If my memory serves me well, it was on a night like this that I first fell in love with the Episcopal Church. I might go a bit further and say that it was the moment when I also really fell in love with God. So, at least in my mind, it is hard to separate loving God and loving this church from our celebration of Christmas and our worship on this most holy of nights. This is The Eve of the Nativity of our Lord Jesus Christ, a night when Christians around the world celebrate the birth of the Christ child in Bethlehem.

Christmas Eve services range from the simple to the ornate. Most often, beautiful music enhances our stately liturgy. The music might range from classic Christmas carols sung by a small congregation to soaring anthems performed by a professional choir. It is a night when festive vestments, lights, candles and flowers capture our visual senses. In some churches, incense and bells take hold of our other senses of smell and hearing. Our whole being is drawn into the experience.

Christmas services are intended to be a celebration of one of the two great feasts of the church – the other being Easter Day. If you’re a member of St. Chrysostom’s or a family member or a friend who is visiting, we’re glad you’re here. If you’re new to the neighborhood, a warm invitation is extended for you to find a place in our worshiping community. However you got here, we’re glad you did. We sincerely wish all of you a wonderful Christmas. This is a grand evening to be in this magnificent place of worship!

It was a service much like this some forty years ago that first drew me to the Episcopal Church. Visiting with one of my friends, I was completely overwhelmed by the beauty, the majesty, the sense of awe and the feeling of profound reverence I found in the small Episcopal Church in my hometown of Sumter, South Carolina. There was an immediate connection with the deepest part of my soul and I knew that I wanted to be a part of that place and that tradition.

It took me several years and a lot of wandering to sort things out, but I finally found my way back to an Episcopal Church, one just outside of Atlanta, Georgia. Someone there welcomed me, told me that she was glad that I had visited with them and hoped that I would come back. I did, that time for good! But it was my first impression of a Christmas Eve service in the Episcopal Church that had captured my heart and pulled me back. That impression has never left me and I look forward to this season and to these celebrations with renewed joy and wonder each year.

Perhaps for the first time in my whole life, that night I found the God who loved me. Up until then, my only image and my only understanding of God was an angry old man with a long white beard who lived up in the clouds and was ready to strike me down for the least thing that I did wrong. That night, I discovered – felt, sensed, whatever the right word is – the God who cared enough about me and everyone else to come down from those clouds and live among us – appearing as a child too poor to be born anywhere else but in a stable.

Do I believe the Christmas story? Absolutely! Does that make me a hopeless romantic or a “simple” believer? Perhaps, but that’s okay. What I believe is a story that has been handed down through generations of believers. Whatever the fine points – was it a stable or a cave, did the shepherds really see and hear the angels, was there really a star – whatever the details, whatever happened, I think about Christmas the way I think about Easter. At that moment in time, something happened that was so extraordinary that it changed the lives of those involved forever. So I don’t worry about the details and don’t get too hung up on the questions.

The age-old promise that God would come to be among the people had finally been realized. Jesus’ birth was the prophet Isaiah’s present reality: “… a child has been born to us, a son given to us; and he is named Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.” It had happened. God was here and is and ever shall be. Alleluia!

What was it that shattered my old fears and beliefs and led me to a new understanding? I may never know. Was it the music, the majesty of the service, the sounds and the smells – all mixed together? Was it the sense of a community that wanted and needed me? Was it the perception of a new light revealing the world as I had never looked at it before? Or was it my deepest wish to be loved by God that was finally answered? Most likely, it was all of the above and, somehow, all of it took hold of my heart in a way that has never let go. I am so grateful.

Perhaps that is why in the midst of all the “busyness” of this season, I never fail to have a deep feeling of peace on this night in particular. I always have the sense that somewhere – in the darkness of this night – the whole creation stops spinning and stands still for just an instant – that brief moment between the beats of our hearts. I think that at that very moment we can hear the baby cry out with new life – I think we can hear God breaking into our humanity in a most profound way.

In that moment, the radio, television and newspaper headlines change: instead of seeing ravaging images of war, we see the faces of the servicemen and women who are bravely serving in far-away places; we hear stories of good deeds and happy children instead of the latest robbery and murder; we watch the smiling faces of the hungry ones who are eating until their bellies are full or the downtrodden ones who welcome the warmth of a new winter coat. For a moment, God’s love for everyone shines through all of us and what we have done for one another. The people who have been walking in darkness have indeed seen a new light.

For me, there is always that moment on Christmas Eve when the world stands still and we hear the child cry out in the deepest darkness of the night. It is the piercing cry of God breaking into our world. All creation pauses to hear and I never cease to be amazed at the feeling. Somewhere deep in all of that I know that I am included in the new life offered by that child. I am welcomed into the household of God and cherished as one of Christ’s own forever. All of you are too!

At this time of year, our Christmas wishes can be short and simple or long and complicated. Mine are a little of both. My first Christmas wish is that the moment lasts just a little longer – that wars will cease and that sons and daughters of all countries can rejoin their families; that justice prevails and robberies and murders are crimes of the past; that hunger and homelessness disappear and all people are filled and clothed and sheltered. Does this make me a hopeless romantic or an idealistic dreamer?

Perhaps a believer… because I do believe this is what God intended to have happen as a result of the “in-breaking” into our lives. The lives of those who were witnesses were changed forever. Mine was changed… yours too. So there is no reason to think that together we can’t change the lives of others so that they too feel the peace and joy of Christmas.

My second Christmas wish is that each of you – in your own way and in your own time – find that same peace and joy. Perhaps it will be somewhere in the midst of all this beautiful worship – in the sights and sounds of our praise and thanksgiving. Perhaps it will be somewhere in the middle of the night in that instant when you hear the cry of a baby breathing in – and breathing out – new life and love for all God’s creation. Perhaps it will be that you fall in love with God too – all over again.

Have a happy and blessed Christmas! May all your Christmas wishes come true!

Amen.