Ecclesia Princeton
Ecclesia Princeton
Christmas Eve- This Gathering Brightness
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Pastor Ian Graham leads us in the wonder of the story of Jesus' birth.
And just want to wish you all a Merry Christmas. My name is Ian. If you're not here normally, I am the pastor of this church alongside several of the team you've seen, Alfredo up here, Lisa, and several others who are here tonight. And so welcome. We pray that you have been met with the welcome of God Himself. When God comes to earth, the first word that he says from the heavens is peace. And so I don't know what your perspective on God is or what you think about how he feels about you, but I can assure you that he loves you, he greets you with the warmest of welcomes, and we pray you've received some semblance of that tonight. Well, I'm curious for you, when you look up at the night sky, what is the experience that you have? What do you think about? I know for some of you you're like, I haven't done that in years. I haven't seen a star in ages because I haven't just stopped to look. But I'm curious. I was running through our neighborhood the other night, and so many of the houses were lit up with Christmas decorations. It's really a beautiful time. There's something about the night and the stillness. It seems like it makes everything, even though there's still noise going around, it seems like it makes everything quiet. It makes the sky seem alive, electric, pulsing. For some of us, when we look up at the night sky, we hear and we feel the testimony of God's love for us. There's something reminding us that we are not alone. That the heavens are declaring the glories of God. For others of us, we can look up and acknowledge there's something beautiful, something stirring, something vague within us, but we almost cannot help. But notice that the dots of light, radiant though they may be, are just that. Just specks against the overwhelming array of black. Isn't, after all, the stars that truly make a mockery of any claims that we as humans would hold any special place in the vast cosmic universe that we live in? The stars so far away, don't they testify to how infinitesimally minuscule we are? How could we ever claim that there is a God who not only made the world, but he knows each one of us, he knows every hair on our head. The stars themselves, as they give off their light, aren't they just fading balls of gas? Their light reaching us from hundreds of millions of miles they have traveled. Already, when we look at the stars, aren't we seeing something that is passing away? And then we consider the vast expanse of the galaxies, the utter blackness and silence, the incomprehensible abyss that is space, and how, if we're honest, that seems to fit large swaths of our experience of the world. Hard, futile, heartbreaking, lonely, laden with pain, incomprehensible. It's easy to understand why so many look up at the night sky and they conclude the most austere truth of all, that the world is some sort of cosmic accident of chemical and chance. That we are, in spite of all of our best attempts to convince ourselves otherwise, alone. The claims of the darkness are manifold. There are those like Nietzsche and his ilk who determine that the only vein of truth in the world is power. Therefore, people should take as much power as they can. The powerful run and rule the world. When we look at the world, it can often feel like these people are right, that the powerful are taking advantage while everybody else is playing by the rules and playing catch-up. There are others. Those that have stared up at the night sky and determined there's nothing else. Nothing other than emptiness. Which means that ultimately, no matter how much we try to carve out some semblance of meaning in this world, our lives are inevitably meaningless and therefore hopeless. There are others who see the sheer scale of all that we have observed. And maybe you feel like there's some force in the world, vague though it may be, the universe, some cosmic posture towards you. But how can it know your name? How can it know who you are? The universe is some impersonal force, maybe karmic. You try your best to be your best on your own, and that's all you can do. The story of the birth of Jesus of Nazareth goes to the depths of the night. Jesus is born when the night is at its darkest. To challenge the darkness and all of its claims. I'm going to put up a couple of images for you from the Webb telescope. I find these so fascinating and so beautiful. The birth of Jesus is like a telescope, revealing that which has always been true. It's incredible to think that these galaxies, these fixtures in the cosmos always existed. We just didn't always have the ways to see them. And the love of God is like that. Jesus doesn't change God's posture towards you. He doesn't redirect God's heart towards you. Jesus is the expression of God's heart, the gift given that reveals fully and finally what it is that God looks like. Hebrews 1 says that in the past God has spoken in many ways and in many times, but now he has spoken fully and finally in his Son, who is the exact representation of his being. And the birth of Jesus that we gather here to tell the story of and to see the significance of, is like a telescope revealing to us the luminous love of God's glory. What Frederick Begner calls this gathering brightness. To those who see nothing but unmitigated power as the root of the world, the root of Jesse comes to us, born in the city of David. But not as the incumbent king or rightful heir born in a palace, but born to peasant parents outside Jerusalem, born far from the centers of power, far from Rome, born as a baby. What could be more vulnerable or more helpless than a baby? And when God comes to declare his sovereign might and his power, he comes in the most vulnerable form of all. To those that see the blackness in the night sky as the definitive feature, the constant, that life is nothing more than a statistical anomaly. The night Jesus is born, the skies dance and break forth into song. They pronounce glory to God who made the world and peace on earth and everyone who lives in it, because God's favor rests upon the world, which means that God's favor rests upon you. As G.K. Chesterton says, the birth of Jesus reveals that our homes are under miraculous skies where the Yule tail was born. The one star shines brighter than the rest as testimony that the light of the world is being born into all that is dark in the world. And for those who at best see some sort of impersonal force as the guiding principle governing the cosmos, unto us a child is born. The government rests upon his shoulders. He's called wonderful counselor, mighty God, everlasting Father, Prince of Peace, and He has given the name Yeshua Jesus, which means God saves. God has a name. And he knows your name. Pastor Greg Boyd says that only the gospel portrait of God makes sense of the contradictory fact that the world is at once so beautiful and so ugly. John 1 says it this way In the beginning was the Word. And the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning. Through him all things were made. Without him nothing was made that has been made. In him was life. And that life was the light of all mankind. