One Tiny Flame [Christmas Eve 2016]

The Rev. Jeremiah Williamson

Christmas Eve 2016

Luke 2:1-20

One Tiny Flame

I can't explain this. I hope you understand. It all came out of God like poetry instead of prose – beautiful but hard to make sense of. How did the one who spoke creation into being get caught up in the small town drama of a pregnant teen who see angels? How did the God who spilled the stars across the universe like marbles become enclosed in the cramped, black space of a virgin womb? See I can't explain this. I hope you understand.

Christmas presents us with more questions than answers. Christmas, I think, means to leave us tongue-tied, at a loss, in awe and wonder, clinging desperately to whatever faith gives us the eyes to see God in that manger. Christmas means to leave us breathlessly pondering all these things in our hearts.

So Christmas is, of course, mysterious; it is, after all, God wrapped in packaging much, much too small. But also Christmas is teaching me to believe, teaching me to believe in the power of small lights.

Which I understand doesn't make a lot of sense. The vastness of the backdrop deserved a big bang. But Christmas in the vast and powerful Roman Empire, the empire of Augustus, the empire that shook the earth and caused the peoples to tremble, was announced to only a few lowly shepherds. The angelic lights that filled the Bethlehem skies did not alert the press, did not reach the royal palaces. To call it a blip on the world's radar screen is probably a stretch.

The baby dropped not only into a huge empire, but also into God's salvation story. The crushing weight of centuries of messianic expectation demanded a divine spectacle. While the rulers of the Empire neither expected nor desired a new Messiah, others did. The people who walked in darkness, they had been promised a great light. They knew the ancient stories; they told them to their children and their children's children. Those stories reminded them that their big God did big things. Their God divided the day from the night; their God split the Red Sea so that their ancestors could walk through on dry land; their God closed lions mouths and carried away prophets in chariots of fire and caused the sun to stand still in the sky. Their God did big things. They expected a great light. They were waiting for something big.

And into an immense world, against a sea of darkness, onto the grand cosmic stage came one tiny flame – a burning bush in a young girl's belly. God's big move was a baby. And even big babies aren't big.

Every year, in the build up to Christmas, I wait for something big but every year it's just a baby. Surrounded by the same peasant family. Adored by the same meager audience.

It as if this God who spoke light into being, who breathed the fire of a thousand suns suddenly realized there was only one way to dispel the darkness: start with one tiny flame. One tiny flame: ignited in the mysterious darkness of God's imagination. One tiny flame: ignited in the darkness of Mary's womb. One tiny flame: ignited in the darkness of the little town of Bethlehem – a speck of a village in a great big world. One tiny flame that might ignite in the darkness of our hearts. One tiny flame. You see, Christmas is teaching me to believe in the power of small lights.

It was a humble beginning. But I suppose, perhaps, the Messiah was not born in a palace because there is no kindling in a palace. The tiny flame needed a manger; the fire was set in straw.

It is said that the people who walked in darkness have seen a great light. And that is because Christmas did not stay in Bethlehem. That tiny flame: no king could put it out, no army could snuff it out, no darkness was dark enough to hide it. And so it spread.

That tiny flame, that little Jesus, was set by God to blaze. Why else would he be wrapped in bands of cloth and laid in a bed of straw? That tiny flame was meant to set this world on fire. To burn in our hearts.

The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light because the fire spread, because the light of Christ still burns; it burns in you and it burns in me.

You see, Christmas is teaching me to believe in the power of small lights. I look around this room and I see tiny flames – each heart ablaze with the light of Jesus. I see tiny flames that have the power to light up the dark corners of this world. I see tiny flames in a world of kindling.

But also, when I look around this room I see a great light because if I squint, just a little bit, all of those tiny flames become a blazing fire.

Christmas was just the beginning of something big. It started small – as small as a spark in the darkness of a virgin womb, as small as a peasant baby in a vast empire, as small as a flame in a bed of straw. But here we are, two-thousand years beyond the manger scene, and we're still burning – call us the Light of the World. Jesus did.

Every Christmas I gaze into the little manger waiting for something big. But it's always that tiny baby. Only, if I look closely, if I really look, I see the spark in his eyes, the fire he set reflecting in his heavenly face. I can't explain this: why Christmas was so small. I just know that Christmas is teaching me to believe in the power of small lights. And in a God who started a blazing fire with one tiny flame.