Tonight old dreams die and new dreams come to life. The promise is fulfilled! Hope gives way to joy, and prayer to proclamation.

 

 

And this light is a light for all; igniting a flame in the soul, warming us from within, radiating love, lighting our lives with the presence of God with us and among us now and always.

 

 

 

It is so good to have you here with us tonight. I really mean that. Having you here with us means everything. It really does. I know this is the season for giving and receiving gifts. I hope you have the opportunity to give and to receive some wonderful, meaningful gifts. 

 

Just a few minutes ago I was in the office getting ready for this service, and a young woman I have watched grow up in this church, came running into the office. I haven’t seen her for a while. I thought she just wanted to tell me what a wonderful Christmas it is. I thought she just wanted to wish me a Merry Christmas. I was really excited to see her. I said, “Merry Christmas.” She said, “I just got engaged ten minutes ago!”

 

If you are having that kind of night, folks, I’m delighted for you. There are people here tonight for whom life is good. There is every reason in the world to celebrate. We are glad you are with us sharing that tonight.

 

I also know years ago I visited one of our older members in the congregation. When I walked into her place, I couldn’t help but notice this new, very large, and obviously very-expensive, high-quality entertainment center.  It was a Christmas gift, she said, from her son who lived in another state. “Yes,” she said, “it’s absolutely beautiful, and I use it all the time. It’s just fantastic, but I tell you what. I’d return it in a second if I could just spend one day with him. You see, I haven’t seen him for over three years.”

 

I’m glad you are here with us tonight. Right here with us. Some of you have come from halfway around the world. Chuck Naugle, his tour of duty in Iraq complete, is here tonight. How wonderful to have him back among us.

 

Some of you have come from other states, other cities, other towns. Some folks here have walked just across the street. How good it is to have you here with us tonight. Whether you know it or not, you have given us or those you love one of the greatest gifts of all. You have given us your personal presence – the gift of you. That is an incredible gift. So I really mean it when I say how glad we are to have you here tonight.

 

Of course, it’s been one of those years. Has it not? It’s been quite a year. Everyone in this room knows that. We’ve had our craw full of war and rumors of wars. We live in a world that still struggles with prejudice and crime, ignorance and poverty. We know about drugs and pain. We know about disasters.   We know about diseases. Abuses of power pervade the planet. That is not news to anybody here. You and I, like all the rest, find ways to take our minds off these woes. Adults have their ways. Kids have theirs. Yet, what we all know is that these ways we try to remove these things from our mind simply do not dispel the darkness. 

 

So a little over a billion of us will meet in a multitude of settings, and we will be together around a Table, like tonight. We will pray for peace. We will pray for the things that make for peace. We will welcome into the world once again the Prince of Peace. 

 

We won’t just own the fact that we struggle with a world that is, in fact, in a very dark place. We also know about our own personal darknesses. Do we not? Everybody has dark days. There are days when you don’t want to get out of bed, days when you don’t want to see anybody. Job put it this way, “I hope for happiness and light, but darkness and trouble come instead.”

 

What kind of darkness? What kind of trouble? There are persons here in this room tonight who are stretched. They are stretched out. They are stretched to the limits. They don’t have enough. People in this room do not have enough. They do not have enough time. They do not have enough energy. They do not have enough money. 

 

It reminds me of the one I heard about the little boy who got separated from his Mom at the mall. There he was standing at the door of this business. He was crying. People would come into the business, and they started handing him money. The store manager came over and said, “Don’t worry, Son. I found your Mother. I know where she is.” 

 

The boy said, “I know where she is, too. Shhhh! Be very quiet.”

 

Some of us are stretched financially. Some of us don’t feel very good physically. For some of us, our relationships are just not working the way we would like for them to. The significant other, the marriage we are in, our kids, our boss, our friends. Darkness. We know about darkness.

 

For some here this year has been a particularly difficult year. It seems for some in this room tonight that the light has gone out completely in our lives. There are people in this room who have faced the loss of a loved one. There are folks among us who have experienced divorce. There are people who have received a devastating report from their doctor. There are folks in our midst, right here, who have been laid off from their jobs. We know. We are a people who know about darkness. And the fact is, when you are in that kind of place, you don’t feel much like being happy at this time of year. If fact, everybody else’s happiness only intensifies your pain and your loneliness. You’re thinking to yourself, “Doesn’t anybody care?”

 

Folks, if you don’t get anything else out of this time together tonight, get this: God cares. God cares. God cares because you matter to God. God may not matter to you, but you matter to God.

 

Folks, everybody is in one of three places.

 

Some of us are headed into dark days. We don’t know it yet, but they are right around the corner. We are headed in that direction. It’s going to happen. We are going to run into some darkness. 

 

Some of us are in darkness right now. We are up to our eyeballs in it. It’s overwhelming to us. 

 

Some of us have just come out of dark days, and it feels wonderful. It feels good, and there is a sense of celebration. But we all know some other darkness waits for us around the corner. That’s just the way life is. There is one problem-solving event and incident after another. We all have to do it.

 

The question today: So where do you turn when life is dark? When your days are dark, what’s the antidote? What’s that for you?

 

I Samuel says, “You, Lord, are my light. You dispel my darkness.”

 

Jesus said, “I am the Light of this world.” 

 

He came, folks, to dispel that darkness. That is what tonight, I think, is all about. The good news tonight is, “The Word became flesh and lives among us.” It was just read to you a moment ago. All of God that could be poured in, that could be put into a human being was put into a human being. That is the one who is with us this very night. Wherever we go, any day, any place, any occasion, whatever we run in to in this life, he is with us. 

