Christmas Eve 2025

“Light of the world, you stepped down into darkness.”

Darkness around us

When I went to Israel, I had the opportunity to visit the Yad Veshem museum. It is a holocaust museum that remembers one of the greatest atrocities in the history of the world. It’s a stunning museum that has visuals, experiences, actual artifacts, and so many stories. Each room is like stepping into that moment in time and hearing that particular story.

-It was a literal gut punch. It was heart-wrenching.

-A man on the trip with us, asked if he could walk through it with me. So we started out together, after a few minutes in there, I noticed he was gone. I couldn’t find him. So I started going through the museum a little bit faster, not missing anything but also not dwelling on anything in order to catch up. Finally, I left out the exit at the end. And there he is, sitting on a bench, with his head in his hands weeping.

-”How could someone do that to those people? How can there be such evil?”

This story is reminder that there is darkness in our world. And this darkness can be perpetuated by people who decide to participate in it and further it.

-but there were so many people caught up in this. The darkness was happening to them. They didn’t deserve it, choose it, ask for it, or embrace it. But it swallowed them.

This is real. This is darkness. This is what we need to understand today.

To live in a fallen world full of fallen people. Means we are touched by brokenness. We experience pain, sorrow, torment, and frustrations. We don’t ask for them but they come none the less.

-Storms, sorrows, death, etc.

Coming to Jesus did not guarantee a free pass through life without experiencing the sorrows of life. We can look around our world and see innocent people suffering from the violence and destruction of others.

-Recently, 46,000+ people die in an earthquake in Turkey.

-Victims of gun violence around our country.

-I already mentioned the holocaust.

This isn’t a new reality: It goes back to the first moment when Adam and Eve said, “We don’t need to listen to God.”

Then the next generation murdered, and things continued to spiral

Judges - “Everyone did what was right in their own eyes.”

And then whole kingdoms were raised up intent on killing other kingdoms. Etc.

From Philistines to Babylon

Yet it’s easy to look around and see the darkness out there.

And evil is real.

But it’s also…

Darkness within us

John 3:19-21

Darkness as familiar and comfortable

The Bible speaks as if darkness is where humans typically reside since the fall. The world is

dark. It’s what hovers over the land, its the chains that bind us and hold us.

That’s why we see scriptures like John 3 - that talk about LIGHT coming into the world. And yet it felt like the enemy. It was the intruder in the dark world.

Or Isaiah 9:2 - “the people walking in darkness have seen a great light; on those living in the land of deep darkness a light has dawned.”

Light coming into the darkness. However - if you remember, God created the world with LIGHT and it was humans that stepped into the darkness. Handed this darkness down from generation to generation. It became what was familiar.

So when light shows up. It’s a bit blinding, you could imagine.

Think about when you are in a dark room and someone flips on the lights. It’s like “AHHHH – what are you doing?” It’s painful even.

Darkness for many is what is familiar and comfortable. It is what is normal. Now - I don’t want us to be confused - I’m not talking about utter wickedness (though that could be true too). I’m talking about the casual human experience of living in a world that worships anything BUT Jesus.

-Self, fame, power, riches, celebrity, hurry, success, etc.

And while we can rank evil as this is worse than that… there’s a truth about us… that we all have a tendency to embrace the darkness as familiar and comfortable. Even if it’s just in selfishness, bitterness, power trips, aggression, gluttony, or rationalizing motives.

The light coming into this darkness - shows the same reaction to most as we have when the light is flipped on in the dark. “Turn it off! Turn it off!”

The first thing we need to understand about darkness - sometimes its embraced, because it’s what we know and in many ways, it feels like what we can control. We know what to expect. We know how things work.

This is actually why it takes some reaching rock bottom before they realize that the darkness is not their friend. It has never helped and it has only brought them this low. But there are plenty of others that won’t reach rock bottom and will casually drift in the dark world.

This is why JESUS - Light of the WORLD stepped down into darkness.

The first Christmas tree

There’s a Christmas story that showcases this “darkness out there” – “darkness in us” — and turning and embracing Jesus the light that will help bring this home.

The story is of the first Christmas tree.

There is much debate about the origins of the Christmas tree and if it’s actually a pagan ritual adopted at Christmas time. However, one story puts that to bed.

