At our Christmas Eve services at Eastbrook Church, we focused on Jesus as the light of the world. You can watch my message from the Christmas Eve service here. This begins a new series, “The Name Above All Names,” for us at Eastbrook on the titles of Jesus. I’m also including the text of that message below the video.

Christmas Eve 2018 – “Light of the World”

As we grow up, most of us learn the basics of life. One of those basics is that we have five senses: sight, hearing, smell, taste, and touch.

While there are other things we sense – pain, temperature, hunger – most of those are related to the classic five senses that we usually learn.

But there is a unique effect that sometimes occurs where the triggering of one sense leads to the involuntary triggering of another sense. One of the most well-known incidents of this was recorded in 1690 by the English philosopher John Locke who made a report about a blind man who said he experienced the color scarlet when he heard the sound of a trumpet.

That effect in which stimulation of one sense leads to automatic, involuntary experiences in a second sense is called synesthesia.

The story of Jesus’ birth is an experience of multi-sensory stimulation causing an experience like synesthesia. As the story goes, Mary and Joseph both have angelic appearances, during a vision at daytime for Mary and during a dream at night for Joseph.

Those angelic appearances overwhelm them and are enough to help them believe that God is doing something new: God is rescuing the world from the powers of evil and sin by coming in the midst of ordinary people like them in the flesh. And all through those angelic appearances burst sights, sounds, and feelings that overload the senses with God’s purposes:Read More »