 

Because of Christmas, folks, you do not have to stay in the darkness. No one has to stay in the darkness. The Spirit of the Living Christ wants to light up your life. That’s good news. That’s the good news!

 

The tough question today is: “How?”

 

The answer is one word. I’m going to offer one word to you tonight. That word is “transformation.” Do you know when times become dark for you, for me, and we get stretched out, and we find ourselves overwhelmed, when we find ourselves struggling with confusion, and we become afraid, the Spirit of the Living God doesn’t want to just come along and pat you on the back and tell you, “Hang in there. Cheer up. It’s going to be all right.”

 

No! The Living Spirit of Christ wants to transform, wants to change, wants to offer you some way to use that darkness, whatever that darkness is for you, to help you and me learn some new ways. Some new thoughts. Some new approaches. Some new choices. The Spirit of the Living Christ doesn’t want you to just keep going on like you have been going on. The Spirit of the Living Christ wants to transform us to change. He doesn’t say, “Hey, whatever you’re dealing with, just deal with it. Learn to live in the darkness.” No! You’re never going to hear that from the Living Spirit of Christ. 

 

Did you know that when times get dark and you get stretched out, God does not ask us to simply cheer up? God says, “Flip on the light. Flip the switch. If you want to get out of the darkness, then you have to start living in that light. You have to choose to live in that light.”

 

Folks, that’s what we do as a community of faith. That’s what we do around here. That’s what we do for each other. We help each other flip on the light.

 

I know all of you came to this service for a variety of different reasons. Some of you came because it is just tradition. It’s just what you do on nights like tonight. Some of you are here because a friend or a relative invited you. That’s wonderful. We’re glad you’re here. Gosh, we have people from all different kinds of backgrounds sitting right here among us, coming from all kinds of different places. I want you to hear something. Your background doesn’t mean a thing to us. That doesn’t matter to us. You see, I think – I don’t know this for sure – but I think you are here for a reason. I think you are here, and it is no accident. 

 

I think you are here because the Spirit of the Living God has something to tell you. I think that Living Spirit wants you to know, “Dearly Beloved, you matter to me. You may not know it, but I have known you from the very beginning. I knit you together in your mother’s womb. I carved you in the palm of my hand. I have hidden you in the shadow of my embrace. I’ve counted every hair on your head, and I love you more than a mother or a father for a child. What I want you to know is that I want you, more than anything else, to get to know me. Because once you really, really get to know me – not what you’ve heard about me – but if you would take the time just to get to know me, you see… I really love you, and I want to have a relationship with you, because you are my beloved. You really are.”

 

I think that’s what Christmas is all about, folks. The offer is right here. The light has come, and you, and you alone, are the only person who can flip that switch. 

 

How? Let me tell you very quickly. Some here tonight need to receive God’s great Christmas present to you – the One who has come here to be with you. Some simply need to say to God, “Lord, I’m open. I’m open. My heart, my mind, my soul is open. Please put yourself, put your Spirit, put your love, put your light in my life.” Now, if you haven’t done that, why don’t you consider doing that tonight? Christmas Eve – what a perfect night to do just that.

 

Others of you have already made that choice. You have come to that place in your own life, but maybe you have drifted away. Maybe some stuff has happened for you, and your heart has grown cold. It happens. It happens to all of us sometimes. What would the Spirit of the Living Christ want to say to you tonight? I believe that Spirit would want to say, “Come on. Come on home. Come on back. Come on back.”

 

I know there are people sitting here tonight…   I see familiar faces of people who are involved in their community of faith. I want to say, “Good for you. Bless you. You have decided to become a follower of Christ and make yourself part of a community of faith. If you are doing that, get involved. Get in there. Help make something good happen. 

 

If you don’t have a church home, I want you to know this place is more than delighted to invite you to consider just coming and being with us right here at Broadway.

 

Or if you live somewhere else, please go out in that community and find a church home. There are some good ones out there. You have to look sometimes, but there are some really good ones out there. Become a part of it. They need you. Do you know that? They really need you, and they want you. And I believe you need them.

 

So wherever you are going to be in 2006, please remember, “The Word became flesh and dwelt among us. In Him was life, and that life was the light of the world. That light, the light of Christ that shines in the darkness – the darkness of this world, in the darkness of our personal worlds – and that darkness has never, ever been able to overcome that life.” That’s what happens, folks, when you invite, when you allow, when you open yourself up, when you go out with, when you encounter, when you fall in love with the Spirit of the Living Christ.

 

“I will be your God, and you will be my people. And I will bless you. And the reason I’m going to bless you is that I want you to be a blessing to other people, for I, my beloved, I am the one who will be there with you, actually with you, both now and forever more.”

 

And all the people say… “Amen.”

We have allowed time to stand still. For these few moments, in the quietness and the sacredness of this time and place, the depths of this moment have taught us once more that we may acknowledge and celebrate the light of Christ. And once more, we may hold his light. 

 

For just a moment we know that this light cannot be extinguished by the darkness. This light cannot be extinguished even by the darkness of a cross. Not even then. Not even now. 

 

What is more, Jesus did not say, “You might be the light of the world. You could be the light of the world. You will be the light of the world.” No. Jesus said, “You are the light of the world. You are the light of the world. You are the light of the world.” So may we let our light shine so others might know that the darkness can never overcome this light, our light, his light. Amen.