Luke 1:39-56 “Silent Night: Love’s Pure Light“ 12 23 18

We have been following along the verses of the 200 year old carol, Silent
Night as a guide through Advent to Christmas Eve. If you would like to open your
hymnal to follow along – the hymn is number 60 – We will read the words to
verse 3. Hymn #60, Silent Night, verse 3:
Silent night, holy night, Son of God, love’s pure light.
Radiant beams from thy holy face, with the dawn of redeeming grace
Jesus Lord at thy birth, Jesus Lord at thy birth.
It has more impact to talk and sing about light and radiance and dawn when we
are just coming around the corner from the shortest day and longest night of the
year. I learned recently that after God created 24 hours of alternating darkness
and light, one of the angels asked, “What are you going to do now?” God
answered, “I think I’m going to call it a day.”
We are longing for light after the longest night – any light! Maybe you turn
on extra lights at home, or light a fire, or string another set of bulbs on the
Christmas tree. Like plants on a windowsill, we turn our faces toward whatever
light is available, as if we are soaking up energy for living. In the midst of a dark
night, a silent night, our faces turn toward the radiant face of a child, a face that is
beaming with the brightness of morning.
Radiance not only sheds light on our lives, radiance illuminates the world
around us. A radiant light encompasses so much more than what we can see –
radiance gives dimension and weight. A child in the light is a beautiful thing to
behold. But a child in radiant light moves us to think about what it means to be
human, whether innocence is something that can be lost or regained, or to be in
touch with relational, protective or playful feelings that have never been

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awakened. The Christmas carol’s depiction of radiance beaming from the Christ
child’s face is a poetic way of describing the impact our faith has on the whole of
our lives. When we welcome the Christ child, we put ourselves in the position of
basking in that radiant light that makes life more complex and complicated, and
therefore more meaningful.
The complication that comes with Jesus’ birth is reflected in the song that
we read in scripture and heard so beautifully from Cindy this morning. This was a
song that Mary probably knew since her childhood – a song sung by generations
of hopeful Israelites waiting for the day when they would be freed from poverty,
servitude and corrupt leaders. It is a song about the power of love to transform
even the most entrenched systems of oppression. When transforming societal
organizations or church structures or global networks it is not sufficient to shed a
radiant light. Illumination is not up to the task of rending deception open to
scrutiny. This is the role of Love’s Pure Light. It is only love’s pure light that has
the power to disrupt and reconstruct the whole of humanity into a new reality of
equity and justice.
Every year the editorial staff of Merriam Webster’s dictionary research
which English words are most often searched for their meaning. In 2018, the word
most often looked up was Justice. The editor said that the word came up in the
context of searches about racial justice and social justice; people searched for the
U.S. Justice Department and Supreme Court Justices; and there were searches for
obstruction of justice. This is what Mary had been searching for as well. She
searched along with her people, for a supreme arbiter of justice to bring the
proud to their knees and to raise up the lowly from their burdened existence.
Mary searched for the justice of being filled with good things and seeing the

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oppressors leave empty handed. Mary searhed for Love’s pure light that could
bring these things.
Light is not pure energy. Even though it has no mass, it is composed of
fundamental quantum objects called photons. So a photon walks into a hotel to
check in, and is asked if he has any luggage. The photon says, “no, I’m traveling
light.”
The light we see and use most commonly travels in various directions. Light
will fan-out from the source of a lightbulb. The light we see is also polychromatic
– if it is shone through a prism, it reveals multiple colors or wavelengths. Pure
light, on the other hand, is monochromatic. It has only one wavelength and only
one direction. This light is like what we think of as a laser. Pure light cuts - it
severs things that other elements cannot. Love’s pure light cuts everything open.
Love’s laser light exposes exploitation and calls us to account for it. It is not
politics that arouses us to reject the practice of separating immigrant children
away from family, or preventing those seeking asylum from entering the U.S. It is
love that breaks through and opens our sensibilities to the absurdity and sin of
rejectig brothers and sisters I need of safety, shelter, and home.
Love’s pure light cuts open the lies we tell ourselves and the distortions we
buy into = and once we are cut open, we can be healed. Love’s pure light opens us
to the realities of the world so that they can be redeemed. Love’s pure light
makes radiant, illuminating light possible.
The babe who is coming in a manger is the unassuming bearer of pure light
that has the potential to cut and to heal, to raise up and bring low, to serve and to
overpower. The Word made Flesh is the embodiment of the power of love to
redeem and transform. Come, Emmanuel! Amen.

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Luke 1:39-56
Rev. Ann: In those days Mary set out and went with haste to a Judean town in the
hill country, where she entered the house of Zechariah and greeted Elizabeth.
Reader: When Elizabeth heard Mary’s greeting, the child leaped in her womb.
And Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit and exclaimed with a loud cry,
“Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb. And
why has this happened to me, that the mother of my Lord comes to me? For as
soon as I heard the sound of your greeting, the child in my womb leaped for
joy. And blessed is she who believed that there would be a fulfillment of what
was spoken to her by the Lord.”
Rev. Ann: And Mary said, “My soul magnifies the Lord, and my spirit rejoices in
God my Savior, who has looked with favor on the lowliness of this servant. Surely,
from now on all generations will call me blessed; for the Mighty One has done
great things for me, and holy is God’s name. Mercy is for those who fear the Lord
from generation to generation. God has shown strength with a divine arm; and
has scattered the proud in the thoughts of their hearts. God has brought down
the powerful from their thrones, and lifted up the lowly; God has filled the hungry
with good things, and sent the rich away empty. God has helped this servant
Israel, in remembrance of mercy, according to the promise the Lord made to our
ancestors, to Abraham and Sarah, and to their descendants forever.”
Reader: And Mary remained with Elizabeth about three months and then
returned to her home.

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Pure Light
Pure light, as proposed by Sir Issac Newton (1642-1727), is light that is comprised
of one wavelength that cannot be broken down into different colors or
component hues. This monochromatic light is a very rare occurrence as most light
is composite light which is comprised of different wavelengths that can be
isolated and broken down into separate colors. Composite light can be seen by
using a prism - the light goes in as one composite beam and then is isolated into
the varying range of colors it is made up of and will appear like a rainbow when
projected onto a screen. Light made of different wavelengths appears duller than
pure light.
So just as pure light can be used in surgery to heal problems, and in astronomy to
add accuracy to our measurements, the true light can be used to shine in the
darkness of our world to reveal things that need revealing and to bring healing to
our souls.
https://brightmysteries.net/2009/06/25/pure-light-and-true-light/

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Announcements

Sign in
Lyn Ward Page – diaper announcement
Nick and/or Joseph – loaves and fishes
MLK
Christmas Eve at 5:00 pm

At Offertory
Gift from Nancy Davis Anderson – member for a short time, years ago

Use for prayers of the people:

Call to Worship
Leader: God loved the world so much,
People: that we were created to be together.
Leader: God loved the world so much,
People: that Jesus came to reveal the divine heart.
Leader: God loved the world so much,
People: that Holy Spirit filled us with the desire to love others.
All: Let us worship God.

Prayers

Curt Fuller’s cousin died – gone to CT for services and Christmas

Traveling for Christmas