“What Color Is It?”
“What Color Is It?”
Christmas Eve 5:30 PM, Year A, December 24, 2023
Isaiah 9:2-7 Psalm 96 Luke 2:1-20
First Presbyterian Church of Sandpoint, Idaho
Pastor Andy Kennaly
Almost the whole time we’ve been here this evening we’ve used words. Words of welcome, words offering the sentiment of the season, words that share story of scripture and words that carry the melody of song. Some of the words are familiar, some of the tunes strike a chord as we revisit them every year. There is something about words that our mind cannot get past. Our brains create concepts and thoughts and our rational way of thinking depends on words to bring definition, to offer shape and structure, and in this way we find a sense of control. But words only go so far. Their strength of defining is limited because that very process is built on negativity. In order to define something you mostly decide what it is not. So words are judging, and they exclude just as much if not more than they include. Our brains decide the difference, so our mindset is most often dualistic, caught constantly judging.
What time is it? (pause, wait for people to shout out clock time) Hmmn? What time is it? (pause, repeat what they said).
What color is it? (pause, repeat) What color is it?
Both of these questions, what time is it and what color is it are questions that attempt to point out the season. While the standard answer when someone asks what time it is involves looking at a clock and giving a chronological answer based on the moment of Earth rotation at some point in the day or night, there are other answers. We are also in a season. Advent is wrapping up, just as we unwrap Christmas. The color for Advent depends. Sometimes the church tradition observes blue as a color for Advent, but usually it’s purple because most people think preparing for Christmas is like a mini version of Lent leading up to Easter and purple helps us focus on repentance. Blue has more to do with Mary, the mother of Jesus, and royalty. But Christmas uses white, a shining, bright white that symbolizes transfiguration, a major change as God’s divinity is revealed.
To ask “what color is it?” is a time question that doesn’t need words but uses colors as liturgical symbols, as tools of the church to help us worship. Technically, if someone were to instantly appear right here on the floor, they could look around and notice three purple candles, one pink one, and the white one in the middle, they could look around and see these white paraments, along with decorations like the tree, poinsettias, and manger scene with the wise travelers not quite there yet, and they could know it’s Christmas.
Symbols have an intensity about them that communicate time without the need for words or the measuring of clocks. Some things happen in the world that are qualitative more than quantitative, and the revelation of Christ is among those happenings. The birth of Jesus in very specific ways helps us drop the specifics. The historical scene of Mary and Joseph gathered around their newborn declares a larger truth about the nature of Nature, about the creation of Creation, about the reality of Reality.
Thomas Merton was a monk at a monastery in Kentucky and he did a lot of writing. He uses words to point to that beyond words, and in a book called, “Entering the Silence” he points us to the larger story of Christmas, which is about Christ becoming flesh, about Spirit merging with matter. He says,
“When my tongue is silent, I can rest in the silence of the forest.
When my imagination is silent, the forest speaks to me, tells me of its unreality and of the Reality of God.
But when my mind is silent, then the forest suddenly becomes magnificently real and blazes transparently with the Reality of God.
For now I know that the Creation, which first seems to reveal him in concepts, then seems to hide him by the same concepts, finally is revealed in him, in the Holy Spirit.
And we who are in God find ourselves united in him with all that springs from him. This is prayer, and this is glory!
(Thomas Merton, Entering the Silence, p. 471)
As we prayerfully gather together in the presence of glory, may symbols of the season touch our heart like the warmth of flames that burn to reveal light. May we not get caught in the limitations of our own thoughts, but be open and awake to the Christ gift that transcends time and space. May the intensities of the season inspire our living as Jesus continues to be born in us, day by day, in every way, for Love has spoken with power beyond words.
Thanks be to God, and Merry Christmas! Amen.