulted in the killing of every boy under two years of age, remembered as the “holy
innocents” (Mt. 2:12-23). In Western churches, the Feast of the Holy Innocents is
on the fourth day of Christmas, December 28, and, today, December 29 in
Orthodox Churches. It’s a disturbing text, reminding us that the birth of Jesus
generates an enormous amount of resistance. It reminds of the cost involved in
sending the Son into the world. The coming of the light increases darkness. It reminds
us that sometimes we don’t want to be servants of the light or bear witness to
the light or even encounter the light. We prefer darkness. And this is a dark
story.
And that’s the primary
reason why I decided not to preach on the Matthew text today. I’ve never
preached on this text. I thought about taking it on this year, but something in
me was pushing against this idea. Yes, it’s a story that needs to be told.
There was a very moving op-ed piece in The New York Times on Friday by Esau
McCaulley, an Anglican priest. There’s something about this story that speaks to
where we are these days as a nation. It’s a reminder McCaulley writes, “that we
live in a world in which political leaders are willing to sacrifice the lives
of innocent on the altar of power,…it’s a world with families on the run, where
the weeping of mothers is often not enough to win mercy for their children,…the
story of the innocents calls upon us to consider the moral cost of the
perpetual battle for power in which the poor tend to have the highest casualty
rate.”[1]
This is why, McCaulley makes clear, “The very
telling of the Christmas story is an act of resistance.” We don’t often think of
the Christmas story in this way, we have tamed and domesticated the story and
radical implications of Christ’s birth. But it is an act of resistance against
the powers that be that continue to thwart God’s justice and love and peace in
the world.
That’s why I decided not
to preach on Matthew 2 this morning. I couldn’t handle it. These are difficult
and divisive times, people are scared and anxious. Everything seems to be
unraveling all around us. That’s why I felt drawn to John 1, to the life and
light of God enfleshed in Jesus of Nazareth. Yes, we cannot avoid the darkness
of the age and the suffering occurring at the hands of the superrich and
powerful. But we also need to sit with
the light of Christ for a season. We
need light. Stars. We need epiphanies. We don’t exactly know when Christ was
born. But for the first Christians, his birth was the bright morning star (Rev.
22:16) giving new light to the world. The celebration of his birth was placed
near the darkest time of the year (in the Northern hemisphere). Now, while it
is not historically true to say Jesus was born on December 25, it’s symbolically true.
The early Church had a brilliant idea to place the birth of Jesus around this
time of year, near the winter solstice, when, as the ancients believed, a new
sun was born. The Church, around 350, formally placed Jesus’ birth
near the longest night of the year (north of the Equator), among days
associated with two Roman solar festivals.
On Wednesday, we
celebrated the birth of Christ our light. On Christmas Eve, relying
on the light coming from the Christ Candle, I read John 1 in the dark. We
heard, “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 1:4-5). In his carol “Hark! The Herald Angels Sing,”
Charles Wesley (1707-1778) beautifully captured this image: “Light and life to
all he brings/ risen with healing in his wings.” [2]
Light. Light
as source of life. Christ’s life as light. Light that
allows us to see and be seen. Life and light, surrounding us and
filling us. If you think of it, right now, we are being bathed in
light. We are in the light. The light from the sun
allows us to see, but as we see, and right now, we are also in
light. As the psalmist said, “In your light,” O God, “we see light”
(Psalm 36:9). We are in the light of God. And the
light of God (1 Jn. 1:5), this life, this presence of God—shines!
The seventeenth-century Dutch
painter, Gerard van Honthorst (1592-1656),
painted many biblical scenes. His nickname was Gherado della notti, “Gerard of
the night,” as he was known for painting night scenes containing artificial
light. In his piece Adoration of the Shepherds, the infant Jesus
literally shines. Jesus is the source of light in the painting, the light
originates in him.
I love this piece because
it’s a reminder that the light of Christ shines in the
darkness! I take enormous comfort in knowing this. We’re so prone to
think dualistically in terms of light vs. dark, of light casting away
darkness. But that’s not John’s understanding here. That
wasn’t his experience of the Risen Christ. Christ shows us that the
light shines in the darkness—which means darkness is never
completely dark. There’s something of God’s light and life present
even in the darkest moments of our lives. And the good news is that the
light of Christ shines in the darkest times and the darkness hasn't power to
overcome it. Christ is Solus Invictus: Unconquered Light.
So, while it might not
be historically true to say that Jesus was born on December 25, it’s definitely
true at a deeper level, symbolically, theologically, psychologically, it’s true
experientially that the light of Christ shines even in the darkest days and the
darkness, in the end, has no power over the light, for the light of Christ
cannot be defeated. And, we could say, with Christina Rossetti
(1830-1894)—who died on this day in 1894—that in the bleak midwinter Christ’s light
shines all the brighter.[3]
Rossetti’s midwinter
should not be taken literally. It, too, is a symbol, a metaphor for
an interior midwinter, a life filled with short days, longing
for light, longing for life. She’s waiting for something new to be
born in her, the birth of new life in the frozen places of her
heart. Rossetti once wrote, “What would I give for a heart of flesh
to warm me through, instead of this heart of stone, ice-cold whatever I
do!... What would I give for tears! Not smiles but scalding tears, to wash the
black mark clean, and to thaw the frost of years…”[4]
She’s waiting for a thaw, for the warmth of fire, the warmth of
life. She’s waiting for light to be born again in her, to bring
her into a new day, a new life, a new world. She hopes, like we all do, to be
able to give the warmth of our hearts—heart of flesh, pumping with blood and
life and passion—to Christ, the Christ whose light was born in Bethlehem and
still shines brightly in the world, and maybe all the more brightly in the dark
places of our lives and our world.
This is the good news of
Christmas! God’s light has come into the world. To tell this story—to affirm
it, to live it—is always an act of resistance against the powers that be. As we
move into the new year, may we seek after that light and walk in the light of
the Lord (Is 2:5). Amen.
[1]Esau McCaulley, “TheBloody Fourth Day of Christmas,” The New York Times, December 27, 2019.
[2] First included in
Hymns and Sacred Poems (1739).
[3] Rosetti’s poem “A
Christmas Carol” was first published in the January 1872 issue of Scribner’s
Monthly. The poem was later set to music by Gustav Holst (1874-1934) and
given the name “In the Bleak Midwinter.” The carol was included in The
English Hymnal, published in 1906.
[4] Cited by Jan Marsh, Christina Rosetti: A
Literary Biography (New York: Faber and Faber, 2012), 24.
