It is a strange thing to talk about darkness so close to our celebration of Christmas. Just a few days ago this church was filled with a glorious light as angels, shepherds, Mary and Joseph, innkeepers, scribes, donkeys, sheep, a king and the Magi joined together to greet the newborn Christ in our own makeshift manger. Soon thereafter the church was again filled with a glowing, warm light, as hundreds of candles, lighting up face upon face, filled the nave with light as the beautiful carol Silent Night echoed through the air. The Christmas season is a time where we celebrate light. Lights are strung around houses and trees, Hines Drive is lit up with hundreds of thousands of lights, homes are filled with shimmering trees. Christmas is a season of light… but today, today we are reminded of the reality of darkness. We are reminded of darkness through the shortness of the days and the length of the deep dark nights. We are reminded of darkness through the broken realities of human life. We are reminded of darkness by our Gospel reading where John goes out of his way to remind us that darkness is also a reality in this Christmas season.

Darkness is a real part of human life, and it is a real part of Christmas. Many of us here in this church know only too well about darkness. Darkness can be experienced as a feeling of sadness, a feeling of being trapped. Darkness can be found in an empty stomach, a cold home, and lights that will not turn on. Darkness can be encountered in being alone and isolated. Darkness can be found in the feeling of being lost or hopeless. Darkness can be the feeling of isolation in the midst of a world that seems unaware of our very existence. Darkness is something every human faces.

Darkness is part of human life. We need only to look at the news to see other forms of darkness that fill our world. Assassinations rock Pakistan, violence continues to rob mothers and fathers of children, poverty leads to the dehumanization of billions of people. Darkness is found throughout the world. Lest we think for a moment that darkness has been pushed away by the "light" of the American dream we should realize that darkness hovers throughout our nation as well. The darkness of violence and drugs mars community upon community. No doubt many of us have glimpsed or have even been engulfed by darkness in the not too distant past. Darkness is part of our human life.

Passage after passage of Holy Scripture acknowledges this reality. Think of the creation story and the darkness that preceded the divine Word of God which shattered the darkness. Think of the darkness of the flood when the whole world was wiped out and human and animal life survived only in a bobbing wooden ark battered by the dark waters. Think of the darkness of Israel in Egypt, held in the despair of slavery hoping for a new dawn when the darkness would be lifted and a dawn of freedom might arrive. Think of the 22^nd Psalm which talks about this feeling of darkness in its first verse, "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me and why are you so far from helping me?" Some of the greatest religious people of all time talk of going through spiritual darkness. Some of them call it a "dark night of the soul" when God seems to be gone, when God seems to have abandoned them after a deep and profound experience of God’s loving presence.

As often as we might want to deny it, darkness is real, very real, and very present in the midst of human life and human history. Try as we might to scatter the darkness, try as we might to light up the world, time and again the darkness returns. It returns through an assassin’s bullet, through a mass bombing, through the death of a loved one, through genocide, hunger and disease. Try as humanity might, we cannot lift the darkness on our own. And yet…today we hear the Good News that the darkness cannot, does not, will not prevail; the Light has come.

The first 18 verses of the Gospel of John are known as the prologue of John. They are the introduction to the entire book that gives us the very basis for what follows in the next 20 chapters. In these first 18 verses John goes into great detail on the miracle of Jesus Christ living among us. Here we learn of Jesus’ full divinity, of his creation of the entire cosmos, of the fact that the world and the people he created knew him not when he broke into human history. Here we learn of the fact that in knowing this Word, the very image of the invisible God, humans are reborn and given new life, given new hope. John’s first 18 verses are full, full of powerful thoughts, full of deep theology, full of praise to the miracle of God transforming reality by entering into human existence in Jesus Christ. Here we have the story of God’s recreation of the world in the Christmas miracle, told without the usual cast of shepherds and angels, but instead told with all of creation standing by, watching with baited breath as God transforms a world which has been staggering in the midst of darkness for eons.

In these first 18 verses John points to our hope as Christians. John points to the light, the light of Christ which shines forth in the midst of all the darkness that swirls throughout the creation. John speaks with worshipful awe at the miracle that the God who made us, the God who holds us together, has chosen to enter into our history, our story, so as to shatter the darkness and show forth the True Light. These first 18 verses span all of history, reaching from before creation up until this very day. And as a result they speak with a radical, unquenchable hope. These verses speak with faith and confidence of the fact that in Christ’s entering into human history in Bethlehem the cosmos have been remade and humanity has been given new life through faith in the Word made Flesh.

You see, the miracle of this story is that God has chosen to enter into our darkness. For John, Jesus Christ, the logos, the Word "is what God is and the Word does what God does." ¹ Thus we see in Jesus’ birth God entering into OUR life, God entering into OUR suffering, God entering into OUR joys and sorrows. We see in Jesus God entering into OUR darkness.

While humanity has been unable, year after year, to lift the darkness which plagues our world, Christ’s encounter with the darkness is another story all-together. You see in the prologue of John Jesus Christ is referred to as LIGHT. And "the light shines in the darkness", the darkness cannot quench this light, even death itself has been unable to quench this light. John goes out of his way to note that, try as it might, the darkness "did not" overcome the Light. John points out through his grammar that the Light continues to shine, the darkness, however, has failed, it has been defeated. The Light, Christ, has won the victory.

This victory of the light over darkness is the story of Christ’s life throughout John. God entered into the world as the light, the world, filled with darkness did not know him, and yet God continued to reach out to us, offering us new life, offering us the light of life. And yet humanity was so lost that we did not even recognize the very source of our creation and life and we rejected our Creator, we nailed him to a cross and left him for dead. But the darkness did not overcome the light! The Light returned. In the resurrection we see that the light cannot be quenched. Throughout the Gospel we learn also that this unquenchable light is offered to all people. In reaching out for this light, in reaching out for Christ, our very creator and God, we are reborn, we are given true life, we are redeemed, we are comforted and guided even in the midst of the fears and darkness the continue to haunt humanity.

But with Christ with us, with the Light that could not be extinguished by our side, we are given hope even in the midst of the darkness of our world. "God has not stayed distant from [us], remote and isolated; rather in Jesus God chose to live with humanity in the midst of human weakness, confusion, and pain….the incarnation binds Jesus to the ‘everydayness’ of [our] human experience." ²

My friends, each one of us brings darkness with us to this place today. Each one of us brings broken-ness and fear. This is part of being human. But the good news of the Incarnation, the Good news of Christmas which John makes plain to us is that in Christ you and I are offered wholeness. In Christ, in the community of the Church, we are lifted up when we stumble, we are offered guidance and support when the darkness clouds our vision. What places of darkness in your life do you need the Light of Christ to shine upon? What places of broken-ness and hurt do you need Jesus to bind up and heal? Jesus, the very image of God, the maker of the universe, the redeemer of humanity has entered into our history! Jesus has overcome the darkness, his light continues to shine, beckoning us to be made whole. May we all have the grace this Christmas season to experience the powerful, loving, healing, Light of God made known to us in Jesus Christ.

Amen.

1 Gail R. O’Day, The Gospel of John in The New Interpreter’s Bible, Vol. IX, Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1995, 520.