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it. The true light that gives light to everyone was coming into the world. He was in the world, and though the world was made through him, the world did not recognize him. He came to that which was his own. But his own did not receive him, yet to all who did receive him. To those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God. Children born not of natural descent, nor of human decision, or of a husband's will, but born of God. The word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the one and only Son who came from the Father, full of grace and full of truth. The birth of Jesus in the middle of the night is not just a nice element in the story, it is testimony, fully and finally, to God's response to the darkness of the world, held in the clutches of human sinfulness and death. As the poet and farmer Wendell Berry says, the night gets darker and darker, and then Jesus is born. Jesus stares the darkness in the face with the radiance of the face of God. Jesus first takes the darkness by storm with hosts of angels and the heavens declaring the glory of God. And he will deal darkness its death blow as we fast forward to the very end of his earthly life, as he drinks the cup of darkness, takes the darkness onto his very shoulders and shatters it with the glory of his everlasting light. These aren't just cosmic ideas or features from a story long ago or somewhere else. Jesus is God's word. Not just to the world, but to us here, gathered here in this room. If you're feeling weak and powerless, if you're feeling alone, if you're feeling sad, if you're feeling passed over, forgotten, forsaken, hopeless, like life doesn't have the shine that it used to. God's word to us and for us in the person of Jesus is that God is with us and that God is for us. If the world seems darker and darker as you look around or you watch the news, the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not and cannot and will not ever overcome it. If you're feeling anxious and afraid, listen to what heaven has to say to you in the story. Peace. If you're feeling unworthy, or that the darkness that you dragged in here because of decisions that you have made, that that darkness is great. He comes as the light of the world to liberate us from the fetters of our sin and our shame. Jesus doesn't hide from the darkness, he shatters it. He comes to the black of the night to declare to us that God loves us, that he will never leave us or forsake us. Diedrich Bonhoeffer was a famous 20th-century Christian thinker and pastor and a dissident to Hitler's Third Reich in Germany. He was imprisoned for his faith, starting seminaries and leading pastors, to be faithful to Jesus in the face of the claims of Nazism. Eventually, he was executed just before the war ended in 1945. And we have a poem from his last Christmas on earth. Diedrich Bonhoeffer was engaged to be married to a young woman named Maria. Obviously, never got to fulfill that pledge. And he would write to his friends who sustained him though he was in prison. And he writes this poem. I'm going to invite the worship team forward as we transition. Because often this is how we experience the world at once. So beautiful when we look at the night sky. And at one and the same breath, so hard, so perplexing, so lonely. And Jesus comes expressing the beauty to all that is painful and hard here. To declare to us the good news, the gospel truth. That God has come to be with us. And he didn't just come a long time ago in some place far, far away. He is here now in the room. Because this Jesus, that we celebrate his birth, would give of his life, and on the third day would be raised from the dead, would pour out his spirit so that he would be present in every place, undoing death and its claims, breaking the darkness, shattering it. And filling all the lonely, grievous places, all the places that seem God forsaken with his presence. And he is here now. And it's our prayer that he would just nudge you with his presence here this morning, that interior of your heart. That whisper in the confines of your soul saying, This isn't just the story for people who seem like they have it all together, who showed up in the room and seemed like they know when to stand and when to sit. This is for you. God's word to you, the light shining in the darkness, the light of the world breaking forth a new dawn. Bonhoeffer writes, By kindly powers surrounded, peaceful and true, wonderfully protected with consolation dear, safely I dwell with you this whole day through. And surely into another year. Though from the old our hearts are still in pain, while evil days oppress with burden still, Lord, give to our frightened souls again salvation and thy promises fulfill. And shouldest thou offer us the bitter cup, resembling sorrow, filled to the brim and overflowing, we will receive it thankfully without trembling from thy hand so good and ever loving. But if it be thy will to give joy of this world and bright sunshine, then our minds, we will pastimes relive, and all our days be wholly thine. Let candles burn, both warm and bright, which to our darkness has brought, and if that can be, bring us together in the light. Thy light sings in the night unsought. When we are wrapped in silence most profound, may we hear that song most fully raised. From all unseen world that lies around, and thou art by all thy children praised. By kindly powers, protected wonderfully, confident, we wait for come what may. Night and morning, God is by us faithfully, and surely at each newborn day. There is a new dawn breaking forth in the birth of Jesus. And everybody is invited to be a part of it. Let's pray. Holy Spirit, we pray that you would come. God is the only irrefutable testimony, God, that anything we're saying is not just myth, God. Or not just a nice cosmic antidote to our existential loneliness, God. God, I know that many in here have suffered greatly. God, they've stared up at the night sky and asked, where were you? Where are you? God, I pray that in your gentleness and in your kindness, Lord, you would just show your face here this way. God, for others of us, we have just resigned this to old wives' tales or something that makes people feel better, God. Or maybe in the power of your story, just glimpse your presence here. And the wonder of it, God. God becoming human, God taking on flesh, God becoming a baby. It's all so wonderful. God, would you show us how you are mending all things? Would you give us a glimpse of your healing here this evening? As we celebrate the healer, the great physician, come to us, the light of the world, shattering the darkness, coming to the depths of the night, and revealing the face of God. We thank you for your good news, Lord. We pray these things, we hear these words all in your name, in the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit.