Christmas Eve 2001
12/24/01
 

 I’ve always believed that one of the best ways to have an incredibly meaningful Christmas is to pay close attention to the words & phrases in the Christmas carols. There is so much inspiration & meaning in Christmas music.

 Now there are a few questionable lines here and there . . .

 "Away in the Manger" says, "Little Lord Jesus, no crying he makes." That’s not biblical, realistic, or helpful! And "We Three Kings" is a bit off, since they were Magi, advisors to kings, but not kings themselves.

 But those are minor things compared to . . .
 -- "Let every heart prepare him room." "Let earth receive her King."
 -- "Jesus, Lord at thy birth"  - the Lord of the Universe lying in a manger.
 --"Veiled in flesh the Godhead see. Hail incarnate Deity.
  "Pleased as man with men to dwell. Jesus our Emmanuel.
  "Hark! The Herald Angels sings, ‘Glory to the Newborn King!’"

 Christmas is for poets, because only the expansive, wondrous mind of a poet can begin to put words to it all. The phrase that has come to me most often this Christmas is from "O Little Town of Bethlehem," where it says, "The hopes and fears of all the years are met in Thee tonight."

 What I love about poetry & song lyrics is also what I struggle with the most -- it’s that you can never be 100% certain about what the author is truly saying.  You can only have a hunch. "The hopes and fears of all the years are met in Thee tonight." Here’s my hunch.

 We bring to a Christmas Eve service all "the hopes and fears" of this past year. And in some ways, all the hopes & fears of our lives. They are not extra baggage. They are who we are and what we have lived through. Our hopes, our hurts.  Our fears, our dreams. These are the things we are made of. And they are all here with us, around us and in us tonight. Especially this year.

 Isaiah wrote that, "the people living in a land of darkness shall see a great light, on them shall the light shine." On September 11 of this year, we were that people, living in a land of darkness. But we have seen countless lights since then -- the lights of courage, sacrifice, compassion, national unity, conviction, and faith. "The hopes and fears of this years" are with us here tonight . . . . tonight, as we celebrate the Greatest Light of All, Jesus Christ. He meets us here tonight . . . just as we are.

 I have a hunch that what the author is saying, "Bring your hopes and fears with you to church on Christmas Eve. Bring them into the Light of Christ."

 There’s an old legend from the early church. It comes from writings outside of the Bible, from the 3rd & 4th century, so we’re not sure if it’s true or not. But the legend is that when Jesus was a little baby in his hometown, whenever the people of that little village felt tired or worried, bothered or fearful, they would say to each other, "Let us go and look at Mary’s child." And they would go and look at Jesus and somehow all their troubles rolled away. "The hopes and fears of all the years are met in Thee tonight." Christ is the Hope of all hopes and the answer to our fears. I think that’s what the hymn writer, Phillips Brooks, is saying.

 But he’s also saying that we need to meet Christ. We have to meet and greet the Christ, the Savior, the Answer. "The hopes and fears of all the years are met in Thee tonight." In fact, he says in verse 3, "Where meek souls will receive him still, the dear Christ enters in."

 Well, how do we receive him?
 How do we meet him?
 How do we come to know him?

 Well, it depends on who you talk to.

 A Baptist would say, You have to invite Jesus Christ into your heart. Confess your sins and ask him to be spiritually born anew within you tonight.

 A Pentecostal would say, Ask God to give you the gift of the Indwelling of the Holy Spirit.  Christ comes to live in you through the Holy Spirit empowering you, infusing you with divine energy.  So ask to be filled with the Spirit of the Living God.

 And Episcopal or Roman Catholic Priest would likely point us to the Eucharist, to receive the spiritual food of the Body and Blood of Christ -- to feed upon him  spiritually through the sacrament.

 A Christian Mystic would invite us to meet Christ through prayer and mediation, to strive for a spiritual oneness with Christ your Beloved.

 A Lutheran theologian would likely invite us to receive the gift of faith, to ask God for more faith - to believe and receive God’s salvation by grace through faith.
I’m ecumenical enough to believe that they’re all correct.

 There are many ways to express meeting God. We Congregationalist have our own way of putting it. It involves one of our favorite words . . . Covenant.   The Pilgrims said it first on these shores, "We covenant with the Lord and one with another, and do bind ourselves in the presence of God to walk together in all his ways, according as God is pleased to reveal himself unto us in his blessed word of truth." We meet and greet Christ by making a Covenant with him. "We covenant with the Lord."

 A Covenant is a loving partnership between two parties, such as "the covenant of marriage." We seek to meet and greet Christ, the newborn King, by pledging to live our lives in a loving partnership with him. We make a vow to him - a grateful, loving, joy-filled vow. It’s personal, it’s relational, and it’s forever.

 I invite you as you receive the candle tonight, to renew that vow, or to make it for the first time. What better night than tonight. "The hopes and fears of all the years are met in Thee tonight."

Let’s pray:
 Light of the World, shine upon us once again tonight. And as you do, fill us with the light and life and love of Christ. Strengthen our faith, receive our thanks for bringing us through this past year, and help us to live in partnership and friendship with you, our Savior and our God, now and forever. In Christ’s Name we pray. Amen.

Rich Knight