Madison Avenue Presbyterian Church

Isaiah 9:2-7; Psalm 96; Titus 3:4-7; Luke 2:1-20;

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“The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light!” These words, from Isaiah, kept coming back to me three weeks ago in Vienna, Austria, as the conference that had brought me there concluded, and I had an afternoon to explore some of that magical city. Because it was my first visit to Austria, I was not quite prepared for how quickly in the afternoon it gets dark. By 4 pm, as I stepped onto the Circle Streetcar for a tour around the inner city, darkness was quickly falling. But as the tram silently slid along its silver rails around the city, taking me past one historic site after another, what I was most struck by were the lights.

The Viennese love their lights at Christmas. I had first taken note of this the night I checked into the hotel. Looking out my room window facing the Statzpark, I noticed the house adjacent to it quite literally outlined in white lights, with every window and door bordered in colored ones. Wunderschön; wunderbar! is what came to mind. The next day, our conference host, Christoph Cardinal Schönborn, the Archbishop of Vienna–one of the largest Roman Catholic archdiocese in the world–welcomed us. Knowing that Austria is predominately Roman Catholic, and aware that church attendance, at least in most Protestant churches in Europe, is in dramatic decline, I asked about weekly mass attendance. The Cardinal offered a resigned smile and said, “Though most of Austria is Roman Catholic, for the most part, I only see most of them, two times a year, Christmas and Easter.”

Now, I tell this story not to make anyone here uncomfortable–we are delighted to welcome everyone this night, even if this is the first time you have been in this place. No, I tell it because riding on that tram around the city, had I not known better, I would have thought Vienna one of the most intentionally Christian cities in the world. Not only were buildings and trees trimmed in lights–especially the hotels and state buildings–but beautiful displays of angels, stars, blankets of light, trumpets, crèches and the like, seemed to be everywhere. Were the Viennese simply trying to drive away the darkness that, because of their northern latitude, dominates most of their daily twenty-four hours? The sun does not rise until about 7:45 and has set by 4:30 in the afternoon. For whatever reason, they were celebrating light. I simply wondered, did they remember what and why they are celebrating?

The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light–in the darkness...LIGHT! Isaiah is singing a prophetic hymn of thanksgiving, using the universal images of darkness and light–to celebrate a radical reversal in his people’s fortune. They have been at war, they have been under both military and political siege–the two most regularly go hand in hand–with the blight, hunger and suffering the mixture of those two bring. God’s silence in the midst of their suffering was understood to be God’s judgment, even rejection of the people. But now, that darkness had been pierced and God’s silence broken. A child has been born–presumably to the King;¹ in that birth Isaiah sees not only God’s silence broken, but God’s ancient promise to his people unfolding in triumph. A son has been born in the line of King David. God has not forgotten the promise. Those who have walked in darkness now have light shining upon them. Isaiah likens their response to the joy of a starving people reaping an overly abundant harvest, or the exhilaration of solders who know just how close they have come to defeat, now triumphantly dividing the spoils of their enemy.

The image here is about more than war, at least warring humankind. This is about holy war. But in the Bible, holy war is not to be equated with the word so loosely thrown around today, whether by religious radicals or opportunistic politicians. In the Bible, holy war is the war God wages, and can only be fought and won by God–a war God wages against military, political and, yes, even religious forces. Any force that would strive against God’s desire for just and right relationships between all people and their inevitable product–peace–is God’s enemy and the object of God’s holy warfare.

Isaiah is announcing not only that God has brought this victory over Assyria, but more, even as the people celebrate, a child has been born. This child will take up his father David’s throne and will govern in peace, living into the names Isaiah has spoken at his birth: Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father and Prince of Peace.

This song was first sung at the birth of a child born to be king in the 8th century B.C. in Jerusalem. It would be sung again and again as future children were born within the Davidic dynasty. It was sung to remember the promise of a child to be named Messiah. It was heard by the early church as recognition that in the birth of Jesus, God had kept the ancient promise. It continued to be sung as a portent of God’s promise and a reminder that God continues to wage war on all that stands against just and right relationships among all people, on all who would use and abuse people for personal purposes, on all who work to destroy the peace. All of that is precisely as it should be, for in each hearing, a people walking in darkness, recognize God’s emergence in their world to drive out the darkness and bring light and its gift, life.

Tonight, with the whole church, we hear it again, heralding Jesus’ birth. His entrance took place, not in a festive crèche, nor on a peaceful, winter’s, pastoral night, but in a deeper kind of darkness. It was not simply the birth of a child at a fragile time in the life of a nation. It was God’s declaration of holy war against all darkness. It was nothing less than the incarnation of God, come among us as one of us, to rescue and redeem us from the worst of ourselves. God became human to reclaim all who, through military, political or economic means, were being crushed, enslaved or abused. The child grew and continued to drive out the darkness. But now, darkness was lodged in the structures of religion itself, being used to abuse, rather than serve and foster life, pointing to itself, rather than the One it exists to serve. And when those religious forces joined hands with the most powerful government in the world, in an unholy alliance designed to extinguish that life, the ultimate weapon in God’s arsenal of holy warfare was unleashed. God’s light broke into the darkness of a tomb, killing death once for all, and bringing resurrection and new life to light.

The sources of darkness are no longer Assyria or Babylonia or an unholy coalition between Jerusalem and Rome; yet, the forces of darkness are still among us. Its tools are the same, only the names and circumstances change. We have seen the darkness of financial chaos born of human greed; are seeing the darkness of an Arab Spring fading into winter; are living with the darkness as the end to a nine-year war in which we spent almost $1 trillion dollars and hundreds of thousands of lost lives with millions more displaced, that now leaves Shiites, Sunnis, and Kurds bitterly divided and the country facing a dark, divided and violent future. There are other forms of darkness as well. A kind and generous woman is torched in her elevator by someone she had helped; the mentally handicapped are abused by the social service systems designed to care for theml; our government is caught up in the darkness of political gridlock because those elected to lead and legislate have confused playing politics with governing.

Yes, tonight we know something about the darkness. But in it, we hear Isaiah’s words: a child has been born, a son has been given. All government will, one day, be upon his shoulder. Then, he will be for the world the wonderful counselor, mighty God, everlasting Father, and Prince of Peace he is for those who continue to try and make him Lord of life right know, who remember why we string bright lights and gather to worship in Jesus’ name.

As I walked the streets of Vienna, I wondered how it was that the connection between their lights and God’s gift and action in Jesus Christ could be so forgotten, disregarded or, worse, simply taken for granted. Had they become so enamored with their lights, their beloved music and other culture, their lifestyle–all the things they engage in while attempting to drive away their darkness–that they have forgotten that only one has the power to drive out real darkness? Have they forgotten, even abandoned, the world’s one true light, to chase after other lights?

Have we?

The Word of the Lord; thanks be to God!

 

1. Scholars argue over whether the child was Hezekiah, son of King Ahaz, or Isaiah’s own child.

 

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