{"id":467,"date":"2016-12-26T12:21:09","date_gmt":"2016-12-26T17:21:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.firstreflection.org\/?p=467"},"modified":"2016-12-26T12:21:09","modified_gmt":"2016-12-26T17:21:09","slug":"light-one-candle","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.firstreflection.org\/index.php\/2016\/12\/26\/light-one-candle\/","title":{"rendered":"Light One Candle"},"content":{"rendered":"<h1>Light One Candle<\/h1>\n<h3>Click Below to Hear the Sermon Preached<\/3><br \/>\n<audio class=\"wp-audio-shortcode\" id=\"audio-467-1\" preload=\"none\" style=\"width: 100%;\" controls=\"controls\"><source type=\"audio\/mpeg\" src=\"https:\/\/www.firstreflection.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/12\/lightonecandle.m4a?_=1\" \/><a href=\"https:\/\/www.firstreflection.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/12\/lightonecandle.m4a\">https:\/\/www.firstreflection.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/12\/lightonecandle.m4a<\/a><\/audio><\/p>\n<h4>A Sermon for the First Congregational Church of Albany, NY<br \/>\nby Rev. James Eaton, Pastor<br \/>\nChristmas Eve \u2022 December 24, 2016<\/h4>\n<p>What did you bring with you tonight? Who did you bring? I am so aware that especially on Christmas Eve, we come here with so many memories. Some here are in a place that has served as a lighthouse in the sometimes troubled seas of life: a constant point of reference, a place that is familiar and comforting. Others haven\u2019t crossed the threshold of a church in a while and may be a bit nervous; to you we especially say, welcome, we promise, you\u2019ll get out of here unhurt, safe and sound. <\/p>\n<p>We all bring memories. Perhaps you remember being a child, bundled up, taken to a church, made to sit still, hushed when everything in you is vibrating with expectancy. Maybe you sat with family later on as an adult or you came to church hoping to recover that joy, that hope, that light. Of course, we come here as well with more recent experiences. Things happened this week; there are victims of violence today who were happily getting ready for Christmas last Saturday. There are refugees today who are traveling, just as Mary and Joseph traveled. And there are babies. A picture of a baby that moved me this week showed a baby in Aleppo, Syria, sleeping in a cardboard box. And tonight we read Luke\u2019s story of another refugee baby named Jesus.<\/p>\n<h3>The Story of Jesus&#8217; Birth<\/h3>\n<p>We all know this story, or think we do. But if we delve into the details of the Bible story instead of the greeting card version, we may be surprised. The story starts with big, threatening people: Emperor Augustus, Governor Quirinius. They are the Donald Trump, the Andrew Cuomo of their moment. They\u2019ve ordered a census, a count, and the reason as Luke\u2019s readers know is so they can tax people. This story starts with people on the road, forced there by a government of the great and powerful.<\/p>\n<p>But it\u2019s mostly a family story. Just before the section we read, Mary finds out she\u2019s pregnant. What does she do? She runs off to Aunt Elizabeth\u2019s house: she goes to family. There she finds the strength and faith to return and bear the child. The journey to Bethlehem is caused by Joseph\u2019s family connection. His line goes back to David and comes from there, it\u2019s their ancestral home.. Joseph is going home and taking his fianc\u00e9e with him. It\u2019s the family that sustains them; it\u2019s the family that lasts. Long ago, God said to Abraham and Sarah, \u201cI\u2019m going to make your family a blessing to the whole earth.\u201d The great and powerful parade; the family endures, the blessing blossoms from them. <\/p>\n<p>So this family, just at its beginning, slowly moves in the darkness of the winter toward the old family home. I\u2019m sure they hope they can get settled before the baby comes; I\u2019m sure they hope to find a warm, safe place for their first child.<\/p>\n<p>But babies don\u2019t wait, babies don\u2019t care about convenience, so along the way, we read that the baby comes. Most of us have watched Christmas pageants that imagine a Holiday Inn with a No Vacancy sign but that\u2019s not actually what Luke says. Big houses in Palestinian villages had a room called a \u2018kataluma\u2019, sometimes translated an upper room. It\u2019s where you put guests; it\u2019s where Jesus will someday gather his followers for the last supper. It\u2019s this room that\u2019s full and so these travelers do what travelers have always done, they sleep in a barn. The baby is born; they wrap him in swaddling clothes. The Syrian mother I mentioned put her baby in a cardboard box; Mary puts Jesus in the first century equivalent, a manger, a sort of box for feeding grain.<\/p>\n<h3>God works through babies<\/h3>\n<p>Do you remember the seeing a newborn baby? One of the first churches I served had lots of families having babies and I still remember the wonder of those hospital calls. I wasn\u2019t a parent yet but I could still see something earth-shaking had happened. Later on, as a pastor in my own church, there were times I felt overwhelmed and defeated. One of the ways I learned to find God\u2019s love again after hospital calls was to go to the nursery and just see the new babies there. Lasts summer, I came home from vacation when Rosemary was born. She was so tiny. She was born prematurely and I remember her stretched out, naked to the world, so vulnerable. Yet this is how God changes the world. Like lighting candles in a dark room, God works through babies born to bless us all.