Christmas Eve 2009

This night, this hour marks the beginning of our yearly celebration of all that is good in this world: light that shines in the midst of often deep darkness; peace on earth announced to a world filled with war; goodwill among all people; wonder and amazement in a world that is not easily impressed; birth and new life in the very dead of winter.

On behalf of the Congregational United Church of Christ I want to extend a welcome to those of you who are our guests here this evening, whether you are visiting with family or friends or have found your way here on your own. I hope that you will find this a place of warmth on a cold night, and a place of joy as we celebrate the birth of Jesus and hear again the amazing good news that God has come to us in human flesh.

Each year, every year, it is the same—the same story that we know almost by heart. The same story that we can almost recite along as it is being read.

“In those days a decree went out from Caesar Augustus. . .”

The words are familiar. We listen to this story once a year. We know how it begins. We know how it ends. Still we want to hear it. We want to hear it because of its comfortable assurance that things are the same from one year to the next:

            still the shepherds sit waiting out the darkness

            still the angels come singing in brightness

            still the manger holds a baby

There is much that is familiar and predictable in the Christmas story.

It is the story of the birth of Jesus—a story of shepherds and sheep, of angels and mortals, of light in the darkness.

Why do we hear this same story over and over again?

In part because we love to hear stories of new life, stories that tell of the “hope and happiness that come into our lives by the birth of a child.” Children love to hear of the day they were born. Adults love to tell those stories.

And we hear the story of this birth because the story—and the birth—touch our lives as few others do.

It’s about the ordinary—about animals and a manger, about everyday people caught up in the political/power machinery of the day, its about people doing their jobs, as important or inconsequential as they might seem—and of the astonishing things that they heard and saw.

This is a story of the extraordinary—of angels, of the glory of the Lord.

And this is a story about a manger, where human ordinariness and divine glory meet in a special way that point to the ways that they meet in our lives each day.

In the story of the birth of Jesus we learn once more that God loves this world and blesses it with worldly things: with the warmth of family and friends and the goodwill of strangers, with the gladness of giving, with the scent of pine, the glow of candles, the joy of music. God even blesses this world and us with an abundance of rain and ice and snow.

God has come to us in human flesh that we might love our time, our world all the more. God has come to us in human flesh that we might love our neighbors as ourselves. And in loving family, neighbors we might glimpse eternity that carries us all.           

God has come to us as a human being and so, life matters. Your life matters. What you care most about matters. Your deepest commitments that grow out of love, the actions that you take to make your dreams a reality all matter.

Life changes constantly.

Which may be why we long to hear the unchanging story of God's constant love for us. A sign of that love was found in a manger two thousand years ago. That love is still here for us today.

Listen again—look again at all the good things that God gives this good creation. Open your heart to receive and then to give yourself.

Listen and rejoice.

Lying in a manger, in human flesh, we find a savior, who is Christ the Lord.