O Holy Night

;Introduction

- Our family tradition of searching out Christmas lights.

Few things better than to find houses and neighborhoods that were cold and dark a few weeks before now bright and joyful.

In fact, when you come across a neighborhood or section of houses that have no lights and are still dark, it makes you wonder what is wrong with those people.

Christmas lights change the darkness, reveal what’s around it, tell a story, turn darkness into something beautiful.

Jesus is the Christmas light that changes the dark world.

Jesus brings light into your darkness.

I probably do not need to do much to convince you there is darkness in the world.

War

Disease

Evil

Things that are hidden from us

things we hide ourselves

Perhaps this is what prompted the opening lines to our hym:

O Holy night! The stars are brightly shining

It is the night of the dear Savior's birth

1847 in a small French town,  a man named Placide Cappeau de Roquemaure  was known more for his talent at writing poetry though he claimed to be an atheist.  He might not be the first person one would suspect a priest would seek out to write a poem for Christmas mass, but the priest did ask him and the man took his request seriously.

Placide Cappeau de Roquemaure began thinking about the birth of Jesus.  With that inspiration, he wrote “Cantique de Noel.” Placide was so pleased with how the poem came out that he decided it needed to be a song. Since he was a poet but not a musician, he turned to a friend, Adolphe Charles Adams, to see if he would set his poem to music.

Adolphe was a famous classical musician who had composed many works all around the world,

Adophe was a Jewish man who didn’t celebrate the birth of Jesus. Even so, he did compose music to go with the beautiful words and the song was performed only a few weeks later at a Midnight Mass on Christmas Eve.

“Cantique de Noel” became popular in France and was sung in many Christmas services. But when Placide Cappeau completely left the church to join a socialist movement and it was discovered that Adolphe Adams was a Jew, the French Catholic church leaders decided “Cantique de Noel” was unfit for church services because of its lack of musical taste and “total absence of the spirit of religion.” But even though the church no longer allowed the song in their services, the French people continued to sing it.

— https://www.annhgabhart.com/2019/12/16/the-story-behind-the-song-o-holy-night/—

You don’t need to be a theist to know the world can be a dark place.

You don’t need to be a theist to experience the darkness of the world.

You don’t need to be a theist to see Christianity claims an answer to the darkness.

You DO need to be a theist if you expect God to do something about the darkness.

Isaiah 9:2 (ESV)

2 The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light; those who dwelt in a land of deep darkness, on them has light shone.

John 1:1–9 (ESV)

1 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. 2 He was in the beginning with God. 3 All things were made through him, and without him was not any thing made that was made. 4 In him was life, and the life was the light of men.

Jesus brings the contrast to the darkness.

Light in the dark brings contrast - revealing just how dark it is

ILLUST - most beautiful house in daytime with no Christmas lights at night is a bummer

Light of Christ reveals how dark the world is - “the soul felt its worth”

With the light of Christ - or moral light of God (Jesus revealed God fully) we would not even know what darkness is

To call something dark means you know what light is - to call something bad means you know what good is

ILLUST - the blind fish in the dark tank

The author was not wrong in his abolitionist views but why? He had to borrow from the light of the Christian worldview to do so.

When you struggle with the darkness of the world - your own questions of why does god allow the darkness in your life, remember it is because of him and his light that you even know the contrast

Jesus exposes the dark places.

We often want the darkness to be exposed when the darkness is external to us

We often fear the darkness to be exposed when it is in our own lives.

There is no darkness Jesus cannot dispel.

5 The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.

The darkness will not overcome it

Darkness tries, doesn’t it?

Reminds us that Christmas is spiritual warfare!

Darkness in our own lives can go by several different names: shame, guilt, fear

All a result of sin

Jesus breaks the power of darkness

The darkness of sin hidden in your life.

The darkness of other’s sin you’ve experienced in your life.

Jesus breaks the power of darkness

The darkness of sin hidden in your life.

The baby in the manger didn’t come only to expose the darkness around you; he came to expose the darkness within you.

Fear of exposure of the sin in your life breeds either religious hypocrisy or rampant paganism.

When light shines in the darkness, it does not always expose pretty things, but it enables freedom.

You will not be free until you deal with the sin in your life.

The darkness of other’s sin you’ve experienced in your life.

Placide Cappeau

“A decade later, an American writer, John Sullivan Dwight, saw something in the song that moved him beyond the story of the birth of Christ. An abolitionist, Dwight strongly identified with the lines of the third verse: “Truly he taught us to love one another; his law is love and his gospel is peace. Chains shall he break, for the slave is our brother; and in his name all oppression shall cease.” This verse mirrored Dwight’s view of slavery in the South. He published his English translation of “O Holy Night” in his magazine, and the song quickly found favor in America, especially in the North during the Civil War.”