It’s a story of a missionary named Winfrith in the 8th century. He was a missionary to the Saxon people in what is now Germany. A group of people who worshipped the old Nordic gods.

He discovered in his mission work with the people about a secret and terrible ritual.

The people would head into the woods, out of site from the light of their village. Into the darkness with torches around an old oak tree. A huge tree that they believed was the tree of the mighty god Thor.

They would head into the village and present a human sacrifice, often an innocent child to the gods by this tree.

The old priest of the pagan gods, spoke to the crowd gathered… Here’s what’s written in the short story of the tale by Author Henry Van Dyke. His tale is a bit dramatized, but the account was said to have taken place.

“And behold what the gods have called us hither to do. This night is the death-night of the sun-god, Baldur the Beautiful, beloved of gods and men. This night is the hour of darkness and the power of winter, of sacrifice and mighty fear. This night the great Thor, the god of thunder and war, to whom this oak is sacred, is grieved for the death of Baldur, and angry with this people because they have forsaken his worship. Long is it since an offering has been laid upon his altar, long since the roots of his holy tree have been fed with blood. Therefore its leaves have withered before the time, and its boughs are heavy with death. Therefore the Slavs`and the Wends have beaten us in battle. Therefore the harvests have failed, and the wolf-hordes have ravaged the folds, and the strength has departed from the bow, and the wood of the spear has broken, and the wild boar has slain the huntsman. Therefore the plague has fallen on our dwellings, and the dead are more than the living in all our villages. Answer me, ye people, are not these things true? "

A hoarse sound of approval ran through the circle. A chant, in which the voices of the men and women blended, like the shrill wind in the pinetrees above the rumbling thunder of a waterfall, rose and fell in rude cadences.

O Thor, the Thunderer

Mighty and merciless,

Spare us from smiting!

Heave not thy hammer,

Angry, aginst us;

Plague not thy people.

Take from our treasure

Richest Of ransom.

Silver we send thee,

Jewels and javelins,

Goodliest garments,

All our possessions,

Priceless, we proffer.

Sheep will we slaughter,

Steeds will we sacrifice;

Bright blood shall bathe

O tree of Thunder,

Life-floods shall lave thee,

Strong wood of wonder.

Mighty, have mercy,

Smile as no more,

Spare us and save us,

Spare us, Thor! Thor!

With two great shouts the song ended, and stillness followed so intense that the crackling of the fire was heard distinctly. The old priest stood silent for a moment. His shaggy brows swept down ever his eyes like ashes quenching flame. Then he lifted his face and spoke.

"None of these things will please the god. More costly is the offering that shall cleanse your sin, more precious the crimson dew that shall send new life into this holy tree of blood. Thor claims your dearest and your noblest gift."

As the child chosen was taken to the altar. Boniface the missionary stepped up and began to preach to the crowd, “Not a drop of blood shall fall to-night, save that which pity has drawn from the breast of your princess, in love for her child. Not a life shall be blotted out in the darkness to-night; but the great shadow of the tree which hides you from the light of heaven shall be swept away. For this is the birth-night of the white Christ, son of the All-Father, and Saviour of mankind. Fairer is He than Baldur the Beautiful, greater than Odin the Wise, kinder than Freya the Good. Since He has come to earth the bloody sacrifice must cease. The dark Thor, on whom you vainly call, is dead. Deep in the shades of Niffelheim he is lost forever. His power in the world is broken. Will you serve a helpless god? See, my brothers, you call this tree his oak. Does he dwell here? Does he protect it?"

Then the story goes that he and his missionary apprentices took out axes and began to chop down the tree. The crowd was in uproar shouting for THOR to kill the men chopping at the tree.

But like the prophet Elijah, Boniface is said to have taunted the crowd and Thor… “"Tree-god!" cried Winfried, "art thou angry? Thus we smite thee!"

"Tree-god!" answered Gregor, "art thou mighty? Thus we fight thee!"

The story goes that a wind came as they were partway through the chopping of the tree when the crowd was the most earnest to stop them, and the tree toppled. The sign from the Almighty that Thor was indeed dead and the God of Boniface was the one true God.

