We welcome you here this Christmas Eve!  Welcome to each and every one of you on this blessed, holy night!  It is a joy to look out and see all of you who have found your way here to this sacred place.  You have found your way here tonight, in the midst of all your holiday activities and busyness, and I suspect it’s not just to see people you know, or to be bathed in candlelight, or to sing Christmas carols. 

 

Rather, there is something about this night, something about the story of the baby born in Bethlehem that has drawn you here, drawn us all.  It is a story about faith and grace and love; a story about new beginnings, about God with us, and we have gathered that we might worship together and hear once again the words that touch our hearts to the very core. 

 

The familiar passages from Isaiah and Matthew and Luke wash over us:  “Be not afraid, for behold, I bring you good news of great joy…” and “…she gave birth to her first-born son and wrapped him in swaddling clothes and laid him in a manger…” and “…he is named Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace…”

 

The poetry of this night belongs to everyone, no matter who we are or the level of our faith, and it connects us with generations across twenty centuries who have gathered year after year, just as we have tonight, to be moved once again by that singular moment in history when God the Creator was born as one of us. 

 

There is a power in this story -- it is the power of eternity touching a moment in time – and we know it by heart: how a decree went out from the Emperor that all the world should be registered.  And how Joseph and Mary, who was great with child, set out from Nazareth to make their way to Joseph’s hometown of Bethlehem in order to be counted in the census.  And how there was no room in the inn. 

 

Joseph and Mary had gone back home – but there was no home.  No place to stay, no family to welcome them, no one to extend them a loving embrace.  The songs of the season tell us “There’s no place like home for the holidays” and “I’ll be home for Christmas.”  Everyone is supposed to go home tonight; on that first Christmas, Joseph and Mary were, and on this Christmas, so are we.

 

But where is your home?  Not your house, but the place where there are arms to embrace you and welcome you and love you?  Where is your home?

 

Several years ago, two American missionaries to Russia visited an orphanage and told the children the story of Christmas.  For most, it was their first time hearing it, and they listened enraptured, trying to grasp every word.  When the story was finished, the teachers gave each of the children some flannel to cut and make a picture depicting what they had just heard. 

 

Misha was about six years old, and when the missionaries looked at his completed picture, there were two babies in the manger.  When they asked why, the boy began to repeat the Christmas story word for word, up to where Mary wraps the baby in swaddling clothes.  Then he began to ad lib his own ending.  Misha said, "And when Mary laid the baby in the manger, Jesus looked at me and asked me if I had any place to stay.  I told him no, I have no mama and no papa, I have no home, no place to stay.  And Jesus told me that I could stay with him.  So I got in the manger with him, and Jesus looked at me and told me I could stay with him always." 

 

Like little Misha, each of us is looking for a home – a place where we are always welcomed and loved unconditionally; a place of healing and hope and forgiveness.  Where is home?  We need only follow that worried father-to-be as he makes his way, along with his expectant wife, back to his hometown of Bethlehem; home is that manger, because it is there we will find God, who is our home. 

 

Tonight, in that manger, is God with a human face -- not God Up There, distant as the farthest star, but Emmanuel -- God With Us –who comes to us in the midst of our longings, and hopes, and fears.  

 

And it is a bruised and broken world in which we find ourselves this Christmas.  Terrorism, violence, and war are all around us, and we pray for the conflict-torn places in our world to learn the way of peace. 

 

And I know that for some, the rejoicing of this night is laced with pain.  Some of us are facing Christmas alone, or with heavy hearts burdened by grief, loss, uncertainty, or disillusionment.  Perhaps we are dealing with an estrangement, or a job loss, or an addiction, and we pray for the shadows in our lives to be filled with the light of hope, and for the pain-soaked places to be filled with joy.

 

Yet, it was precisely for you that God in Jesus came; it was to touch such pain and heal it, to fill our emptiness, to move us to reconciliation, and to renew us in our times of failure.  In Jesus, God took on our human frailty and weakness so that God would know what it meant to be human in every dimension, from life’s extraordinary joys to the depths of abandonment, suffering and death. 

 

God came to us as one of us to enfold all of us in a welcoming embrace and say, “Stop running, stop fearing, for I am here with you, for you; this is your home, where you belong.” 

 

Whether you walk daily in faith, whether you are one who slips in and out of belief, or whether you have yet to be convinced of God’s existence, what happened on that long-ago night was for you.  Christ offers each and every one of us a hand to hold and guide us, a strong arm to carry and protect us, and a heart to love and comfort us. 

 

It wouldn’t be Christmas without coming home, and that is what has drawn us here, that is why we have come tonight.  In the stillness of this worship, we know in our heart of hearts that our home is in that stable in Bethlehem.  It is a place of reunion and peace and joy, where the glow of human love meets the warmth of heavenly compassion. 

 

It is to the manger we come to be comforted and sheltered; it is there we kneel with the shepherds and kings, laying down the burdens of our lives, that we might experience God’s healing love and grace.  And it is where, enveloped in God’s divine embrace, we find peace in the midst of pain, hope in the center of hurt, and healing that will bring us to wholeness.  Home.

 

We welcome each of you tonight; it is so good to you have you here.  What a joy it is to see your beautiful faces.  We are so glad you found you way here on this holy, silent, wondrous night.  Merry Christmas!  And welcome home.  Amen.