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Christmas Eve worship is my favorite worship service of the year. Last Saturday we

celebrated our 2nd annual staff party at Chain of Lakes Church. During a game at the party I was

asked about a favorite Christmas memory. The thoughts that came to my mind were the

Christmas Eve services we celebrated when I served at the Presbyterian church in Plainview,

Minnesota. We poured ourselves into Christmas Eve worship. We would frequently double our

usual attendance at Christmas Eve. The services became a community event. Many people

came to our church for the first time at Christmas Eve.

This day is such a special day to worship God. Already today I attended Mass at 4:00

p.m. at St. Joseph Catholic church, and I’ll sing in their choir at the 10:00 Mass.

I saw in the paper that one Lutheran church is sharing ten Christmas Eve services. We at

Chain of Lakes are having one service right now, but someday we at Chain of Lakes will share

multiple services and even a midnight service.

One reason I enjoy Christmas Eve worship so much is get to celebrate worship with

people who often don’t attend worship. This week a poll came out that said that 47% of

Americans will attend worship this Christmas weekend—a much higher percentage than normal.

Even atheists acknowledge Christmas—55%, according to this poll—celebrate Christmas.

The question I have for all of us tonight is “why did we come? What are we looking for

tonight in Christmas Eve worship?

I can answer the question by saying that I’m looking to celebrate a story.

On Christmas Eve we celebrate this story with all sorts of pageantry. The story, of

course, is of Jesus’ birth—his first entrance into the world. It’s an amazing story. I’m guessing

we know it. God chose to enter the world as a vulnerable baby, born to an unmarried, peasant

teenager in a small village called Bethlehem.

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As I thought about this story over the last month the idea that has come to me is how light

was interweaved into this story. I’m going to share three ways that light surrounds the story of

Jesus’ birth. If you’d like I’d encourage you to write down these three points down in your

sermon notes. These sermon notes are a way for you to write down something that is meaningful

from this service. You also have a daily devotion and prayer requests.

I’m going to highlight three times that light was interweaved into the story.

First example. Light was involved in the story even before Jesus was born. Seven

hundred years before Jesus entered the world a man by the name of Isaiah said:

SLIDE “The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light; those who lived in a
land of deep darkness—on them light has shined.” Isaiah 9:2

When Isaiah wrote these words Jerusalem was being besieged by war. It was a terrible war that

involved all sorts of tricky political alliances. We in the United States can relate to this context

as our country has been at war for over ten years.

Isaiah predicted that peace would ultimately come when a child was born. He said:

SLIDE “For a child has been born for us, a son given to us;

We know this child, of course, as Jesus. Isaiah went on.

He is named
Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.
His authority shall grow continually, and there shall be endless peace
for the throne of David and his kingdom.
He will establish and uphold it with justice and with righteousness from this time onward and
forevermore.

Isaiah didn’t even know that this child would be named Jesus; he didn’t even know that the

celebration of Christmas would develop. All he knew was that a light would come into the world

in the future, this light would come through a baby, and the light would bring peace.
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Let’s move forward. Second example of light. Shortly after Jesus was born an angel of

the Lord appeared before the shepherds outside of Bethlehem. What do you think the shepherds

saw when they looked at the angels? The saw light—the “glory of the Lord.” Then later the

shepherds saw the heavenly host, the army of God sing praises to God. More light.

Third example of light. After Jesus was born the magi came to share gifts. How did the

magi know that Jesus was born. They had seen a star. They had followed that star for perhaps

over a year. More light! The light of the star guided them to the house where Jesus was with hi

mother, Mary.

Before—with Isaiah; during—with the angels; and after—with the star that guided the

magi light was interweaved into the story.

Let’s move to our context. We need light this time of year.

How many of us suffer from the lack of light. I sure notice the lack of sunlight during the

late part of December. For the next few weeks I will be checking the newspaper to see how

much more sun we are getting each day. I’m not bothered by the amount of snow we get or even

the cold. It’s the lack of light affects me. A disease called seasonal affective disorder plagues

many people. It’s a form of depression that some people suffer from during early winter.

We’re surrounded by darkness. We need the light of the Christmas story.

