Read (Isaiah 9:1-7, John 1:1-10)
Winter is about to be here again. This season is the least favorite of most if not all people. It’s colder, days are shorter, more darkness, less activity.
The trees and plants show little sign of life. The skies are usually more gray.
The brisk air and the cold floors and cold car seats make you stiffen up and huddle to be warm.
Outside is less inviting. Inside is much more comfortable.
We can be spoiled by winter in the South. Some winter days can seem like Spring or Fall. Even so we talk about how cold it is outside.
In the upper parts of Alaska, you would experience 60 days of straight darkness. No daylight for 2 months. Think that would affect you?
I know our brothers and sisters here who have experience with the winters of Wisconsin and Illinois and Vermont can talk to us about winter.
When we get snow here, it’s like a giant play time. That’s because it doesn’t last. What if you got snow everyday for 60 days?
Some of you are saying, Bring it on. You may want to talk to someone with experience in shoveling snow and walking to school in the snow.
It’s probably not as great as it might appear. Many of us know what it’s like to drive to work in these conditions. Day after day it can be depressing.
The snow turns brown and black and gray. You have to watch for icy spots.
We all seem to perk up with the first sign of spring.
The one thing we can say about winter is: At least there’s Christmas.
Christmas almost makes winter worth having. There’re gifts.
Excitement, Joy. We have so many bright colors, lights, trees, houses.
We think of peace on earth and good will toward men.
But what if in our world, it was always winter, but never Christmas?
Man! Would that be hard? Cold, dreary, gray, cloudy, dark days.
Always ice and snow on the ground, never soft, green grass, never warm, sunny days. Even Siberia has a summer!
If it was always winter, you would say there’s something wrong here.
54 years ago, C.S. Lewis wrote his godchild a book, a series actually, about 4 kids who find the magical world of Narnia through the portal of a wardrobe.
It’s called the Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe.
It has just been made into a full-length film to be released on Dec. 9th.
We will be talking about it further tonight and having some fun too.
These children venture into this strange world of Narnia where both humans and animals can talk and there are all kinds of mythical creatures too.
What they find in this place is that for as long as anyone can remember,
It has always been winter, but never Christmas.
The white witch who rules the kingdom keeps everything frozen in winter and never allows Father Christmas to enter the land.
Her enemies are turned to lifeless stone under the power of her spells.
Narnia is held under the spell of eternal winter until a rumor begins to circulate that Aslan is on the move. Aslan is a lion, that is related to royalty from a distance land, a land beyond the sea.
The coming of Aslan breaks the power of the White Witch and ends her reign of winter. Life begins to flourish again as Spring breaks out all over.
If you’re not familiar with the story, it is a familiar clash of good and evil with good triumphing in the end. But it’s more than that.
The character of Aslan in the story is more than just a heroic figure.
He is clearly a Christ figure in the story as a deliverer and savior.
Here in this fascinating children’s story, C.S. Lewis has drawn some parallels to our beginning the advent season.
Particularly today, the prophecy candle and our passage from John 1.
Narnia was cloaked in winter and never Christmas.
Life was cold, dark, cloudy, gray, cruel, and lifeless.
A land where there was no Hope, only fear reigned.
What was the characterization of the world before the messiah?
What did the prophecy say that was read at the lighting of the candle?
The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light.
Those who dwelt in a land of deep darkness, on them has light shined.
What does John record about the coming of the messiah, Jesus?
In Him was life, and the life was the light of men.
The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.
The true light, which enlightens everyone, was coming into the world.
In Narnia, it was always winter. In our world, people walked in darkness.
Before Jesus came, we lived in an Alaskan winter all year long.
This darkness means a deep shadow and is poetic for an intense darkness.
In Isaiah’s day, he could have put a name on the oppressive darkness, Assyria. Israel was taken captive and oppressed by a pagan nation.
When John wrote his Gospel, he would have used a different name, Romans.
Both Assyria and Rome were powerful kingdoms that controlled their subjects.
As dark as these outside forces were, both Isaiah and John knew of an even more oppressive force of darkness at work among their people.
Darkness isn’t the presence of something as much as it is an absence.
Darkness is the absence of light. Darkness comes from the absence of God.
The inward condition, the health of the heart of Israel, was filled with the weight and misery of sin. Darkness was the shadow of death.
The light that was needed was nothing less than the light of life. Remember that God is light and in him there is no shadow of darkness at all.
E. J. Young said this: “When the prophet wrote, they had not yet seen this light, but its occurrence was so certain and vivid in Isaiah’s mind that he described it as though it had already dawned. …Salvation in its widest sense had shined upon these people; a complete reversal of their condition.”
Isaiah penned this passage with the same certainty as if he were sitting 400 years later with the disciple John watching Jesus walk this earth.
The salvation that Isaiah was so certain of wasn’t just accomplished by God.
It was accomplished only by God coming to earth by becoming a man.
For unto us a child is born, for unto us a son is given.
And the word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen His glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth.
As we start this Christmas season with all the candles and bright lights,
We need to first begin with darkness to remind us of where we began.
Many of us lived years under the power and control of darkness, helpless to change, driven by fears of a life in submission to the evil ruler of this world.
Into our own darkness, a piercing and magnificent light shined.
The light of the Gospel broke loose the chains of bondage that held us.
We live in a new kingdom now. We have been delivered out of the kingdom of darkness and have been embraced by the kingdom of light.
What ensued is exactly what Isaiah prophesied would occur.
A massive increase in joy. Rejoicing like no body’s business.
Christmas is about pretty trees like this one, about bright shining lights, about family, about good food, about great carol singing,
and about lots of gifts.
We can enjoy all these things,but all these things can distract us from the most important aspect of Christmas. Emmanuel, God with us.
The last words of John Wesley
on his death bed were, “Best of all, God with us”
God entered time and space to take own our humanity in order to redeem it.
God entered our world as a babe in a manger,
but He also entered our darkness in order to bring light.
We can celebrate with shouts of joy today because of the message of Christmas.Once we could say that it was always darkness and never Christmas. Now, we can say always Christmas and never darkness.