“Truly He taught us to love one another; His law is love and His gospel is peace. Chains shall He break, for the slave is our brother, And in His name all oppression shall cease.”

Christ brings freedom from darkness and calls us to reflect the same

Darkness and sin is bondage, when the light comes you are free - you are free to walk in it, or HIDE from it

It is for freedom that Christ has set you free

Christianity alone has the foundation and the means for racial reconciliation.

Wokenness does little more than to describe a problem. The problem that we, as humans in our sin, do everything we can to gain power and pride over each other based on race, intelligence, social status, etc. The world around us can see the problem and only because the moral standard of the God who has made every human being in his image.

Christianity alone has the foundation and the means for racial reconciliation.

We worship Jesus who came not promoting his power or pride but in humility

Philippians 2:7–8 (ESV)

7 but emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. 8 And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.

Christianity alone has the foundation and the means for racial reconciliation.

Which means that Christians primarily should be leading by example both the process and result of racial reconciliation- at home, work, play, and in the church. This truth cannot stay in this building or it is a light under a bushel. We must display it to a world in darkness not as a token morality, but as a gospel reality. (Ex.)

Every human being has value, dignity, worth, and the light of Scripture reveals this. Red and yellow black white - those with special needs, those with disabilities, those struggling with sin, those who hate Christianity

Doesn’t mean we don’t call out sin (in a tone of love) does mean we don’t put down the sinner (they are worth the blood of Jesus the same as you or I) it is not because I am smarter that I found Jesus, it is because of Jesus’ grace that he found me.

Understanding what Christ has done brings reconciliation and makes us reconcilers.

2 Corinthians 5:19 (ESV)

19 that is, in Christ God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and entrusting to us the message of reconciliation.

You may be the Christmas “light” at your family gathering this Christmas. Everyone around the table may know the tensions and darkness in your family, but YOU know what is needed to start the reconciliation.

Do you need to take the form of a servant and be a reconciler in your family?

“Back in France, the song continued to be banned by the church for almost two decades, while the people still sang “Cantique de Noel” at home. Legend has it that on Christmas Eve 1871, in the midst of fierce fighting between the armies of Germany and France, during the Franco-Prussian War, a French soldier suddenly jumped out of his muddy trench. Both sides stared at the seemingly crazed man who lifted his eyes to the heavens and began singing “Cantique de Noel.” Then a German soldier stepped into the open and answered the Frenchman’s song with Martin Luther’s “From Heaven Above to Earth I Come.”

The story goes that the fighting stopped for the next twenty-four hours while the men on both sides observed a temporary peace in honor of Christmas day. Perhaps this story had a part in the French church once again embracing “Cantique de Noel” in holiday services.”

— https://www.annhgabhart.com/2019/12/16/the-story-behind-the-song-o-holy-night/—

The world is made brighter to the degree you reflect Jesus’ light.

6 There was a man sent from God, whose name was John. 7 He came as a witness, to bear witness about the light, that all might believe through him. 8 He was not the light, but came to bear witness about the light. 9 The true light, which gives light to everyone, was coming into the world.

You either reflect the Light or cast a shadow.

Are you a light-reflector or a shadow-caster?

Jesus shames your shame when you allow him to redeem your darkness - either your confessed sin or the sin done to you Jesus makes beautiful both the ugly dark and the ordinary dark

Christmas Eve 1906, Reginald Fessenden–

a 33-year-old university professor and former chief chemist for Thomas Edison–

Using a new type of generator, Fessenden spoke into a microphone and, for the first time in history, a man’s voice was broadcast over the airwaves: “And it came to pass in those days, that there went out a decree from Caesar Augustus, that all the world should be taxed,” he began in a clear, strong voice, hoping he was reaching across the distances he supposed he would.

Shocked radio operators on ships and astonished wireless owners at newspapers were amazed as their normal, coded impulses, heard over tiny speakers, were interrupted by a professor reading the Christmas story. To those who caught this broadcast, it must have seemed like a miracle to hear a voice somehow transmitted to those far away. Perhaps they may have thought they were hearing the voice of an angel.

 After finishing his recitation of the birth of Christ, Fessenden picked up his violin and played “O Holy Night,” the first song ever sent through the air via radio waves.”

— https://www.annhgabhart.com/2019/12/16/the-story-behind-the-song-o-holy-night/—

ILLUST - one Christmas light vs. a whole string.

This Christmas - speak the light of Jesus into every situation!