Christmas Eve

By The Rev. Bernard W. Poppe, Rector

The Gospel reading brings us once again to the stable in Bethlehem. With the shepherds we hear the angels tell of wondrous things and in our minds eye and hearts journey we too go to the stable to see if all they said is true and upon finding it is so, worship.

They and we worship God in thanksgiving for a love so immense to join us in our humanity. It's hard to imagine what that means, that God becomes human, but there it is, the fact of this baby's birth who came to change the world. Even the most cynical of people has to admit that this baby did alter the course of human events, gave us a benchmark of life to measured before and after.

The Shepherds looked in the stable and saw the baby, and saw in the flesh their hope for a better world, a world of peace, a world without fear, a world in which the order they had only dreamed about was restored.

What do you see on this Christmas Eve night as you go to the stable and look over the sill into the life of the Holy Family. As Mary holds the baby to her, so new to the world and yet at the same time eternally ancient. As she holds this paradox, gurgling and vulnerable, what are we looking for? What hope resides in this little being for us?

I think we have endless expectations. For each of us in need, pain or fear we look to this baby as hope for a return to a normal way of life. A time when fear or grief or pain didn't exist. But if we look for that, I think we will be disappointed. God never, in all scriptures, goes backward to a time once inhabited, but rather leads people into a new place beyond the old world. Isaiah described it in this way, "The people in darkness have seen a great light." The light is a beacon to a place of new beginnings and new hope. A place to start again, where faith and intention can link and create new and healthy possibilities.

Perhaps that is always the best hope of all, that there will be a future. God's promise in all scripture is to open our eyes to see His love unfold among those who are open to it and allow themselves to be used for it. They spread the word, as the disciples of Jesus did later on, that God is in the world and active, living, breathing, and among us to bring us to a higher place.

This isn't always an easy message to hear. There is so much violence in the world -- physical, emotional, spiritual. War rages, terrorism infiltrates every corner of societies around the world. And terrorists are not just those in the Middle East who strap bombs to themselves. Terrorists exist right here in our own land, in gangs, organized crime, vigilantes, and those who discriminate against others preventing their employment, living situations, marriage rights, or any other immoral exercise of power.

We look to churches and houses of faith for comfort and direction and sadly even the church has it's struggles and divisions with varying degrees of pain and confusion.

It's precisely into this world that God comes in human form. Precisely to bring hope that is needed. The hope is to learn a way to live in this world peacefully and justly.

There is a story that after World War II, German students went to England to help rebuild a Cathedral that had been damaged in the German bombings. Among the rubble they found a statue of Jesus and as they worked on its repair, they were unable to find or restore the hands of the statue. They discussed the dilemma and decided to leave the hands off the statue, putting an inscription on the base that was inspired by the written works of St. Theresa of Avila in the late 1600's. They wrote, "Christ has no hands but ours."

The full text of St. Theresa's prayer goes like this:

Lord Christ, You have no body on earth but ours,
No hands but ours,
No feet but ours.
Ours are the eyes through which your compassion
Must look out on the world.
Ours are the feet by which you may still
Go about doing good.
Ours are the hands with which You bless people now.
Bless our minds and bodies,
That we may be a blessing to others.

The prayer is a beautiful gift given to us by St. Theresa. It gives expression and movement to the hope inside us to make the world better than it is.

We are the hands, the feet, the compassion and heart of God. It is that part of the spirit of God living within us that calls to be born, no screams out to be born and to grow. We are at our best when we give of ourselves, and God is able to use us each day to stand for justice and love in the worlds in which we live and move and have our being.

The true message of Christmas is perhaps not so much that God came into the world, but that God resides in each of us waiting to be born anew. St. Paul says that we are the temple of the Holy Spirit. If that is true, there is something of God in us that calls us into a deeper awareness of what it means to be alive.

One of the ministries at St. George's is healing prayer. It's doesn't have the flash and dazzle of crutches being tossed away, nor the sale of potions to cure any illness. It's a form of prayer that seeks to heal the spirit. I think most people have heard of the ways in which our emotional state can impact our physical state, for example one's anxiety can cause high blood pressure and it's related problems. Or stress can cause ulcers. There are many ways in which we can demonstrate the connection between body, mind and spirit. The healing prayer is a way of healing the spirit from pain and distress that may or may not have physical manifestations. Spiritual pain and illness is real in itself an in need of healing. The prayers for healing are offered after communion at a couple stations near the rail and if you haven't stopped by, I urge you to do so sometime. If you've never done this before, when you kneel at the prayer desk you can ask for a specific prayer about something that is on your mind or connected to someone you love. You may even just ask for a general prayer. Praying with and for each other is one of the main works of the church community. It is a sacrament of healing offered by and for people as children of God, loved by God and seeking to love God in as deep way as possible. Prayer honors the Spirit of God in each of us and as we are healed we can become healing agents in a world so much in need of it.

God came into the world to heal the world, and that baby in the manger is also born in us through our desire to be part of that healing. It is a wonder and a miracle. It is a blessing and a gift to be received and given freely. Amen.

© 2007 St. George's Episcopal Church, Maplewood, NJ