[Propertalk] Christmas Eve & Day - Part 1

[Robert P Morrison]

I wrote this last week and haven't had time to look at it since. 
Anyway, the most joyful of celebrations this weekend!
Best wishes,
Bob

	THE EPISCOPAL CHURCH OF ST. ALBAN, ALBANY  CHRISTMAS EVE/DAY 2016

	ISAIAH 9:2-7  PSALM 96  TITUS 2l11-14    LUKE 2:1-20

	ISAIAH 62:6-12  PSALM 97  TITUS 3:4-7    LUKE 2:1-20

	 “Dear Diary:” began the article. “On a downtown No. 5 train
during a recent rush hour, I grabbed the only pole that had room
around it. Just one young woman was hanging on. She wore an unusual
knitted hat, with lots of whirly strings hanging from it.

	 “As I looked at the hat, I noticed the scarf wrapped around her
neck — a replica of a lizard. Very realistic, I thought. Somehow my
eyes kept being drawn back to the scarf, and suddenly it blinked and
moved its head.

	 “It’s wonderful (wrote the author) that, after 80 years on this
earth, 55 of them in New York City, I can still be surprised.” 1

	 It’s wonderful, indeed, that, after two thousand years – for
that matter, after the four and a half billion years since earth was
formed – it’s amazing that we can still be surprised. Because
that’s what can happen, often, on this day. Of course, we don’t
walk into this room completely unaware. We DO have an inkling of what
might happen, what we might hear, what we might see. Yet, thank God,
we can STILL be surprised! Being surprised by joy and with joy –
THAT’S what we celebrate all during this Christmas season, because,
as a headline put it a while ago, “with all that’s going on today
it’s easy to, lose hope, but tomorrow is another day.” 2

	 The news of this moment, of this day, of this season, is that God is
so aware of what’s happening to us and in our lives that God came
among us. God is so concerned about our day-to-day living that we’ve
been given an incredible sign of acceptance, of patience, of love.

	 I find myself wondering, in a good, an exciting way, who will attend
the services on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day.

	 I’m not implying anything negative at all. I’m pleased as punch
to see folk here and worship with them at this time of Holy
Celebration. But this is the time of year, this is the season when
people travel. Children and grandchildren; parents and grandparents;
friends whom one hasn’t seem in ages and those whom we see
frequently but whose company is always so special – there’s no
telling whom may be here, who’s made a special effort. Yet, despite
the pleasure of visiting, despite all the other pressures, people
gather together beside one another to sing both familiar and less
familiar hymns, to join in making special prayers, to listen to the
same scripture passages our ancestors heard. Together, we gather to
experience all sorts of emotions and, I hope, to allow all sorts of
new thoughts and feelings to colour our lives. It’s a familiar
story, yet it seems so fresh, so amazing every year. It’s like
falling in love all over again, or, at least, admitting to the
possibility that that might happen. It’s God speaking, softly or
loudly, “Surprise!”

	  Perhaps it’s this last thought that’s so powerful. Something
MAY happen. None of us are SO old, SO jaded, that we think we’ve
seen it all, that nothing could possibly happen., especially something
that might give us a wonderfully surprising amount of pleasure.
We’re here, not just because we know the story, but because our
hearts and minds may have been shaken, may have been disturbed, may
even have been broken, and are in need of a touch of surprise, a touch
the brings life. Christmas, and all the layers of God’s love that it
represents, is such a touch. 

	 The newspaper headline that ended “tomorrow is another day”
belongs to an article about patience in times of stress. It’s not a
patience that implies that we do nothing and experience nothing.
It’s the sort of patience we need every day when we struggle. It’s
the sort of patience that Mary and Joseph, and their extended
families, indeed, the whole nation was needing while they suffered so
much. As one of the lines of the familiar hymns pouts it, “the hopes
and fears of all the years are met in (God’s Bethlehem) tonight. …
For Christ is born of Mary.” 3

	 The author of the newspaper article echoed what the angel said to
the shepherds, and which has been passed on and on. There is never a
reason to lose hope …”tomorrow is another day”, and there’s
another after that, no matter what dire circumstances may impinge on
us.

	 Along with the people of Mary and Joseph’s time, it’s so easy
for us to feel overwhelmed, possibly to flirt with the temptation to
despair. We have to admit that it takes courage to face up to
problems. A pianist remarked that, “If people are to be taken out of
this world by music, (to be uplifted, given hope and joy), it’s done
through bravery. You’re so involved in your own world,” the
pianist said, talking about the act of playing what someone has
composed, “You’re so involved in your own world, but you have to
persuade other people to come into it.” 4

	 This is what God says to us, now, and again and again. “I want you
to experience the joy and glory of creation with Me. I don’t want
you to leave. I simply want you to be able to rise above all the
crises. That’s why I am here. That’s why I’m trying to persuade
you to come into this way of understanding My Love.”

	 God was SO brave to come among us. Think of the worries about
rejection, about misunderstanding, about the way we might
misappropriate God’s Presence. God must know about all of that, yet
God came anyway. THAT’S bravery! THAT’S Love. God has to overcome
all the difficult aspects in our lives so that we may experience true
joy, true love, true peace.

	 And this involves bravery on our part too. No matter what others may
think; no matter what others may say; no matter what others may do;
God in Jesus, walking in our midst, even as a baby calls us to follow.
If others don’t accept the gift that God offers, then perhaps it’s
our vocation to model how God acted at that shelter. It doesn’t
matter who we are, or how inadequate and harassed we may feel, we’re
to accept and to share the understanding and compassion of God so that
we and others can rise above that temptation to despair. God in Jesus
says to us right now, “You are NOT alone. You’ll NEVER be
alone.”

	
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