Rev. David Holwick Christmas Eve 1999
First Baptist Church
Ledgewood, New Jersey
December 24, 1999
Matthew 4:16
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I. This is our most popular service. Highlight is candles.
A. May come in handy in Y2K.
1) People accumulating generators, food, ammo.
2) More likely to asphyxiate themselves.
B. Light is not something we can take for granted.
1) Big Blackout in 1965 while I lived in Syracuse, New York.
2) Great fun for a kid. We couldn't find any candles or
flashlights and groped around in the dark.
C. Big disasters have their benefits:
1) They teach us to be prepared.
a) For ten years my family stocked up on flashlights.
b) I still do, but not a single one works.
2) They put normal, boring, events in proper perspective.
a) If electricity fails, stock market crashes, etc.,
what would you really value?
b) For that matter, what do you value about life itself?
II. How Jesus is a light.
A. No candles, or electric icicles, mentioned for first Christmas.
1) But it happened at night, so must have been candles present.
2) Real light was symbolic - birth of Jesus.
a) As low-tech as you can get. But very effective.
During the dark winter of 1864 the Confederate army of Robert
E. Lee faced Grant's army at Petersburg, Virginia.
The war was now three and a half years old and the glorious
charge had long since given way to the muck and mud of
trench warfare.
Late one evening one of Lee's generals, Major General
George Pickett, received word that his wife had given
birth to a beautiful baby boy.
Up and down the line the Southerners began building huge
bonfires in celebration of the event.
These fires did not go unnoticed in the Northern camps and
soon a nervous Grant sent out a reconnaissance patrol to
see what was going on.
The scouts returned with the message that Pickett had had
a son and these were fires of celebration.
It so happened that Grant and Pickett had been students at
West Point together and knew one another well.
So to honor the occasion Grant ordered that bonfires should
be built on the Union side as well.
What a peculiar night it was.
For miles on both sides of the lines fires burned.
No shots fired.
No yelling back and forth.
No war fought.
Only light, celebrating the birth of a child.
But it didn't last forever.
Soon the fires burned down and once again the darkness
took over.
The darkness of the night and the darkness of war.
The good news of Christmas is that in the midst of a great
darkness there came a light, and the darkness was not
able to overcome the light.
It was not just a temporary flicker.
It was an eternal flame.
We need to remember that.
There are times, in the events of the world and in the events
of our own personal lives, that we feel that the light of
the world will be snuffed out.
But the Christmas story affirms that whatever happens, the
light still shines.
#5053
B. His light reveals our sin. (Paul in Ephesians 5:8-11)
1) People who met Jesus saw themselves for what they were.
a) Woman at the well: "He told me everything I ever did."
b) Rich young ruler, very religious, had his greed exposed.
C. His light reveals God's hope.
1) In Revelation there is no light in eternal city because
God the Father and Jesus are light.
III. When you believe in his light, you should reflect his light.
A. Give love.
1) Church supplied presents & food for 4 families in Roxbury.
a) (I messed up system)
2) Ministry of Market Street Mission...
B. Give truth.
1) Uncover the sin in human hearts. (Eph 5)
Robert Fulghum visited an institute on Crete devoted to
reconciling Germans and Cretans.
At the end of a lecture he asked the director, Alexandros
Papaderos, what the meaning of life was.
Laughter followed, and people started to get up from their
seats to go home.
Papaderos looked at him for a long time, asking with his
eyes if he was serious and saw that he was.
"I will answer your question."
Taking his wallet from his hip pocket, he fished out a small
round mirror, the size of a quarter.
Then he said, "I was a small child during the war.
One day, on the road, I found the broken pieces of a mirror.
I kept the largest piece.
This one.
I began to play with it and became fascinated that I could
reflect light into dark places where the sun would never
shine - deep holes, crevices, dark closets.
"I kept the little mirror, and as I became a man, I grew to
understand that this was not just a child's game but a
metaphor for what I might do with my life -
- that I am a fragment of a mirror whose whole design I do
not know.
With what I have, I can reflect light - truth, understanding,
knowledge - into the black places in the hearts of men
and change some things in some people.
Perhaps others may see and do likewise.
This is what I do."
#1101
C. Give hope.
1) Nothing is darker than death, but Christians have hope of
eternal life.
2) We can share it with others.
IV. A little light can make a big difference.
A. Jesus - even a candle can be seen a long way.
B. Small acts of love build up.
C. Even a small faith can start you on path to Jesus and eternal
life.
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SOURCES FOR ILLUSTRATIONS USED IN THIS SERMON:
#1101 "This Is What I Do," by Robert Fulghum, Reader's Digest,
February 1990, page 114.
#5053 "Fires To Honor A Son," illustration by Rev. Brett Blair,
www.sermonillustrations.com, December 13, 1999.
These and 35,000 others are part of a database that can be downloaded,
absolutely free, at http://www.holwick.com/database.html
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