<\/p>\n<p>The story of Jesus moves on. We started with the power people of the time, we end with the powerless: shepherds, a group of rascally boys everyone rolls their eyes over. But they have something the powerful people will never have: they have a vision, a light, a visitation from angels. This is a truly amazing thing:  God is moving into the world but no one tells the powerful; the angels do not sing to them, do not visit them. Herod, the local king, in fact, according to Matthew, is going to have to ask some foreign wise men where all this happens. The powerful have no idea what\u2019s going on; the shepherds are already on their way to the stable. God is working here but it\u2019s not the powerful who get it, it\u2019s the ones who are watching, who have room in their lives for the light of God. Do you have room? We have so much: this story asks if we will make room for God.<\/p>\n<h3>Light One Candle<\/h3>\n<p>In a moment, we\u2019re going to light candles, beginning with the Christ Candle. The candles remind us that God began with the smallest of lights, a baby, a family, one cry in a barn, one child being born. I began by asking what you brought with you; now I want to ask what you will take with you. I want to suggest this: take the candle. Tonight, tomorrow, we celebrate the birth of Jesus; tonight, tomorrow, we remember God is in the world, God\u2019s kingdom is within us, waiting and wanting to burst out. We are, each one, a light.<\/p>\n<p>So take the candle home. It\u2019s not a big candle; God doesn\u2019t need big, God is great. Take the candle home: set it up. Light one candle. Peter, Paul and Mary have a wonderful song that says, <\/p>\n<blockquote><p>Light one candle for the strength that we need<br \/>\n\u2028To never become our own foe\u2028<br \/>\nAnd light one candle for those who are suffering<br \/>\n\u2028Pain we learned so long ago<br \/>\n\u2028Light one candle for all we believe in\u2028<br \/>\nThat anger not tear us apart\u2028<br \/>\nAnd light one candle to find us together\u2028<br \/>\nWith peace as the song in our hearts&nbsp;<br \/>\nDon&#8217;t let the light go out!\u2028<br \/>\nIt&#8217;s lasted for so many years!<br \/>\n\u2028Don&#8217;t let the light go out!<br \/>\n\u2028Let it shine through our hope and our tears. (2)<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>&nbsp;<br \/>\nTake the candle, set it up, light it up. It\u2019s a small candle. But then, we\u2019re celebrating the birth of a small baby tonight and this is what he says about small.&nbsp; <\/p>\n<blockquote><p>\u2018With what can we compare the kingdom of God, or what parable will we use for it?&nbsp;It is like a mustard seed, which, when sown upon the ground, is the smallest of all the seeds on earth;&nbsp;yet when it is sown it grows up and becomes the greatest of all shrubs, and puts forth large branches\u2026<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Light one candle: one small candle, one small light. See how God, who came to us in the person of a little baby, who created the light, can make the light a beacon of love. Let the candle remind you of that light, that love; let it remind you to shine, to become yourself a candle, shining with the light of Christmas, the light of God\u2019s love.<\/p>\n<p>Amen.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Light One Candle Click Below to Hear the Sermon Preached A Sermon for the First Congregational Church of Albany, NY by Rev. James Eaton, Pastor Christmas Eve \u2022 December 24, 2016 What did you bring with you tonight? Who did you bring? I am so aware that especially on Christmas Eve, we come here with [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[68,39,3,13,2,69],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-467","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-advent","category-exegesis","category-sermon","category-theology","category-worship","category-year-a"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.firstreflection.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/467","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.firstreflection.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.firstreflection.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.firstreflection.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.firstreflection.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=467"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.firstreflection.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/467\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":471,"href":"https:\/\/www.firstreflection.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/467\/revisions\/471"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.firstreflection.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=467"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.firstreflection.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=467"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.firstreflection.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=467"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}