Christmas Eve

Meditation by Rev. Mary Alice Mulligan, Ph.D.

Scripture: Luke 2: 1-20

Some of us could almost repeat this scripture from our memories of Christmas Eve services through the years but let us allow the treasured familiarity mix with a sense of hearing the Good News again for the first time. Read Luke 2: 1-20. 

Someone earlier in the week laughed about the guy who admitted he was only coming to the Christmas Eve service for the candles and “Silent Night.” Although he may not be entirely correct, he does have something there. We are drawn to the candlelight and “Silent Night” as a significant part of Christmas Eve. -We gather every year, needing to be together in the family of faith, the visual community of candlelight and the chorus of voices joining our own “Silent Night.” 

We are drawn, like the congregation in Pennsylvania, whose church dwindled and whose bishop eventually closed it. After the building was bulldozed to make room for whatever the new owner was building, on Christmas Eve, one by one, the little congregation gathered in the snow. The building was gone, many of the congregants had died or moved away, but still, those who remained, came. There was no organ or minister, but they couldn’t stay away. It was Christmas Eve. I imagine there were candles and “Silent Night.”

So we are drawn here on Christmas Eve, even though Covid has many of us worshipping online, we still want to see our sanctuary, our singers, our Advent wreath lit. We don’t come mindlessly. even though we admit we don’t understand fully either. We are drawn here.

Because we need to hear the story again. It’s not just just candles and carols. Even though many of us could tell the whole thing, we want to hear the story, in the community of faith, at St Andrew United Church of Christ, with our church family. We want to hear again that on this night, the Realm of heaven is breaking into Earth again. 

We want to hear there was a poor couple, a hesitant, pregnant teenager and her carpenter fiancé, who had to travel to Joseph’s hometown for a census. Because so many people were traveling, Bethlehem was crowded and chaotic. Even among Joseph’s relatives there were no guestrooms left, but someone gave them some privacy in a barn where Mary went into labor and gave birth. There was no royal announcement; apparently not even an excited gathering of in-laws. Just one more baby born to one more working-class couple. No one in Judea would even have noticed, except outside of town, where some of society’s least attractive working guys were making sure the sheep they were responsible for were settled for the night, suddenly a holy presence cracked open among them. All glory broke loose! An angel announced the Chosen One of God, the Messiah, had been born and these guys from society’s margins could go see him. Then the entire sky filled with heavenly beings, erupting with praise. And when things got quiet again, the shepherds went to see if the angelic message was true. And it was! They found Mary and Joseph in a barn, with a newborn swaddled, lying in a feed trough. They were overwhelmed by the glory of it.

Hearing the story again reminds us perfectly that God loves us absolutely. God chooses to come among us, born into flesh like us, into some backwater nowhere, with ordinary people as parents, like us. God chooses to be one of us, to let us know we are loved fiercely, divinely, eternally. Unto us is born this day, a Savior who is Christ the Lord.

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