He then took the oak tree and had the village build a church for Jesus with the wood from the tree. And in that church, he brought forth a tiny sapling tree and placed it inside… declaring, “

"And here," said he, as his eyes fell on a young fir-tree, standing straight and green, with its top pointing toward the stars, amid the divided ruins of the fallen oak, "here is the living tree, with no stain of blood upon it, that shall be the sign of your new worship. See how it points to the sky. Call it the tree of the Christ-child. Take it up and carry it to the chieftain's hall. You shall go no more into the shadows of the forest to keep your feasts with secret rites of shame. You shall keep them at home, with laughter and songs and rites of love. The thunder-oak has fallen, and I think the day is coming when there shall not be a home in all Germany where the children are not gathered around the green fir-tree to rejoice in the birth-night of Christ."

So they took the little fir from its place, and carried it in joyous procession to the edge of the glade, and laid it on the sledge. The horses tossed their heads and drew their load bravely, as if the new burden had made it lighter.

When they came to the house of Gundhar, he bade them throw open the doors of the hall and set the tree in the midst of it. They kindled lights among the branches until it seemed to be tangled full of fire-flies. The children encircled it, wondering, and the sweet odour of the balsam filled the house.

Then Winfried stood beside the chair of Gundhar, on the dais at the end of the hall, and told the story of Bethlehem; of the babe in the manger, of the shepherds on the hills, of the host of angels and their midnight song. All the people listened, charmed into stillness.

It is said that Martin Luther in the 16th century resurrected this tradition around Christmas and that’s really the origin of the Christmas tree.

Historians may debate the specifics of such a story and the events thereafter but the point tonight is more about the reality that into the darkness stepped the light and this story in a short form showcases the reality of Jesus stepping into darkness and bringing forth light.

Then every year when we put a tree in our houses, it is all lit up and should remind us of Jesus, the one who brings light.

The Light of the World

The story shows the reality of what we are talking about tonight…

Into the shadows to worship a false god. Even if the false god is ourselves or fame or fortune or whatever. We slink away. Darkness out there - the child sacrifice… darkness in ourselves… the desire to hide in shame.

**Feel this out a bit**

Light up the world

Then… Light comes into the world, fills our lives with light. We walk in the light. Live in the light, trust the light. Embrace the light… and then we are tasked to flood the darkness with light. Be light bringers.

Corrie Ten Boom, who said - “With Jesus, even in our darkest moments the best remains and the very best is yet to be…”

She once spoke a sermon and she started it this way; “The world is deathly ill. It is dying. The Great Physician has already signed the death certificate. Yet there is still a great work for Christians to do. They are to be streams of living water, channels of mercy to those who are still in the world. It is possible for them to do this because they are overcomers. Christians are ambassadors for Christ. They are representatives from Heaven to this dying world. And because of our presence here, things will change. My sister, Betsy, and I were in the Nazi concentration camp at Ravensbruck because we committed the crime of loving Jews.

Seven hundred of us from Holland, France, Russia, Poland and Belgium were herded into a room built for two hundred. As far as I knew, Betsy and I were the only two representatives of Heaven in that room. We may have been the Lord’s only representatives in that place of hatred, yet because of our presence there, things changed. Jesus said, “In the world you shall have tribulation; but be of good cheer, I have overcome the world.” We too, are to be overcomers – bringing the light of Jesus into a world filled with darkness and hate. Sometimes I get frightened as I read the Bible, and as I look in this world and see all of the tribulation and persecution promised by the Bible coming true. Now I can tell you, though, if you too are afraid, that I have just read the last pages. I can now come to shouting “Hallelujah! Hallelujah!” for I have found where it is written that Jesus said, “He that overcometh shall inherit all things: and I will be His God, and he shall be My son.” This is the future and hope of this world. Not that the world will survive – but that we shall be overcomers in the midst of a dying world.

Betsy and I, in the concentration camp, prayed that God would heal Betsy who was so weak and sick. “Yes, the Lord will heal me,”, Betsy said with confidence. She died the next day and I could not understand it. They laid her thin body on the concrete floor along with all the other corpses of the women who died that day. It was hard for me to understand, to believe that God had a purpose for all that. Yet because of Betsy’s death, today I am travelling all over the world telling people about Jesus.”

A line that later became famous to Corrie Ten Boom was - “there is no pit so deep, that God’s love is not deeper still.” Yet, it wasn’t Corrie that first uttered these words. As Betsy was dying she leaned in close to her sister Corrie and said these words and went on to say - “We must tell them…They will listen to us, Corrie, because we have been here.”