Christmas Eve

 December 24, 2020

 + I hope this doesn’t come as a huge surprise to many of you, but I am a HUGE church nerd.

 Now, you may think: of course he is.

 He’s a priest.

 He should be a church a nerd.

 Ah…you’d be surprise how many priests and pastors I know who are not church nerds.

 For some priests, this is just another job.

 But not for me.

 I love being a priest.

 I love being in church.

 I spend most of my day doing church things, literally.

 Literally, from the moment I get up in the morning to the moment I got bed at night, I am usually doing one sort of church thing or another.

 Because I actually love doing it.

 Even when I don’t love doing it.

 If that makes sense.

 And, while some clergy may complain about the fact that they have to work on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day, I definitely do not complain about such things.

 I LOVE celebrating this Christmas Eve Mass, even now, in this pandemic, when these pews, which are normally packed full on Christmas Eve are now empty.

 Actually, I don’t like that aspect of it at all.

 Even now, I love this Mass.

 (I also really love celebrating the Christmas Day Mass tomorrow)

 Because, let’s face it:  here it is.

 This is what it’s all about.

 This is why we celebrate.

 This is why we do what we do at Christmas.

 This is what we hope for.

 And we are celebrating, even though we’re not “really” together.

 It might be dark right now—it might not really feel like Christmas—but here, tonight, we celebrate Light. 

And that is what I really love about this night!

 We celebrate Jesus, who is God’s Light that has come to us wherever we might be in our lives.

 We celebrate Jesus who breaks through into our darkness, in the darkness we might have in our own lives.  

 We celebrate the Light of Christ that has come to us when we’ve been sad or frustrated or fearful.

 And as it does, no doubt most of us are feeling two emotions tonight—the two emotions Christmas is all about: hope and joy.

 Hope—in our belief that God has sent Jesus to us as a glorious and wonderful gift.

 Hope that what divides us from each other right now is only a temporary things.

 Hope that next year, we will all be together, here, in these pews, celebrating this Light in person with each other again.

 And Joy—at the realization of that reality.

 And we celebrate the mystery of it too.

 We will never fully understand how or why God in Jesus has come to us as this little child in a dark stable in the Middle East, but it has happened and, because it happened, we are…different.

 We are better as a result of it.

 God has reached out to us.

 God—this God who truly does love us, who truly does know us, who truly does care for us---has reached out to us.

 Just think about that for a moment.

 God loves us enough to actually reach out to us.

 And by doing so, we know tonight—without a doubt—that we are loved, we are accepted, we are truly known by our God.

 Knowing that, what do we feel?

 Hope!

 And joy!

 Because of Jesus, we know that God truly does know us, love us, accept us, and because of Christ’s presence with us, our lives are different because of what happened that evening when Jesus came to us as a sign of that love and acceptance.

 Yes, I know.

 This past year we may have known fear, we have known dread, we have feared for our lives and the lives of our loved ones.

 It has been scary.

 But tonight, as we gaze upon the face of the Child Jesus we are reminded that the same God who sent Jesus is the same God that is so close and so near, and because of that, everything we feared and dreaded is not so terrible.  

 This Child calms out fears.

 This Child drives away our anxieties.

 This Child gives us purpose again to go on.

 This Child reminds us that God is in control and everything is going to be all right.

 When we look at it from that perspective, suddenly we find our emotions heightened.

 We find that our joy is a joy like few other joys we’ve had.

 We find that our hope is more tangible—more real—than anything we have ever hoped in before.

 And that is what we are celebrating this evening.

 Our true hope and true joy is not in brightly colored lights and a pile of presents until a decorated tree.

 Our true hope and joy is not found in the malls or the stores.

 Our true hope and joy does not come to us with things that will, a week from now, be a fading memory.

 Our hope and joy is in a God who has sent us our Savior, our Messiah in the person of this seemingly vulnerable Baby whose very presence causes us to leap up with joy at his very presence.

 Our hope and joy is in that almighty and incredible God who would come to us, not on some celestial cloud with a sword in his hand and armies of angels flying about him.

 Our hope and joy is in a God who reaches out to us right now, where we are, who sends us our Redeemer, our Messiah in this innocent child, born to a humble teenager.

 Our hope and joy is in a God who gives us love in very concrete terms—love that has a face like our face and flesh like our flesh—a God who allows love to be  born, like we are born.

 Our hope and joy is in a God who comes to us  and accepts us and loves us for who we are and what we are—a God who does not leave us alone in our hurts and our pains.

 God loves us.

 God knows each of us by name.

 Each and every single one of us.  

 We are each precious and loved by our God.

 That is what this night and this season of Christmas is all about.

 This is the real reason why we are joyful and hopeful on this beautiful night.

 This is why we are feeling within us a strange sense of longing.

 God is here.

 God is in our midst.

 God is so near, our very bodies and souls are rejoicing.

 So, let greet our God tonight with all that we have within us.

 Let reach out to the God who is reaching out to us.

 Let us welcome the Christ Child with true hope and true joy.

 And let us welcome this holy Child into the shelter of our hearts, so that we can share God with others.

 And let us rejoice in the fact that although it might seem dark and lonely right now, our God—the God of hope and love—will always restore us and fill us again with true hope and true love.

 Let us pray.

 Holy God, this glorious night is full of your glory, full of your joy. We truly rejoice tonight in the birth of Jesus. Fill us all with the Light you have brought us into the world on this holy night. Let it burn brightly within us. And may we reflect this joy in all we do and say. We ask this in Jesus’ holy name. Amen.