Isaiah 9:2-4, 6-7
Luke 2:1-14

Introduction: How do we catch the wonder of Christmas amidst the sentimenality of the year? There is a profound difference between wonder and sentimentality. Sentimentality a cheap imitation of wonder, a passing affectional over the trivial. Wonder, on the other hand, is a human response to the Transcendent, the Mystery that encounters us in the world around us. Sentimentality comes from what we can buy – "I’ll be home for Christmas, if only in my dreams.” Wonder cannot be purchased, but comes only as a gift -- holding a new born for the first time. Wonder is full of Mystery, Grandeur, Beauty. Can our readings this evening from the Scriptures help us to be filled with wonder at God revealed to us in the birth of the Word of God, the Son, Jesus Christ? Let’s look at Isaiah 9 and see how it helps us to understand Luke 2

1. Isaiah 9 tells a story, a story that pulls us into it. The story begins with “the people” – those who walked in darkness, who dwell in a land of deep darkness, have seen a great light.
It’s interesting to hear the nouns in this passage. The passage includes us, directly pulls us into its story. The people – us, everyone, have walked in darkness. Ever been walking around in without light? One cannot judge the direction of one’s walk. A person cannot see the beginning, let alone the end of the journey. Darkness causes stubbed toes. Without light we can be lost and not even know it.
The Isaiah passage includes us by describing the world in which we, the people, live. The people walked in darkness, those who dwell in a land with deep darkness. This is the "normal" world that surrounds us. Turkish papers reported yesterday that the CIA director has been in Ankara, asking to use Turkish bases for a US attack on Iran. The Iranian president has said horrible things about Israel, even denying the extermination of the Jews by Germany. Got more war? Violence, vengeance, conflict seemingly rule, whether it’s behavior that surrounds us at work, in our families, in our pasts, a lack that is seemingly all around us. The lack becomes embedded literally in our skin and life overwhelms us with its nothing. We strain our eyes to see our beginning and our end, yet merely having eyes, capabilities, are not enough. Defined by the land of darkness, we just can’t see. The people, including us, dwell in a land of deep darkness.

Yet into this darkness, the Light has shown. It’s there, shining upon the people, us, dwelling in darkness.
I once was given a plaque which said: “Not all the darkness in the world can hide the light of a single candle.” Darkness is a lack; but light is. Darkness is absence; Light is Presence. Darkness causes the lack of sight; Light provides the means that we can we what really is. Isaiah 9 proclaims that the light has shown in darkness. The text echoes Genesis 1 where God speaks through the Word light into existence. An amazing thing about light – the darker it is, the brighter light is. Light is stronger than darkness; light shines forth in the darkness so that it might be seen, and illuminate the world around us so that we might see what it really is.
Darkness cannot stand before light, for it is nothing. We can’t see the stars while the sun out – the light of the sun illuminates the world with its light, and the stars disappear. But in the dark, the light of the stars shine upon us, and we see in the light they provide. Yes we see the darkness, yet in its midst Light! And light shines.
Darkness, light: the story of Isaiah 9 pulls us into its pages, describing our world as a place of darkness, but recognizing that in this darkness, light has shown.

But what is the light? The passage directly addresses us with the answer: Unto us, a child is born; a son is given.
Notice that the text shifts here. The text no longer speaks of us as part of a larger group, the passage enfolds us, you, me, we, personally into its pages. The metaphor of Light takes on the body of a child, a baby. For us, amidst the darkness, a baby, a son given to us. Light amidst darkness? Hey, I’ve been there, done that with babies. The light we need with babies is that which we turn on so we don’t trip over what’s left on the floor in response to the crying!
Suddenly the story of the text begins to sink in. This child, the one whom is born, the one who is given, amidst a world of darkness, of absence, of lack, of sin, of war, of hunger, or exploitation, of meanness, of greed, a world where we cannot use the natural desire that God has given us for God to see because we are surrounded by lack. This child is the Light, this child is the answer to the question that we didn't even know how to ask, because we were in darkness. This child is the One to illuminate our path, in Whom we can see our beginning and our end.
And this light is for us . . . to see . . . so we can really participate in the world in its lack, not getting sucked into the lack but being made who we really are. To walk our path in the Light, that which shines amidst the Revelation given by the Light. This child, the light shining in the darkness, is our guide to our true humanity, the fullness of life that really is life. Light amidst the land of darkness has shown into the world in the body of a child, a baby, a son.

See the wonder! See the grandeur! See the mystery! See the beauty! This Child is not merely the Guide to our true humanity, a representative of what already is in us. This Child is the very, unsubstitutable Revelation of God. The Light, the child, is the Mighty God, the Everlasting Father, The Prince of Peace, the baby, dirt poor, wrapped in rags, laid in a feeding trough, because there was no place for his poor parents in the inn.
The Light, the child, bears titles, political titles, divine titles. He is Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, the Everlasting Father, the Prince of Peace. Of the increase of his government there will be no end and upon the throne of David, and over his kingdom, to establish it and to uphold it with justice and with righteousness from this time forth and forever more! This Light is no flash in the pan, no strobe, no sparkler that amuses and then fades, no firework that raises sentiment. This Light is power and might and glory and honor. We see in the Light, in the Child, the true ruler of humanity and the true God.
We see this Light, this Child’s birth described in the Gospel of Luke. The passage seems to be a story of tragedy, the type that newscasts show to increase sentimentality this time of year. A poor mother gives birth amidst domestic animals; housing was not adequate in the city. Sound familiar? The mother wraps the child in rages. In her poverty, in the baby’s poverty, the newborn finds himself in a feeding trough for the animals. Amidst the poverty, at the very margins of the land of darkness in which people dwell, God becomes human and dwells among us, and we have seen His glory, the glory of the only begotten Child. The Light shines in the darkness. Unto us a child is born.
God has sent God’s own Self into the land of darkness in which we dwell as this poor Jewish child, born of a displaced, poor Jewish woman. As Benedict XVIth said yesterday, “God our Lord did not use the outer trappings of power against the threats of History as we men do in keeping with the norms of our world and might have expected from Him. God wields the weapon of kindness; revealed Himself as a babe in a manger; and so uses His power against the destructive might of violence. Thus, God saves us and shows us what He saves.” Amidst the darkness God has sent the Light, God's very Self, the Word made flesh that has dwelt among us.

Conclusion: Can you see? In Jesus we see the beginning and end of our journey, our true humanity and God’s true nature. We realize that we are called to live in this story, live in this Light, to walk according to the Light, not the darkness. We realize that God is with us, for God has become one of us in Jesus. Respond in faith in God – darkness is not the last word; Light is! Unto us a child is born! Let God enfold you into the very life of Love that is God the Father shown to us through the Son by the power of the Holy Spirit. Come to participate in the very life of Jesus Christ in the bread and the cup this evening, and therefore, participate in the very Life of God. And be thankful. Forget sentiment. Experience the wonder!