Gloria Dei Lutheran Church

John 1: 1-14

There is a woman named Cecilia that I’ve followed on Instagram since 2020. She lives on the tiny island of Svalbard. For those unfamiliar, Svalbard is an island close to the North Pole that belongs to Norway. Cecilia’s life on this arctic island offers a glimpse into another world. Living so far north means you cannot leave the city limits without a shotgun because of the every day presence of polar bears. Living on this island means limitations. There is a small Lutheran church and a pastor I so admire—she does beautiful community building. So you can go to worship, but you cannot give birth there—well, you can, but they don’t have a labor and delivery unit so you might not have help. So people leave the island for the mainland when they become pregnant. You also can’t die there. Well, again, technically you can. But you cannot be buried there due to the permafrost, which prevents decomposition.

This is a strange topic for Christmas morning. I know. Stick with me. All of those things are interesting about life in the far, far north but what holds my imagination the most is the play between light and dark in that place. In the summertime, it’s light 24 hours a day for months at a time. And right now, it’s the opposite. They call it Polar Night and it’s just dark. Dark when you go to bed and when you get up and when you go to work or run to the grocery story or walk your dog or go to church. Darkness. If you are going to live there, you have to make friends with the extremes and of course, with the darkness.

In the days leading up to the sun setting for the last time in early fall, there is a ritual deep cleaning of your space. Because these sunny days here in St Paul that show me all the streaks on the windows and dirt that I have missed on my floor do not exist during Polar Night. There are also liberal uses of twinkly strings of lights and warm candlelit rooms and daily fires in the fire place. There are cozy activities and meals that nourish and lots of resting. This tiny frozen place make me think about acceptance. Because you move to that island knowing this is how it’s going to be.

You come to accept that the season you are in is long but it won’t last forever because the earth will turn and the sun will rise on the horizon once again and a light will shine into all that darkness.

This morning, we are gathered because of a tiny baby God. How silly and absolutely glorious it is that God comes to us as a baby. Which means the God of the whole universe chooses to grow at the pace of a human. Mary will have to trim eensy wheensy fingernails. It will be a year before Jesus takes his first steps without the assistance of aunties holding his little chubby fingers. He’ll do that drunken toddler walk for a while and then be off and running. Jesus will need to learn how to play well with others in the neighborhood. There will be skinned knees and growing pains and teenaged acne. Learning his way around saws, chisels, mallets, planers in his dad’s shop. Jesus grew at the pace of a human. How wonderfully relatable to us. God with skin. Light in human form.

The light of Jesus shines so bright that we do not have to worry whether or not we will recognize it. You will know. Just last night, those shepherds were on an ordinary night shift until the angels showed up. And the glory of the Lord shone all around them, church, and it changed everything. They could not stop talking about it. They immediately found their way to the manger. It feels like foreshadowing to our Easter story when Mary meets the resurrected Jesus and exclaims, “I have seen the Lord.” You cannot hide that sort of goodness and light.

At the beginning of December, we went and got a Christmas tree and put it up in our living room. We have a small house, so every year it means moving some furniture out and over to make it possible. It’s not unlike when a baby enters a household, priorities and things we focus on tends to shift, furniture gets moved, space made.

The baby is here, which means we are all in the business of making space for it. The Gospel of John 1 tells us that Jesus has moved into our neighborhood.

As people of faith, our job is to point to it. To testify that we have seen it. There is a well worn quote of St Francis where he says “Preach the Gospel at all times. If necessary, use words.” That’s always been such a powerful idea to me. But I wonder if St Francis had ever met us mainline protestants if he might amend it to say, “Preach the Gospel at all times and sometimes you might need to say a few words about it.” It’s our growing edge. Because I know we all see it. We see Jesus setting up camp right here in this campground. We see the light in the darkness. Or, as Hebrew scholar and Episcopal priest Will Gafney translates it, “A light shines in the bleakness. And the bleakness has not overcome it.”

Wow, that feels about right. It does feel bleak. But there is something comforting that it has always been. Just as light and glory have always been. It wasn’t invented in the manger, it has been there since the beginning.

Just like salt cannot become unsalty. Light only knows how to be light. It’s not your job to manufacture the light. It’s your job to point to it, to reflect it, to claim it and to tell about it.

The dominant narratives do feel so bleak. But thank God for the pop culture and books that bring us other truths.
Right now we have Wicked and KPop DHs, before those we had Star Wars, Lord of the Rings. Stories of overcoming challenging times, people born into hard family dynamics, finding the courage to go on quests, revealing bigger truths.

Jesus is a counter narrative. This story is one where the hungry are fed and the low are lifted up and the children are blessed by the tender mercy of God. On Wednesday’s when we gathered to sing Holden Evening Prayer, we sang these words and ideas from scripture not because they sound like a nice idea. But singing them brings them into the world. It is an act of resistance not only to gather and pray but to claim that we are about God’s work in world. That is the light shining in the bleakness.

Christmas Eve is a pretty big deal here at Gloria Dei. But listen, we are living breathing testimonies this morning that Christmas is more than one day. It’s a full liturgical season and we are just getting started. But I’m going to push that even further and say Christmas is a lifestyle. Because this light is going to keep carrying us through every season.

And this is no caravan of despair. Christ has come and continues to arrive into our towns and neighborhoods and lives.  Which means the glory of the Lord is all around us.

A number of years ago, I was part of a an event called Adult V(no)BS. It was VBS for adults. And we poached your former assistant music director, Paul, to come and lead songs that create community with us. One of the songs that really hit home for folks was a line from the poet Rumi. For years leading up to that event, I had rolled my eyes at progressive pastor’s love of Rumi. And. I’m eating humble pie because the line “This is no caravan of despair” has lived with me ever since.

Perhaps you, too, are feeling caught up in something like trash, tired or worn down. Take heart, ours is not a caravan of despair. We are children of the resurrection. Life is always springing up in places of death. It might be hard or awful right now, but we are on our way together. And it’s bigger than optimism, it’s the Christ child shining something that cannot be ruined or taken away for overcome.

Back to that arctic island.
In Svalbard, at the end of the Polar Night on the first day that the sun is supposed to make an appearance, after all those months of complete darkness, the community gathers to celebrate. They stand together and children sing songs about how much they love the sun. They all eat special treats and when the sun peaks out, they cheer.

Hands open. Together. Watching for the light. Cheering when you see it. This is who we are. Glory, glory, glory. A light shines in the darkness and the darkness did not overcome it.