We used to attend a church with two Christmas Eve services. One, the first, and perfect for families with young children looking to burn off the Christmas Eve excitement, was a raucous, musical celebration, a birthday party for Jesus, complete with balloons and favors and sweet treats afterward. The second was later in the night, quiet, reverent, by candlelight. Such is the season that is upon us. We move the furniture from the middle of the room, make space where we can dance and welcome the advent of Light, keeping the night at bay, outside our celebration. We close the door and bar the noise and onslaught of life and its busyness that we might sit silently in the simplicity that is darkness, treasuring the peace. In our homes, massive trees usurp spaces once dedicated to frivolous things like chairs and tables. Move them out, the tree is coming! Dusty boxes of tinsel and glitter sit in freshly vacuumed living rooms waiting to spew their contents over scrubbed walls and perfectly polished credenzas. Lists and menus, scribbled and dog-eared lie beside pristine figures of a holy couple and the Babe --the manic and the manger. It all seems so paradoxical. And why shouldn't it?
The King of all kings enters our presence. Life comes to die. The Hope of Nations is born on a map dot. A child born to a virgin. Radiant angels announce His birth in the skies over grimy sheep and their equally grimy custodians. The anticipated, longed for Messiah will be rejected by His own people --people He chose to be His people!
This is a season of dark and light. The Son of God, the Light of the world, came to broken human beings separated from God by sin, people walking in darkness. The glory of light is made more glorious when placed squarely in the center of darkness. Twinkling pinpoints of burning gas gleam in a barren black sky. The light that represents the ferocious presence of God boldly interrupts the darkened drunken debauchery of Belshazzar's Feast by Rembrandt. The single lamp post, defiantly stakes its claim against the pitch-black of night. Our faces are awash with the advent candle's glow as we contemplate the arrival of Hope of Glory. But when we really look, when we really stop to see, we discover there is no paradox at all: darkness serves the light.
The Light has come. But it is best seen --He is best seen when the world is dark. So many around us are paralyzed by hopelessness. Friends who are despairing, neighbors who are terminally ill; homelessness and financial ruin. Our world is crying out for Light, leaning forward, peering into the darkness. He is here! He has come! The darkness must be there so they can fully appreciate the light. The darkness serves the light. Tell them! Share with them the Light. They are waiting to see Him, to dance and sing and sit in silence and treasure His peace. They have been brought to this place of darkness that they might see the Light and He might be made all the more glorious.
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