Christmas Eve

 

December 24, 2024

 + I think most of us know what it’s like.

 Most of us know this feeling.

 Most of us, I hope, have felt that amazing moment when fear is turns into joy—into something beautiful.

 When darkness is turned to light.

 When our anxieties give way to relief.

 That is certainly what Mary and Joseph must’ve felt as they found shelter on that night.

 That is most certainly what they would’ve experienced when the Baby finally came and they realize, for certain, that this birth was something exceptional.

 All that fear they had felt as they traveled all that distance, all that anxiety they felt when they realized they might not have a place to settled down, all of that turned on a dime.

 And into the darkness and fear of their life, came dazzling light.

 This is what we too are clinging to tonight.

 This we too are holding on to.

 This is what we are hoping in as we move forward.

 Because, for those of us who trust in God, who know that God is good and that God always provides, we know there is always light in the darkness.

 We know that always there is always an end to our anxieties and fears.  

 We know that, even if we seem insignificant to the powers that be, to those who have the power and ability to turn us away, God never turns us away.

 God always provides us, like Mary and Joseph, a safe place.

 I know this Christmas season can sometimes feel like a bit much.

 Most of you know how I feel about the “Christmas season.”

 It IS too much sometimes.

 The expectations that things should be just right, just perfect, just always happy and joyful, are sometimes too much for all of us.

 I understand the tendency we all have of getting caught up in society’s celebration of Christmas.

 It’s easy to find ourselves getting a bit hypnotized by the glitz and glamour we see about us.

 I admit I enjoy some of those sparkly Christmas displays.

 But the problem for me is that there is a lot of hope in all of it, but sometimes the hope gets lost.

 The hope gets swallowed up.

 We seem to get distracted somewhere along the way and lose sight of what it is we are hoping in.

 The great Archbishop of Canterbury (and probably the greatest of my personal heroes), Michael Ramsey once wrote: “Our Christmas is no less Christmas and our joy no less joyful because we are keeping Christmas with a very dark and troubled world around us…Our rejoicing at Christmas is not an escape from life’s grim realities into a fancy realm of religion and festivity. Rather is it a joy that, as we face and feel the world’s tragedy, we know that God has an answer: an answer for [hu]mankind to receive. In a word, this is a time of hope.”

 Tonight, on this dark, cold night, we celebrate that hope.

 While darkness still exists, we now see that in the midst of that darkness, there is a glimmer of light. 

 It is dim at times. It doesn’t seem like much. But it is there.

 And as we strain into that darkness, we realize that hope does comes to us as Light.

 We celebrate the hope of that Light that has come to us in our collective and personal darknesses.

 We celebrate the Light that has come to us in our despair and our fear, in our sadness and in our frustration.

 And as it does, we bask in the glory of those two emotions—the two emotions Christmas is all about—hope and joy.

 Hope—in our belief that what has come to us—Jesus—God’s own Child, our hope—is here among us,

 And Joy—at the realization of that reality.

 As we come forward tonight to meet with joy and hope this mystery that we remember and commemorate and make ours this evening, we too should find ourselves feeling these emotions at our very core.

 This hope and joy we are experiencing this evening comes up from our very centers.

 Our lives are different because of what happened that evening when Jesus was born.

 Because of that event, we find that our hope is more tangible—more real—that anything we have ever hoped in before.

 And that is what we are rejoicing in this evening.

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

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

 We know that our true hope and joy are not there because by Saturday, we’re going to see that what the rest of the society  is celebrating in this Christmas season will be disposed of.

 Our true hope and joy is more powerful and more tangible than anything that is so disposable.

 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 that God has come close to us, that God’s Light has shined upon us, and this reality causes us to leap up with joy.

 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.

 Our hope and joy is in God who comes to us again and again in our darkness.

 Our hope and joy is in a God who comes and accepts us and loves us for who we are and what we are—a God who understands what it means to live this sometimes frightening uncertain life we live.

 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 happiness and excitement.

 This is why we are rushing toward this holy event, toward the God who renews us in what we once thought was our barrenness.

 Let this hope you feel tonight stay with you now and always.

 Let the joy you feel tonight be the motivating force in how we live our lives throughout this coming year.

 We, like Mary and Joseph, have come so far.

 We, like them, have hoped so strongly.

 This is what it is all about.

 This feeling we are feeling right now is the true joy that descends upon us when we realize God has come to us in our collective darkness.

 And this joy that we are feeling is because the Light that has come to us will never, ever darken.