Memory and hope (Christmas Eve)

I cannot help but to look at Christmastime and especially this evening through the lens of my childhood for I was blessed as a child.

I was loved, I was warm, I was fed.

And on Christmas Eve especially, I would realize that love, feel that warmth, and with the wide array of appetizers laid out before us wherever we were celebrating, I was most definitely well fed.

Such memories included going to church when we went to church, singing the carols and hymns that I had been waiting for all year, Silent Night and Joy to the World being my favorites.

I loved Silent Night, that quiet interlude that gave us all a moment to reflect on the meaning of this night, together in candlelight we sang.

And Joy to the World was a real banger as we’d stand in the now fully lit church really hitting those notes calling us to joy and announcing that Jesus had indeed been born.

It was also my queue to reach for my jacket, put it on, button it up, and get ready to go because when hearing that organ in the choir loft at St. James’ Episcopal Church in Derby peel off the first notes of Joy to the World I would experience that familiar salivating Pavlovian response I felt every year.

It was time to party!

Now, in my child’s eye, I cannot say I enjoyed Christmas Eve more than I did Christmas Day.

Christmas Day was of course magical.

I mean, I guess I probably thought about the birth of Jesus at some point, but at the age of 7 or 8 or 9 or 10, maybe not so much.

Still, Christmas Day was all about anticipation and expectation, a night before spent with little sleep wondering what the morning would bring.

Yet, Christmas Eve was the entrance into Christmas Day and in many ways it was just as exciting.

From church, dressed in my blazer and tie, we’d head over to my grandparents’ house where at the doorway even before we fully entered, we’d be greeted with arms and lips and cheeks hugging and kissing; hearty handshakes handed out wantonly and well accepted.

From there my brother and I would take our leave from the adults and head over to where our cousins were and do whatever important things children can think to do.

Mostly, we’d try to eat.

We’d then get told it was too early to eat and we’d have to wait.

Frustrated and with a paltry couple of canned black olives in my hand, I’d head down the hallway where the kids had gathered to plan out the Christmas pageant.

None of us had the talent of a Hollywood script writer so our shows would typically involve a Christmas themed play starring real life versions of Raggedy Ann and Andy, because someone found clown makeup in their basement and it needed to be used.

I think one year we might have even included part of the nativity in our dramatic offerings.

You know, we had to at least give a nod to the reason for the season, only we didn’t have access to a real baby so a doll was wrapped in a pillowcase.

I don’t really remember any of the adults’ reactions to this gala event but I do remember afterwards, it might have been finally time to eat.

It is then when I, a quiet child, would happily sit with my plate of catered pasta on my lap and just be so happy that I was surrounded by this loving, loud, and boisterous family.

The sounds of conversation, laughter, and glad tidings still echo when I think of Christmas Eves gone by; evenings where I know I was loved perfectly and without abandon.

We were wonderful on those evenings together and I remember them fondly.

Certainly, I’ve long since grown up; childhood has faded, memories of voices now passed still cause me stir though.

Some souls departed, I recognize them through the clarity of the eternal, with clear eyes and hearts opened to love, their memory does not fade.

Still, there are other memories; memories made misty through time and age; the details of those cousin led pageants, what we actually said or sang, now exist somewhere in the ether.

I cannot help but to look at Christmastime, and especially this evening, through the lens of my childhood for I was blessed as a child.

And now, the meaning of this evening has very much changed for me for I am changed.

There are the memories made gauzy through time; adulthood has mellowed the excitement once felt for Christmas Eve.

Yet, in that change has been born a new feeling of just how important the celebration of this holiday is.

For on this night, in this moment, we celebrate with purpose and great humility, the arrival of Christ into the world.

No longer is this just a night about olives and pasta served out of aluminum tins, it is also about welcoming the very true and real presence of God in our lives.

God who has always been present, has come to dwell amongst us in human form.

God joined in our humanity to experience with us our various joys and heartache two thousand years ago; this single act reminds us now that Christ’s arrival proved to be the salvation of the world.

Friends, we can look at the world as it is today, we can witness wars and the plight of refugees across the world over and think that all we celebrate is for nought; that none of this matters when compared to the conflagrations of hunger and thirst and tumult that blaze throughout the world.

We can look at the world as it is, shrug our shoulders and return to our various enclaves of like-mindedness, shunning those who are different from us.

We can do all of that and in doing so, we would be overlooking the true importance of what Christ’s arrival means for us.

This evening is not simply a memorial of Jesus’ birth, it is instead an acknowledgement that Christ continues to and will forever be an active part of our lives.

When we look at the history of Christ’s birth, we see the most vulnerable, an infant, born not to royalty but despite royalty.

We see that infant born not of empire but under imperial control.

And from that place of deep vulnerability, almost helplessness, the world was forever changed.

Changed not because of “just” a birth, “just” an infant placed in his mother's arms for the very first time, we can imagine those types of changes without the miracle of Christ’s birth, and in fact some have even experienced such things.

The changes I am talking about are so radical, so mind-blowingly awesome that we must first understand we are perfectly loved for us to even approach an understanding of all that happened that night in Bethlehem so many years ago.

It is from that perfect love humanity was changed.

It is from that love that God inserted God’s self into human history so that love God’s love would be shared without veil or intermediary.

And because of that love, we were taught how to love, not just family, not just friends, not just members of our own communities but all of humanity.

No longer should we be separated, no longer does empire matter, no longer does royalty rule in the form of human kingship but now of Godly kingship under which we are unified and made free.

That change, that radical entrance of this child into a battered nation; a sibling of battered citizens, started a movement that changed the world.

That is what we are celebrating tonight.

Because that change is not over, God’s entrance into our lives is unending.

Over and again, God reaches out to us, loves us, feeds us and in return we are blessed and blessed to share that love with all peoples.

And when we remember the day of Christ’s birth as not but a single-day-a-year occurrence then we can celebrate the eternal impact of God’s love in all our lives.

On this night we recognize that we are not powerless before the powerful who would disabuse us of God’s love; we are instead imbued with the power of God to make a change in this world that starts with the idea that each and everyone of us is loved.

That one simple thing, love, will change the world.

Believe friends.

Believe that when you approach this world from a place of love, you will counter hatred and division in a far more powerful way than it was ever fought against by creating more hatred and more division.

From this place of love, however great or growing it might be, let us go out into world sharing the radical Christian message that all are loved by God and all are loved by us.

This world needs that message.

This world needs to know that people are loved, that we do not define ourselves by who we are individually but by the very idea that we are born of the same blood and the same body.

That fact we celebrate tonight.

So, I will end by saying this.

If you celebrate tonight as a remembrance of Christ’s birth, and with that remembrance comes the memory of days long ago, of Christmas presents and pageants, of holidays and lights, of Christmas Eve services where we sing Silent Night beneath candlelight, then you will have a very good Christmas.

You will be surrounded by the memory of happy times and glad tidings.

There is nothing wrong if those are the feelings this evening evokes.

And if you take this night to remember not just the event of Christ’s birth but celebrate the continuing presence of God in our lives, then you will have as just as magnificent a Christmastide.

Let me say however, that this is not an either/or, for we are all formed by memory and nostalgia just as we continue to be swayed by hopefulness and faith in Christ’s unending love for all humanity.

From that memory and from that hope, let us love and let us change the world.

Amen and merry Christmas!