Scripture Text: Genesis 1: 1-5
In the beginning when God created the heavens and the earth, 2the earth was a formless void and darkness covered the face of the deep, while a wind from God swept over the face of the waters. Then God said, “Let there be light”; and there was light. 4And God saw that the light was good; and God separated the light from the darkness. 5God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. And there was evening and there was morning, the first day.
Today is the winter solstice in the Northern Hemisphere, the shortest day (and the longest night) of the year. The actual solstice occurs where I live at 9:27 (CST) this evening (3:27 a.m. Universal time on December 22nd). That moment is the point when Earth’s axis will be tilted the farthest away from the sun than at any other point in the year. It is the point where the sun is as far south as it will ever be relative to the Earth. (And winter has begun, so Happy Winter!) The word “solstice” is derived from the Latin “solstitium”, from two words meanings “sun” and “stand still”. Technically, this comes from the fact that during the days surrounding the solstice, the sun appears at its lowest point in the sky and then seems to have the same noontime elevation for several days in a row. To early astronomers, the sun appeared to hang in the sky, suspended, paralyzed, as if waiting for some word to move on.
So today we read the passage that speaks of the first light, the first time that the light was spoken into being. I think some people have this notion that nothing existed prior to that. But it did. God was there. God was there in the midst of what is described as a formless, disordered void, as a darkness that covered and consumed everything as winds swept over the waters. There wasn’t “nothing”; there was a seemingly dark, chaotic, noisy something. It was actually a something that God had created. And then “in the beginning” (not the only beginning, just the beginning of this part of the story!), God, in God’s infinite wisdom, spoke the light into being. And the light pushed its way into the darkness, parting the grasp on everything that the darkness had held. Now note that this isn’t the sun. (That came later.) Sometimes we make the mistake of reading this passage and we tend to think of the sun as the source of all light. But go back and read beyond the passage I showed. The sun doesn’t come into play until the “fourth day” of the passage so there must have been eons of time between when light came to be and the creation of this sphere of hot plasma that reflects it. The First Light was something different. The First Light was a new creation, parting and intersecting the darkness, weakening its grasp on everything, and shining into what was ahead. The First Light is what God created to lead the way to everything else.
It is interesting (but not surprising) that, for us, the darkest day of the year occurs so near to the expected illumination of Christmas Day. It actually wasn’t an accident, even though it was pretty concocted. When the early Christians (which, granted, were in the Northern Hemisphere) started playing around with the calendar, they took what they knew to fill in the holes, so to speak. Apparently, no one knew when Jesus’ birth had occurred. Think about it. It may have taken the magi months or maybe even a few years to get there and then there was the whole flight to Egypt thing. Time was just lost. So, tradition holds (of note, if someone leads into something with “tradition holds”, assume that there is zero substantive proof to anything that is about to be said!)…BUT…tradition holds that creation, the beginning of everything that was, occurred on March 25th (don’t ask…no clue!). So, to early Christians, that seemed a great date on which to set the Anunciation. Fast forward nine months…December 25th must be the birth. Alrighty then! It was around the time of the winter solstice (in the northern hemisphere in which it was being chosen). So, we have a date!
So, today, we sit in the darkness, still waiting, still hoping, still looking for the Light. It is a long and empty darkness, sometimes overwhelming. This is the day that, even in the joyousness of the season, we can’t help but remember grief and hurt and the pain that still surrounds us. But, just as in that first moment of Creation, God will come into the darkness and do something new. When you think about it, just about everything new has begun in the darkness. Creation began in the darkness. The birth of Jesus so many years ago began in the darkness. Even the story of the Resurrection begins “while it was still dark”. I think God always begins in the darkness because that is where illumination happens. Light cannot push its way into a well-lit room. Light comes when it is dark and foreboding. Light comes when we are straining to see it. Newness is born in the darkness of a womb and then it comes to be, pushing away the darkness in which it was born.
In the midst of the darkness, God dwells, unknown and mysterious, the Word that was created and dwelled in the darkness even before light came to be. And even in our darkest places, the first light begins to break through. That, my friends, is indeed the message of the season. God tiptoes into the night and gently, very gently, hands us hope for our world, peace for our souls, and light for our longest nights in the form of a baby who shows us the way to walk through the darkness so that everyone might begin to see the world through a new light. When we are standing in the light, and we look at the darkness, we don’t see darkness. Light does that—it teaches us to see even through the darkness. Ralph Waldo Emerson once said that “when it is dark enough, [we] see the stars.” There is a Maori Proverb that says to turn your face to the [light] and the shadows will fall behind you. This is the longest night, a night of creation, the birth of a new season as the earth miraculously turns on its axis toward light. This is the night we sit vigil for the Light that is about to break. And it is very, very good.
Too many of us panic in the dark. We don’t understand that it’s a holy dark and that the idea is to surrender to it and journey through to real light. (Sue Monk Kidd)
Lyrics: ”Singing in the Dark”, by Carrie Newcomer
We gather in morning
The darkest hour of night
The darkest days of the winter
Feeling for the light
Sitting in the silence
As all the world’s asleep
The monks of Gethsemane
The watch they daily keep
I am a wayfaring stranger
Hungry for some grace
A soul forever searching
A pilgrim to this place
I am here to meet whatever
Is listening for me here
While all the world is waiting
At the turning of the year
Singing in the dark
Calling up the day
Joining with the voices
Opening the way
Sitting here in vigil
Waiting for the spark
That bursts into being
Singing in the dark
It’s there at every hour
It happens everywhere
In the tenderest of times
In faithful common prayer
The seen and the unseen
For the many by the few
There is always someone
Singing in the dark for you
Singing in the dark
Calling up the day
Joining with the voices
Opening the way
Sitting here in vigil
Waiting for the spark
That bursts into being
Singing in the dark
The prayer is never over
And the work is never done
Never done
We all raise up our voices
And our voices become one
Voices become one
Voices become one
When we think that we are lost
And out there on our own
And the dawn is in the distance
Still we are not alone
Heaven is right here
If we open up our heart
And join the choir
That is singing in the dark
Singing in the dark
Calling up the day
Joining with the voices
Opening the way
Sitting here in vigil
Waiting for the spark
That bursts into being
Singing in the dark
Grace and Peace,
Shelli
Dancing to God 