December 24, 2021 – Eve of Christmas

Authentically receiving the gift of Christmas doesn’t require in-person worship with glorious choirs – it requires opening ourselves to the life-transforming gift of the Son of God for each and all.

Let us pray.  On this most holy night, O God, help us to know of your presence, in this time and place, and within each one of us.  Help us to open our minds and our hearts, our whole lives, to receive the gift of your living word, as in your Son born this night in Bethlehem; and may the words of my mouth and the meditations of all our hearts be acceptable in your sight, O Lord, our strength and our redeemer.  Amen.

Well – who would have thought, even last Sunday, that this is where we would be now – a few of us gathered together in a largely empty church building, each of you at home looking at a screen – some of you joining tonight on Christmas Eve, some on Christmas Day, and some, maybe even later.  Think of all of the work that had gone into choir practices and organ preparations, flowers that were given, though they are still beautifully visible this night on camera, much anticipation and excitement, after what we went through in last year’s Christmas; and yet – here we are.

However, without all of the sensual things to heighten our mood – the smell of the candles, the presence of fellow-members all around us with faces aglow, bringing the carols to life with their enthusiastic voices - without all of that, maybe – just maybe – not having those things will actually help us to enter into a more authentic reliving of this glorious night.  So let’s try this together.

If you are a TV watcher, several of the TV cable channels of late have been playing one of the movie editions of Charles Dicken’s A Christmas Carol – especially at this time of year.  Now, without the incriminating nature of Scrooge’s visits with the three spirits or ghosts, I want to invite you to come with me to the Christmas past – way past – back to the very first one.  Jesus was born to Mary and Joseph.  We see it here portrayed in this lovely crèche.  As best as we can, I want us to go back to that very first one, and using Luke’s version of this event and our imaginations, I want us to experience that first Christmas.  Maybe you can actually do that more thoroughly sitting where you are even in your own home, than you could here in a pew in All Saints with a bunch of people around you; while you worry if you’re sitting or standing or kneeling at the right time in the liturgy.

Our opening hymn, O Come All Ye Faithful, issued us an invitation: “O come ye to Bethlehem … come and behold him.”  Then we quickly followed up with the Collect Prayer for this evening, “Eternal God, this holy night is radiant with the brilliance of your one true light.  As we have known the revelation of that light on earth, bring us to see the splendor of your heavenly glory …”  So much like Ebenezer Scrooge, we’re being invited, not just to see the events themselves, but to grasp and be grasped by, the deeper significance of the events of this night.  So let’s go back – way back – over 2,000 years back – to about 4 BCE.  What do we see?  According to Luke’s account, he says these things, “In those days a decree went out from Emperor Augustus that all the world should be registered. This was the first registration and was taken while Quirinius was governor of Syria. All went to their own towns to be registered.”  That’s the scene that he sets for us.  Now modern scholarship suggests that if the Roman authorities were to carry out a census, they probably would have sent officers out to the various towns and regions throughout the empire.  They wouldn’t likely have asked people to return to their home towns.  But even if Luke has this mixed up a little bit, the point is – Israel was under the oppression of a Roman – occupied province.  When you lived there as an Israelite, you were at the mercy of the Roman officials.  It didn’t matter if you happened to be a full-term pregnant mother – too bad!  This is what you have to do. And as an aside, it’s not entirely unlike our situation now – hopefully with much better motives – but with the government telling us to get vaccinated, to get tested – even if it is, in fact, for our own good.

So we get to Bethlehem and what do we see?  What we commonly think of as the “inn”, in which there was no room, was not an ancient version of a Best Western hotel.  It would have been a small facility providing temporary lodging for travellers – I think more like a hostel than a hotel.  And it was full.  The only place for shelter was in the stable.  So, no one else was there – just this inexperienced couple and their newborn son.  There was no church or synagogue next door – no glorious pipe organ or talented choirs – just them.  And after a while, a few rough-looking shepherds burst into the stable.  I suspect initially they frightened Mary and Joseph.  But then, they tell them about what they experienced out in the fields, and it’s an amazing story.  But there’s still no more than half a dozen, perhaps, of them gathered.  There are no special prayers.  There’s no Holy Communion.  And soon the pumped- up shepherds leave and it’s just the three of them again.

Mary has been intrigued by the shepherds’ words and visit but, except for a couple of unusual encounters in the Temple when Jesus was eight days old, and then when he was 12 years old, there doesn’t seem to be anything else of significance for 30 years.  Instead, the world-transforming gift of God’s Son comes like an unassuming pebble dropped into a pond – sending out its gentle ripples on that surface – like some of the words in tonight’s Offertory hymn that we will sing - O Little Town of Bethlehem.  In the third verse, we’ll sing these words, “How silently, how silently, the wondrous gift is given, as love imparts to human hearts the blessing of God’s heaven.” 

But 2,000 years later and halfway around the globe from Bethlehem, those “ripples” from that dropped “pebble” are still resonating!  Something completely unique and life-transforming happened that night.  As the prayer near the end of our service proclaims, God united heaven and earth by coming as one of us in the person of Jesus.  The barriers, the fears, the condemnation, the hopelessness and the self-defeat – everything that makes us less than the humanity we’re intended to be, has been broken down, overcome, and cleared away.  The only challenge left for us now is to lay hold of God’s new life given to us in Jesus Christ.  And we do that by opening ourselves, continually, to God’s love – seeking God’s presence – and trusting that presence and love.  We’ll pray these words shortly in the Prayers of the People: “Draw us into the mystery of your love, as we join our voices with the heavenly host and sing to your glory. Grant us a place among the shepherds and the magi, that we may find the one for whom we have longed, Jesus Christ, …”

So tonight is not about being buoyed up by all of the lovely things we’re used to experiencing on Christmas Eve and can’t have this year.  Rather, it is about opening ourselves and being drawn into the glorious gift this world and all of us now have received over 2,000 years ago, and by taking that love and truth inside ourselves, and then letting it fill us with hope, peace, joy, and love.

Yes, we are currently immersed in a lot of darkness – most obvious this raging Covid variant, Omicrcon – but also many other life-destroying situations all over our globe.  And it’s obvious that the author of O Little Town of Bethlehem had some similar experiences.  In verse one we sang these words, “… yet in thy dark streets shineth - the everlasting light; the hopes and fears of all the years - are met in thee tonight.”  The real power and glory of this night comes from opening and re-opening the gift each of us has received from God.  And we’ll speak that gift into reality in the final petition of our Prayers of the People.  We will pray, “Open us to your presence, that we may be transformed by the new birth of this holy night … may the Light and Hope of this holy night reassure our hearts that you are among us, that you hear our prayer, and that you will be with us always.”  Whether we are immersed in our Church’s magnificent choral worship, or sitting by ourselves – maybe with a few others – the gift of God’s son – the gift of hope, peace, joy, and love – has been given to you, regardless of who you are or where you are.  And it is a gift that no thing and no one can take away.  We are blessed!  Thanks be to God!  Amen.