Knowing that I was going to talk about light in this sermon I decided to try to understand

more the science of light. There’s different theories regarding light. At one time people thought

of light as a stream of tiny particles. The idea was that the particles would travel in a straight

line and bounce off an object like a ball bouncing off a wall. Then in the late 1600’s a man by

the name of Christian Huygens proposed that light is actually made up of a wave. The frequency

of light is the number of waves that pass a point during an interval of time. The color of light
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depends on the number of wavelengths. The color red travels at 430 trillion waves per second;

the color violet travels at 750 trillion waves per second. By observing the planets scientists

learned that light actually travels. The light that we seen in the sky didn’t originate at the time

we see it. Scientists have calculated that light travels at 186,282 miles per second

That is a little bit of science about light.

But there’s poetry to light too.

SLIDE
This is a photograph of the star Betelgeuse. It was taken by the Hubble Space Telescrope.
Betelgeuse is 20 times bigger than the Sun. It’s the ninth brightest star in the sky. Isn’t that
beautiful?

SLIDE
Eta Carinae, is about 8,000 light years from the Sun. The images that we see in this picture
originated thousand years before Jesus was born. This star is four million times brighter than the
sun and weighs a hundred times more than the sun.

SLIDE
This is a picture of the star Sirius, also known as the Dog Star. It’s the brightest star in the sky,
and and familiar to astronomers.

You might be thinking—those are beautiful pictures, Paul, but I didn’t come here for a science

lesson. What’s the point? The point is this. The Scriptures teach us that God knows every part

of the universe. God numbers all of the stars. God could have chosen to enter the world in any

way that God wanted. God chose to enter the world as a vulnerable baby. Just as Isaiah

predicted , this baby brought light to the world. This light gives all of us life.

The writer of John’s gospel wrote about light. John didn’t have a story about Jesus’ birth,

but he shared poetry about Jesus’ entrance into the world.

In the beginning was the Word. And the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was
in the beginning with God. All things came into being through him, and without him not one
thing came into being. What has come into being in him was life, and the life was the light of all
people. John 1:1-4
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The Greek word that is translated as light is phos. It means radiance or fire. Throughout

John’s gospel John made the point that Jesus was the light of the world.

SLIDE
John 8:12 Jesus said, “I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will never walk in
darkness but will have the light of life..

SLIDE
John 9:5 As long as I am in the world, I am the light of the world

SLIDE
John 12:46 I have come as light into the world, so that everyone who believes in me should
not remain in the darkness.

If you’ve ever wanted a simple explanation for the question, “who is Jesus” we can take

answers from these passages in John. Who is Jesus? Jesus is the light of the world who gives us

life.

This light, Jesus, gives us eternal life—that is life beyond our death. This light, Jesus—

gives us spiritual light during our life on earth; a gift we can’t experience anywhere else.

The people of Jesus’ day didn’t know the science of light as you and I do. They didn’t

know that light traveled in waves, or that light traveled at 186,000 miles per second. They never

could have imagined that the the light from the stars they saw in the night sky had traveled to

them thousands of years before they were born.

People in Jesus’ day understood the basic human condition. They knew that they needed

light. They could look at the world and see a place full of war and conflict and suffering. Even

though humans have the capability of tremendous goodness, we also have the capability of

terrible evil.

Our human condition is the same. We look out at the world and see many people

suffering. We see wars and poverty and families who are hurting from divorce and separation.

We need this light. It gives us life, a life that we can’t receive from any other place.
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Really this is the message of Christmas. The message is the light has come into the world

and because of that all of us can experience life.

I decided a long time ago to dedicate my life to this light. I could not be the person that

God desires for me to be if I had not received this light. What’s ultimately important for me is

not that I’ve received the light, but that I share it with others. This light is not meant for any of

us to possess it. It’s meant to be shared.

The way that I share the light is by being a new church development pastor. For a long

time I’ve had a call to start a new church. I have a deep desire to create a church that is based on

the Purpose Statement and Core Values that we at COL have developed. Our Purpose Statement

and Values are on the back of the bulletin. If you are ever curious about what we are about at

Chain of Lakes Church study this Purpose and Values.

Our call is not to make people Presbyterian—though we are a Presbyterian church; our

call is not to make people Christian—though we are a Christian church and want people to be

Christians; our call is not to create a mega-church—though we do believe that we can be a

regional, Presbyterian church of 600-900 members. Our call is to share the light of Christ with

others by being a church that lives out this Purpose and Values.

