[For those of you interested in my process (and if you're still reading this, you're interested, whether you want to admit it or not), here's a look at the original version of "Fear Not," which was published in New Horizons last December. It began as a Christmas Eve homily a few years back when my habit was to improvise that sermon. A week or so before the service, I wrote a rough draft of what I thought I might say. I then cold submitted the piece to NH a few months later. A couple years after that, the editor asked me to expand it to something more than twice the original length, no mean feat since I am a member of the "edit out more than half of what you originally wrote" school. At any rate, I'm guessing I still hold the copyright to this version of "Fear Not," and I don't think the OPC will sue me for posting it here.]
In many ways I envy those who grew up in faithful Churches, but I think I have one advantage over them. By virtue of having been exposed to the literally worst sermons imaginable from liberal protestant ministers, I have an appreciation for the preached Word I think my more advantaged brethren cannot. If one expects a pastor to faithfully exposit Scripture, one can afford to be critical of the manner in which he handles the text. But if one is pleasantly surprised there even is a text as the basis for the sermon, one tends to be perpetually grateful for even the dullest of homilies.
This is why I love Christmas Eve services; traditionally, they do not include a sermon. A collection of set readings and hymns, the service cannot be bent to man’s whims because it includes only the Bible and the most orthodox songs in Christendom. At least, this was the case during my childhood, when the ministers were older than my father and took seriously their obligation to carry on the Church’s traditions, no matter their own theological proclivities. But in my late teens, the ministers became younger than my father and lacked their predecessors’ sobriety. The nadir of all Christmas Eve services came when, instead of Scripture, members of the youth group read from a “novelization” of the Bible and the homily was a lame imitation of Garrison Keillor’s Prairie Home Companion monologues. Sadly, it lacked even the slight spiritual insight one finds on National Public Radio.
What I was robbed of that night, and what I hoped for every Christmas Eve of my life, was the angel’s proclamation “Fear not!” I don’t remember many white Christmases, but every Christmas Eve has been dark; very dark. Each year I was with those shepherds keeping watch over their flocks by night, surrounded by impenetrable darkness.
As are we all. I have been accused of pedantry for insisting the Bible does not identify evil and sin with the color black, but with darkness. Still, this is not an unimportant distinction. Our problem has nothing to do with color; our problem is we have no light by which to see color. In the darkness, we are blind; being blind, we are afraid. We know our sin, and we know death is impending, and we cannot see any way of escape. I can’t speak for the shepherds, but I know we do not become afraid because of the glory of the Lord. We begin afraid because of sin and death, because of the darkness which surrounds our lives.
And into that darkness shines the glory of the Lord. All of a sudden, light. The presence of God Himself. And should we fear even more? Has God come in judgment?
No preacher, no matter how orthodox, can improve on the words of the angel. “Fear not! For I bring you glad tidings of peace which will be to all men.”
The light is the glory of the Lord. That light shines in the darkness and gives hope to the Gentiles. The angel’s glad tidings, his Gospel, bring you out of darkness into light, from death into life, from sin to redemption.
I was in grave rebellion against the Lord, utterly unfaithful to my baptism, until February of 1988. But in retrospect, I can now admit; indeed, I can now gladly confess that which I refused to all those long years prior. I longed to hear there was born to me, a sinner in the darkness, in the city of David a Savior, who is Christ the Lord.
The light has shone. The Son of Mary has grown and died and been raised again for the justification of all who will turn to Him. He lived in the darkness with us so that you need do so no longer. You need to be reminded, year in and year out, that you live in His light, a light which will only grow and grow until it reaches perfection in glory and night is banished forever. Because of Christ Jesus, because God was and is with us, there is only day here.
I don’t need to read the words; they are written on my heart and mind as I suspect they are on yours. But I need to hear them; we all need to hear them. “Fear not; for behold, I bring you glad tidings of peace which will be for all men. For there is born to you this day in the city of David a Savior, who is Christ the Lord.”
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