Midnight Mass 24 December

Tonight, we stand at the threshold where light and darkness meet. Candles glow against the night air; shadows move gently across the walls. And with the winter solstice just behind us, it feels natural to speak of light increasing, of hope triumphing over despair, of kindness breaking through hatred and fear. Across many traditions—religious, philosophical, or simply human—we often describe the spiritual journey as a movement from darkness to light.

It's a powerful theme, and one we rightly cherish. Yet tonight I want to suggest that the story is richer still. What if darkness also bears gifts? What if the divine is not found only in brightness, clarity, and certainty, but also in mystery, unknowing, and the quiet depth of night?

The writer and priest Barbara Brown Taylor once described a form of faith she calls a “full-solar church”—a spirituality that prizes positivity, certainty, and confidence. In such a vision, God’s presence is always clear, prayers seem to yield straightforward answers, and devotion promises steady brightness. But full-solar spirituality – which we find in our dualist western tradition - divides the world into neat pairs: good / bad; mind / body; light / dark. In such a world, darkness becomes something to escape—not just the absence of physical light, but the darker seasons of our lives.

We know that life isn’t always bright. Darkness falls in ways both ordinary and overwhelming. Redundancy comes. A relationship strains. A diagnosis alters a future. A long-held prayer seems to meet only silence. Faith wavers. Whatever our faith perspective, we know what it is to walk through a shadowed valley.

The scriptures never pretend otherwise. Indeed, some of the most significant encounters with God take place in the dark. Jacob wrestles through the night and limps away with a blessing. Joseph dreams his destiny from the darkness of an ancient prison.

The people of Israel slip out of Egypt under cover of night. Moses meets God not in blazing sunlight but in the thick cloud on Sinai. The Bible knows that God is not restricted to brightness.

And then we come to the Christmas story. Many of us picture the stable as a wooden straw-filled shed. But when I visited the Church of the Nativity in the West Bank during theological college, I learned that the earliest tradition remembers a cave. It makes practical sense: a sheltered hollow in the rock, safe from wind and predators. The place of Jesus’s birth—still honoured beneath the church’s altar—is a small, dim cave.

This is not only a religious truth; it is a human one. Many of us have spent time in our own interior caves—seasons of uncertainty or sorrow, disappointment, illness, times when we feel hidden away or unsure of the path ahead. Christmas doesn’t ignore this; it begins there. The Light of the World doesn’t burst into a world already radiant. He comes quietly, gently, into the dark.

And darkness, far from being an enemy, can be a teacher. I once heard someone say that we go to counsellors when we want help getting out of caves, and to spiritual directors when we are ready to be led further in. The next time someone brings me a cave-shaped problem, I hope I remember that truth: that sometimes the way out is, paradoxically, the way in. For life so often begins in hidden places: a seed in the soil, a child in the womb, a transformation deep within the human spirit. New life starts in the dark.

The non-dualist mystics remind us that the spiritual path isn’t a choice between light and dark, but a holding together of both. “The light shines in the darkness,” says St John, “and the darkness did not overcome it.” Not because darkness is evil, but because Christ’s light reveals its depths as a place where God can also be found.

So tonight, as we sing our carols and lift our candles, as we celebrate the birth of Christ—the true Light, the hope of all nations—may we also honour the holy truth of both the light and the dark. May the light bring us courage, joy, and clarity for the path ahead.

And may the darkness—gentle, spacious, and full of promise—bring us rest when we are weary, resilience when we are afraid, and the deep assurance that God is at work even when we cannot yet see it. For new life is already stirring, quietly, faithfully, in hidden places.

May this glorious darkness cradle us this holy night.
And within it, may the light of Christ be born anew—in the world, in the Church, and in each of us.

Reference: Learning to Walk in the Dark, by Barbara Brown Taylor