We’re still a baby church. We just started worshipping a year ago. We’re not a fully

developed place that can offer programs for every age group which meet every need. It’s messy

starting a new church. We have things happen to us that would never happen in an established

church.

But we’re learning how to be church to each other. Even though it’s messy starting this

church is the most exhilarating thing I’ve ever experienced. The image that comes to my mind in

starting a new church is a roller coaster ride. Just like a roller coaster ride starting a new church
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involves a lot of ups and downs. If you like roller coaster rides then I suggest that you would

like this church. I tell people that not many folks in their lifetime have the privilege of starting a

new church. We can do things in church that most church people can’t, just because we’re new.

We’re doing the best we can to share the light of Christ.

This week on my Facebook page I asked people to share stories where they saw the light

of Christ shared at Chain of Lakes during the past year. It was a privilege to see all the stories

shared that were shared. I want to share a few.

I remember our Grand Opening service on January 30, 2010. We had 110 people

jammed into this place. Many came from other Presbyterian churches to celebrate that day.

John Ivers stood up to talk to the gathered community. John has been part of this church from

the very day one—all the way back to 2004. Our Presbytery didn’t approve the start of this

church until May 2007. Those three years and even beyond were quite a struggle. John and

others experienced many roadblocks and obstacles that would have prompted many people to

quit. But he didn’t quit. On January 30 of this year he stood up at our Grand Opening and saw a

large crowd. , 2010 he saw a new church. He did what most of us would do. He was overcome

with emotion. John’s wife, Gloria, was sitting in the congregation at the time. She had seen her

husband go to hundreds of meetings and spend thousands of hours on getting this church started.

As John stumbled over himself, she yelled out, “he’s worked very hard.” That was the light of

Christ.

I remember this past April when we interviewed Kellie Burriss for the job of our

Accompanist. At the end of the interview we asked her if she had any questions for us. She

asked how her son, Jordie would be treated by the people at Chain of Lakes. I answered that

question. I shared that I don’t make many promises as a pastor. But I promised her that our
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community would love her son. We are a community who loves children. We teach our adults

all the time to love the kids of this place. One of our Core Values is “Investing in Future

Generations.” Kellie responded to my Faebook question by saying how cool it is that her son has

two Grandmas at Chain of Lakes. He has Grandma Val and Grandma Gloria. Last Sunday as

our kids practiced for the Christmas program Jordie became very anxious. Kellie was too busy

to spend any time with Jordie. Jordie started crying. Even though Jordie’s biological

grandparents were with him, Bill Fink took Jordie and calmed him down. That is the light of

Christ.

I have many more stories I could tell about sharing the light of Christ at COL, but let me

tell one more. It’s the story of the baptism of Manka and Bih Tse. Usually when a baptism is

celebrated a few adults stand up for the child. They agree to raise the child in the faith. On that

day about thirty friends of Manka and Bih’s surrounded the baptismal font. Here are a few

pictures. Tiffany Godfrey was one of the godparents who stood up for Manka. She wrote on my

Facebook page that she finally had her daughters. She was connected to something she never

had. That connection is the light of Christ.

Jesus came into the world so that you and I can receive and share the light of Christ.

I’d like you to close with two questions. Take these questions with you and reflect upon

them during the next few days. First question. If you haven’t received the light, would you like

to receive it? People spend thousands of dollars on counselors and body treatments, and job

coaches and personal stylists and personal trainers—looking for the secret of life. The true light

that gives life is Jesus Christ. Would you like to receive it?

If you’ve received this light, don’t you want to share it? When I talk about sharing the

light I’m not talking about a heavy sales job. I’m talking about sharing our story of how this
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light has made a difference in our life. I’m talking about helping out at ministries like People

Serving People and Manna Marker; I’m talking about helping the kids of our congregation

through teaching Sunday School; I’m talking about going out of our way to help each other.

Don’t you want to share it?

Isaiah said, “The people in darkness have seen a great light.” John said What has come

into being in him was life, and the life was the light of all people.

The world changed when a baby was born in Bethlehem. From now on all of us can

receive and share this light. Merry Christmas.