christmas eve reflection

anna blaedel
first umc, osage
christmas eve
service of scripture and song

We gather to hear the Christmas story. To celebrate this season, and witness to this wonder… We hear and sing and share and become this story. We become the story we create.

The Christmas story means more than a mere child in a manger. Unto us a child is born. The one who gives us hope for the future, the one who calls us to care for the weak and weary, the one who asks us to speak truth to power when it veers out of control, the one who offers us creation requiring delicate care… We become the story we create, and this story means more than gift receipts and bargain bins, Santa’s sleigh or stockings, stuffed. This story means more, even, than houses full of family, or tending to traditions or singing soul soothing songs of the season.

We gather to celebrate this story because we agree that God has come to be with us and to be involved in our lives, when and where we need it most, the darkest of days…

We gather to celebrate this story because we are hungry, for deeper meaning, for real hope, for lives and communities connected to and connecting us with the Sacred…

We gather to celebrate this story because we need each other, and because we need God, and because, birthed into this world as a tiny, vulnerable, baby, God needs us…

“Do not be afraid,” the angels sing. “I am bringing you good news of great joy.” The angels know our fear often comes first, before we can receive the good news of great joy.

The sign we are to search for? The symbol of God’s mystery and majesty and might? A baby born, in a barn. Careful, now. Don’t miss it. Look. Listen.

Let every heart prepare room for God in the full storehouses of sorrow and grief…

Let every heart prepare room for God, for neighbor, in the loneliness that lingers still…

Let every heart prepare room for God, for wonder that walks alongside woe, for justice pursued with joy…

This story, where God comes to us again. This story, where over and over and over again God invites us into a new way of coming closer to God and each other, because we need the invitation, again and again and again. Jesus, Emmanuel, God with and among and within us. Anew. Because we need it. Because the world needs it. Because God, lying in a manger in the Middle East, with shepherds and sheep showing signs of welcome, is being born again. Anew. Here, now. We become the story we create. Or at least, this is God’s invitation to us, this Christmas. To become this story, anew. To enter this story, again.

A child is being born. A light is shining in the darkness. The story does not stop here. It is just beginning. On this, holy night. Joy to the World! Amen, and amen.