It’s a family tradition to light a candle in the darkness.

Luke 2:4-7

December 20, 2009

Family tradition

The world was a dark place in December 1940.  Adolf Hitler’s Nazi German fighting machine forces had subdued western Europe, including France.  Great Britain had lost 40,000 lives to German bombs, and it was hard to imagine how, or if, it could survive.  All of its gold and foreign exchange reserves were moved to Canada.  The United States would not formally enter World War II for another year, but was building its military machine and preparing to lend material support to its allies.

On the world stage, Hickory, North Carolina, was rather insignificant.  But in the downtown Reformed church, Orpha Althouse, the pastor’s wife, created a Christmas worship experience that defied the darkness with a service of light.  Her high school girls’ Sunday School class would dress like angels and spread candle light throughout the congregation in a worship service of Scripture readings and Christmas music held on the Sunday afternoon before Christmas.  Seventy years later, the tradition has continued uninterrupted.

I’m wondering if there is anyone present who, as far as you can remember, has attended every Candlelighting service since 1940.

It’s a family tradition in the Christian church to light a candle in the darkness.  We get it honestly – from our Father.

Everlasting light

Bethlehem of Judea was a dark place 2,000 years ago.  With only 1,000 or so permanent residents, there wasn’t much to the little town except its legacy as the home town of King David.   Nobody much cared what happened in Bethlehem.

Or in Judea, for that matter.  Since the glory days of David and Solomon, darkness had been the rule and not the exception in Israel.  A succession of dominant powers – Assyria, Egypt, Babylon, Persia, Greece, Rome – had all had their way with the little nation at the crossroads of commerce and conflict.  Except for a relatively brief rebellion under the Maccabees – still remembered by Jews during annual Hanukah celebrations – the people of Judea had little reason to believe their future would ever be different than the status quo of pay your taxes to Rome and submit.

Oh, and register for Caesar’s census.  Forget about your business.  Leave your friends and family behind.  Don’t let the fact that you need to travel 90 miles on foot during the rainy season be a deterrent.  Oh, and being “great with child”?  An irrelevant detail.  This is not about your convenience and comfort. 

So nobody’s particularly happy about their lives or their world or their little town when Roman soldiers and census workers take over the only inn in the village and David’s descendants have to sleep in crowded mud huts or tent villages or stable-caves.  Bethlehem is a cranky, subdued, hopeless, insignificant dot on the map when Joseph and Mary arrive there.  It’s a quiet night in a dark place.

“O little town of Bethlehem, how still we see thee lie.  Above thy deep and dreamless sleep the silent stars go by.  Yet in thy dark streets shineth the everlasting light.  The hopes and fears of all the years are met in thee tonight.”

What the world needs now

An ancient Chinese proverb says, “Better to light a candle than to curse the darkness.”  Cursing the darkness is what we do when we complain that the world prefers “Happy Holidays” to “Merry Christmas” or wants to take down public nativities.

We gather here tonight to light candles. But the candles we light are only symbolic.  We are only reminding ourselves that what the dark world needs is light.

The Apostle James says we light a candle in the darkness when we care for orphans and widows in his name.  We can do that by giving to the Good Samaritan Fund, or by joining in the caroling tomorrow night to those often forgotten, or by seeking out those who are overlooked and needy. Find a way to shine his light with your good deeds and glorify your Father in heaven.

 We light a candle by believing and sharing the news that this birth in Bethlehem was only the means to an end.  God had no interest in creating an annual global sentiment of warm, fuzzy feelings about the little baby born in the manger.  He had no desire to reinforce our delusion that his greatest delight is brightly-wrapped packages and festive meals with those we love around the table and twinkling decorations that mask our desperate human condition for a few weeks in December.

God had a passion to save the world – to penetrate every corner with light and truth.  God sent his own Son into the world to free those trapped in sin and self-destruction and despair and conflict and bitterness.  He sent his Son not only that he would be born but that he would die for the sins of the world and rise again to give us new life.  Tonight would be a wonderful night to let his light into your heart – to determine that he will be the center of your world and the object of your passion not only during this glorious annual celebration but from this day on.

Evangelist Ravi Zacharias says,

The pursuit of the Greeks was knowledge.  The university and the scholar was central to Greek culture.

The pursuit of the Roman was glory.  Nothing had matched the glory of Rome. Nothing had matched the splendor of that so-called eternal city. We know it wasn’t built in a day – and all roads led to it

The Hebrew was pursuing light, The Greek was pursuing knowledge, The Roman was pursuing glory, and the apostle Paul knowing that, and inspired by God’s word in 2 Corinthian’s 4:6 says this:

“For God who said let light shine out of darkness, made His light to shine in our hearts, by giving to us the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Christ Jesus our Lord” (emphasis added).

Every Scripture that we read tonight, every song that we play and sing, every candle that we light – they all focus our attention on the light that shone on Bethlehem that God’s light might transform the world.

Amen.