Light Bearers

Christmas Eve Reflection

Is 9:2-4, 6-7; Ps 96; Lk 2:1-20

The Rev'd Cameron Partridge

December 24, 2025

Good evening, St. Aidan’s, and Merry Christmas.

Earlier in this service we heard famous words from the Prophet Isaiah, “the people who walked in darkness have seen a great light” (Isaiah 9:2). I love this phrase. I love how hope saturates those words. The prophet was speaking to and among a people who were struggling. They felt lost, abandoned, alone, like the could not see the way ahead of them. And in the midst of those shadows, suddenly, it seems, they could see! A light shined before them, as if a candle was lit in a deep cavern, lighting the way forward. Or, as Isaiah continues, the scene was of a land covered in shadow. I think of the clouds that have covered us here in the storms these last several days. Suddenly the sun pierces through the gloom – perhaps a rainbow might appear.

These scenarios assume that we can see the brightness of the light that comes among us immediately. That the piercing of that gloom is obvious and dramatic. Now, to be sure, sometimes that is true. But sometimes it isn’t. Sometimes the light that comes to us in the darkness, the hope given to us in the midst of shadows, is not clear but subtle. Sometimes the light grows gradually, so much so that we may not quite notice at first, slowly habituating us to a shifting of possibility, a dawning of hope, new life.

I see that kind of dawning in the story that Doris just shared with us, The Shepherd’s Coat.[1] In it Benji the twelve-year-old shepherd longs to give his new sheepskin coat – the one he first received when he became a full-fledged shepherd – to the Christ child the way his grandfather had when the baby was newborn. Benji wanted to make this gift in a dramatic, recognizable way. But, as we. heard, what happens instead is much less dramatic. He discovers down the road that in giving away his coat to comfort a cold, lost young person that he had met in the hills, he had in fact given it to Christ. Christ had been lost among we who experience being lost, had been cold, had been hungry and hurting, was a human being lifting up our creaturely struggles to the God who made all things, who in Christ redeems all things. The adult Christ whom Benji encounters much later, indicates in a simple, radiant smile what Benji had done in the course of his shepherd’s service. He had echoed a famous parable from the Gospel of Matthew where Jesus says in thankful acknowledgement, “I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me, I was naked and you gave me clothing, I was sick and you took care of me, I was in prison and you visited me” (Matthew 25:35-36). A striking part of the parable is that those Jesus thanks are dumbfounded. They say, essentially, “What are you talking about? We have no memory of doing such things.” But they had done them. Through them, people making their way through deep shadows had seen light. It had not been dramatic – so much so that the actors had not even realized their impact. Yet they had answered the call of Christ the light who came among us: to invite us to be light bearers in the world.

For God came among us in Jesus Christ to walk our path, to join us in solidarity amid the shadows of our world, to heal the wounded, to bind up the broken-hearted, to liberate the captives and, in a life broken open for us and for all creation, to make all things new. We who follow him, who celebrate the birth of this new dawn, are called to carry his light in our actions day by day, in and among family and friends and among strangers, particularly. The light we carry may not always seem dramatic. It might not even seem like light to us. But to others, it may well shine more brightly than we know.

So this Christmas, in a time of deep shadows, when many of us may feel vulnerable, cast out, overwhelmed and afraid, may we listen for that call. May we seek to bear the light of Christ day by day, and may we look for that light shining among us, encouraging us and strengthening us to embody the hope to which God calls us. As our Deacon Margaret will say at the close of our service: “May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, so that by the power of the Holy Spirit you may abound in hope.” Merry Christmas.

[1] Caryll Houselander, author & Jess Mason, illustrator, The Shepherd’s Coat illustrated (Word on Fire Votive, 2024).