What time will you go to bed tonight? It can be a long night if you are excited. You count down the hours until the great day arrives – Christmas morning.
But let’s not rush too fast to tomorrow. Let’s think about tonight. When does Christmas start in the story? Well our carols we picked for our Christingle service tonight give quite large clues…
On Christmas night all Christians sing to hear the news the angels bring…
Silent night, holy night, sleeps the world hid from sight…
It came upon a midnight clear that glorious song of old…
O little town of Bethlehem, how still we see thee lie…
Christmas, God’s work begins in the dark. At the beginning of all things God was in the darkness and he said “let there be light.”
And at night, we have shepherds on a hillside keeping watch over their flocks – some Bible translations call it the night watch” It was the time after sunset and before sunrise, the late-night hours, a time of total darkness.
They see their world filled with glory as a bright angelic host appears in the sky above them. Our reading from Matthew has Joseph asleep at night and another angel in his dream telling him what to do and promising him it would all be okay - he’s to name the child Jesus, Immanuel, God with us. And in the morning when he wakes up his world changes. He does what the angel asked.
I wonder when we wake up in the morning what we will find. I hope we get some surprises. No one expected what happened this night in Bethlehem really, although some wise folk a long time before said it would happen. The night was busy, busier than even Father Christmas getting to us on his sleigh and squeezing down all those chimneys. Jesus was born during the night watch, at the time when the darkness is most intense. Jesus is the Light of World. Jesus is the true light coming into the world He is “the light that shines in the darkness” and he will later explain, “I came into the world as light, so that everyone who believes in me might not remain in the darkness”
We’ve lit Christingles in church tonight, Christ lights,to remember the light of Christ. Despite whatever darkness there may be in the world, it will not prevail. “The darkness has not overcome it” not in the past, not now, not in the future, not ever.
Jesus is born at midnight to bring light into our troubled world. Yesterday, today and forever. This is the holiest night of the year which just asks us to wait and to hope and to expect and to wonder…
There’s a lovely verse in what we call the Apocrypha, books written between the old and new testaments. In a book called the Wisdom of Solomon it says this:
“ For while all things were in quiet silence, and that night was in the midst of her swift course, your almighty word leapt down from heaven, out of your royal throne.”
It’s lovely that verse isn’t it? We wait in the quiet of the darkness for God to leap down to us from his throne up above somewhere.
And here’s another:
“Consecrate yourselves, for tomorrow the Lord will do wonders among you.”
It was Christmas Eve and the world stood still - a poem by Tim Carter
It was Christmas Eve
And the world stood still
Just for a moment
Waiting
Wondering
Hoping
Might it be that this time
This time of all times
The promise would be fulfilled
And the wars would end
And the crying cease
And the people join hands in unity?
Waiting
Wondering
Hoping
Might it be this time
This time of all times?
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