"The Son Also Rises:" Christmas Eve Midnight Service (December 24, 2022)

“The dayspring from on high hath visited us, to give light to them that sit in darkness and in the shadow of death.” -Luke 1:78-79

May the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts be alway acceptable in thy sight, O Lord, our Strength and our Redeemer. Amen.

Those words I read just a moment ago were spoken by the Priest Zechariah over his son, John the Baptizer. Last week, Dcn. David spoke to us about John the Baptist and how he should be understood as the New Elijah. We know the birth of John was a miracle because the Zechariah and his wife Elizabeth were barren, but Zechariah was contronted by the Angel Gabriel one day as he was performing his priestly duties and told they would have a son. The encounter left him mute but once his speech was restored, he prophesied over John. This beautiful prayer taken from St. Luke 1:67-79 can be found on page 14 of the Book of Common Prayer and is prayed at Morning Prayer daily after the second lesson. “The day spring from on high hath visited us; to give light to them that sit in darkness and in the shadow of death ,and to guide our feet into the way of peace.” There’s no doubt that the “day spring from on high” is a reference to our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ who visited Zechariah and Elizabeth shortly after the Annunciation while he was still in the womb of the Blessed Virgin Mary. But this verse is the perfect description of where we are tonight at this Midnight Mass.

I like to wake up early in the morning. On a good day, I’m up somewhere between 5 and 5:30 in the morning. Sometimes a little earlier, sometimes a little later. For me to get anything done, I have to wake up early before the boys. I really treasure that time to pray, read, write, and check off other things on my to do list. One advantage of waking up this early is you get to see the sunrise.Most days, the sun comes up slowly and gradually. The light just barely pierces through the clouds, the birds begin to emerge and make noise, the commuters begin their morning journeys. 19th century Anglican theologian and priest John Keble drew a parallel between the gradual coming of the day and the coming of Christ. Just as the day comes slowly but surely, so does Jesus. “The light shines in the darkness.” Jesus comes to us as the God-Man, but his humanity often shrouds his divinity. As Deacon David pointed out, he was born in a trough. If you looked at that little, helpless baby wrapped in swaddling clothes, he probably would have looked like any other baby. He was born in the humblest of circumstances, in a trough, in a stable, growing up in what was probably a meager household, working as a laborer among an occupied people. Only rarely did he explicitly reveal his divinity and even then, it was only to a select group of people. He does this because we need him to come gradually. Who could stand in the presence of the full glory of the divine?

This Advent season, we we have dwelt in the convergence of the past and the present. Christ came at his Incarnation to save the world: “by his blessed passion and precious death, his mighty resurrection and glorious ascension.” And we know he will come again to judge the quick and the dead. The Sun is almost here and we must prepare. The sun has a morning star to announce his arrival. There was the New Elijah, John the Baptist, to announce the first coming of Jesus. The Church plays that prophetic role, preparing ourselves and the world for the second coming through the reading of Scripture, the proclamation of the Gospel, the administration of the Sacraments, the recitation of the Creeds, catechesis, and all the other things that are essential to the Church’s mission. It’s easy for us to get lulled into the mundane, caught up in the consumerism of the age, and busied by pointless hustle and bustle.

In spite of all this, Jesus is coming near. The sun is rising. His return is closer now that it was at our last Christmas Eve Midnight Mass. The first time he came, there was no room for him in Bethlehem. Mary and Joseph were turned away from lodging. The people weren’t ready for him. But we have more knowledge than they did; they can be forgiven their ignorance, but when Jesus comes again, we don’t have that excuse to fall back on. He is calling us and calling us and calling us, constantly urging us to prepare a room for him in our hearts, to become a Temple fit for him to dwell in. The beauty of this time of forbearance is that he keeps knocking, the Holy Spirit keeps working in our hearts, the Church keeps proclaiming the Gospel to us and administering the sacraments. The question is whether we will answer, whether we will use the now to become who we are supposed to be.

The choice is up to us. We can stay in bed and sleep the day away, or we can wake up with the sun. If we stay asleep, we’ll find the words of Proverbs 6:10-11 to be true: “Yet a little sleep, a little slumber, A little folding of the hands to sleep: So shall thy poverty come as one that travelleth, And thy want as an armed man.” John Keble tells us that in the here and now, Christmas is almost universally positive, either for religious significance, the nostalgia factor, or consumerism, but one day, it will become a fearful word to those who celebrate this sacred day for the wrong reasons and don’t repent of their sins. But it doesn’t have to be that way. We can rise with the sun, we can open the door when we knocks, we can welcome him into our hearts. We’ll find that the light keeps us on the highway of holiness so that we can avoid sin and be changed into his likeness. However, if we walk through life with eyes wide shut, the light of this beautiful day will do us little-to-no-good. So it’s my prayer that we use this Christmas to dwell more fully in the light. So wake up, celebrate this monumental event of the Incarnation and live as becomes it. Merry Christmas!

In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. Amen.