Christmas Eve

Do you remember those lovely photos of yourself or your children sitting on Santa’s lap in the local department store? I’m guessing mine was taken at Bamberger’s in Newark, New Jersey. The photo and store are long gone, but the memory lingers. And the question Santa asked was usually, “And what would you like for Christmas,” to which we would provide our list of the things we hoped we might find under the Christmas tree.

Now as an adult, and a senior one at that, my list is very different as, I’m guessing is yours. I was listening to an interview on the evening news with the pastor of a Congregational Church. The reporter interviewing him was one of his congregants. “What do you think people most want this Christmas,” he asked. The pastor did not take long to respond. “Relief,” he said. I think most people just want relief.

That hit home for me. Relief. Relief from worry, from stress, from fear, from financial concern, from bad news; relief from the images of devastation, starvation and death in Gaza, from war torn Ukraine, from the destruction of wildfires on the west coast, relief from the violence and shootings which have become a daily event.

Deep in my heart I want to believe that there can be “peace on earth,” peace in a world full of war and conflict, that there can be good will among people in a time where open-mindedness and respect for our differences seems barely detectible; I want to believe that there can be justice for those who have been forced to live on the margins of life, the poverty of children,  and recovery for those who have lost jobs, their homes, their medical insurance and all hope.

But I strongly suspect that the one common thread among us tonight is that we want to believe in something, something beyond ourselves, something beyond our troubled and unsettled world and that is what appeals to so many people on this holy night where the hopes and fears of all the years are met in a child in the little village of Bethlehem.

So we come to the Christmas Eve service to find the steadiness the world often lacks; to a sacred place where once again we hear a familiar story told, recognize the figures of the crèche, enjoy the carols we so love, and taste the sacramental food God gives us in Holy Bread and Wine—all of which may stir the memories of another time, another Christmas.

There is holiness to these memories, a sense of God’s presence in the mangers of our mind and it is these things that change the least over time that often have the capacity to change us the most.

Perhaps the words of the Prophet Isaiah, written thousands of years ago, carry even more meaning for us on this Christmas: “The people who walked in darkness, have seen a great light; those who lived in a land of deep darkness—on them light has shined.”  We long for that light to shine in the darkness of our lives and in the lives of all for whom this holiday season is not so bright and merry.

My hope is that we might enter this night into the mystery of a God so in love with us that this God came down to be one of us and to live among us. If there is one kernel of the mystery of Christmas Eve that can sustain us through the year ahead—a year like all years that is at this point full of uncertainty—it is this: that the deepest meaning of Christmas is not found in just one night or day we observe on the calendar, but in the internal birth of God in us today and every tomorrow that we let God in.

Two thousand years later we can still welcome him, for he speaks through those all around us. He looks at us through the eyes of store clerks and schoolchildren. He reaches out to us with the hands of the homeless and the wealthy. He walks with the feet of the soldier and the addict.

With the lonely and grieving he longs for a tender embrace. With the heart of all those who are in need, he asks us to give him food and shelter. And it is these simple, yet extraordinary ways, that the Word again becomes flesh and dwells among us and God is born again and again.

It’s been a long time since I sat on Santa’s lap and had that sentimental photo taken. Yet there is somewhere deep inside the childlike hope for a better world, a kinder culture, a gentler people, born out of the warmth of this night and the tenderness of the Christmas story.

Last night a friend of mine sent me a text with the picture of his newborn daughter, the couple’s first child. I could hear the joy in their hearts. After they learned last week that she would be a breech birth, it was their light in the darkness of the winter night.

May the birth of the child Jesus we celebrate today bring even a modicum of that joy to our hearts and may we know the peace of God that passes all understanding. Amen.