Sermon by:
The Very Rev. Pamela Dolan
Sermon for Christmas Day December 25, 2024
“Light & Life”
There’s a reason that candles and lights are one of our favorite symbols of Christmas. In the northern hemisphere, Christmas occurs just a few days after the winter solstice, when we have become accustomed to longer and longer nights and shorter and shorter days. Even if we’re used to the darkness, most of us are still longing for just a little more light in the world, in our homes, and maybe even in our hearts.
There are so many places around the world today where lights are dimmed because of war, oppression, poverty, and violence. It even happens in our own city, sometimes our own homes. It is hard to believe in a light that will never go out, that will be undimmed by suffering and strife, a light that the darkness cannot overcome.
I’m not sure how many of you are fans of the Louise Penny “Inspector Gamache” books, but they are a treat. They take place in a mythical Canadian village called three pines, where the wonderful detective Armand Gamache has taken up residence. In the most recent book (I promise, no spoilers!) Gamache is facing a truly evil situation, something that could harm or even kill hundreds, maybe thousands, of innocent people.
Amid the stress of dealing with this dark and terrible threat, Gamache finds himself outside watching fireflies, his attention caught by their “lighthearted dance.” Unfortunately, in California we don’t have fireflies, but when I lived in the Midwest, they were one of the true delights of summer. Sometimes called lightning bugs, they are these tiny little things that flit around and look like fairy lights come to life. Anyway, Gamache found himself wondering what purpose fireflies serve. They are so small, their light so fleeting. And then he thought, “Perhaps there was no [greater] purpose. Perhaps being a small light in the night was purpose enough…these tiny creatures were a resistance against the vast darkness.”
Even a tiny, ephemeral light can be a resistance against the darkness. This is a Christmas message indeed.
Today’s Gospel reading is taken from the first chapter of John. It is beautiful poetry, but it can be a little abstract, and almost too familiar. To help myself hear it anew, I read it again in the paraphrase version The Message, by Eugene Peterson. Listen again to the opening lines:
The Word was first,
the Word present to God,
God present to the Word.
The Word was God,
in readiness for God from day one.
Everything was created through him;
nothing—not one thing!—
came into being without him.
What came into existence was Life,
and the Life was Light to live by.
The Life-Light blazed out of the darkness;
the darkness couldn’t put it out.
“The life was light to live by.” That’s it. We have a light to live by. That light is Jesus, the light of the world. That light is enough, and more than enough.
It really does take only a single candle, or even a dancing firefly, to create a light that can be followed, a light that can overcome darkness, and change not only our own lives but ultimately the whole world. Amen.
