"Each Night a Child is Born is a Holy Night"

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The Rev. Suzelle Lynch
December 24, 2003

My colleague Earl Holt says some very wise things about Christmas. He says, "Christmas comes not in the outward show, but in the inner darkness." He says, "Christmas is the promise that our emptiness will be filled, our hunger assuaged." He says, "The heart of Christmas is that great happiness waiting to be fulfilled."

Annie Dillard agrees. "The universal loves the particular," she says. "God empties god's self into the earth - takes on the substance of a human being and keeps going - dying, rising, walking - and still walking." These poets know what we, too, know: That Christmas, with all its glamour and tinsel and gifts and rejoicing; Christmas, with its stories of angels' song and kings' gifts and a miraculous birth, is rooted in a more temporal drama - one in which we must play the starring roles.

There's a story I like that describes this. Some of you have heard it -- it's about a woman who wanted peace in the world, and peace in her heart, and all sorts of good things, but she was very frustrated. She would read the newspapers and watch TV and get depressed, because the world seemed to be falling apart. Everywhere there seemed to be war, and hunger, and homelessness; domestic violence, prejudice, and other disheartening events, both political and personal.

One day, she decided to go shopping, and she went into a shopping mall and picked a store to go into at random. She walked in, and was surprised to see Jesus behind the counter. She knew it was Jesus, because he looked just like the image she'd seen on holy cards and devotional pictures. She looked at him again and again, and finally she got up the nerve and asked, "Excuse me, but are you Jesus?" And he replied, "Yes, I am." "Do you work here?" she asked. "No," Jesus said, "I own the store." And the woman asked, "Just what, exactly do you sell in here?" "Oh," he answered, "just about anything." "Anything?" the woman was incredulous. "Yes," he said, "Anything you want. What is it that you want?" The woman paused, and thought for a moment, and said, "I am confused and frustrated, and I just don't know quite what it is I want." "Well then," Jesus said, "why don't you walk up and down the aisles, and make a list. Then come back to me, and we'll see what we can do for you."

So the woman did just that - she walked up and down the aisles. On the shelves were peace on earth, no more war, no hunger or poverty, peace in families, no more drug abuse, clean air, careful stewardship of natural resources, goodwill for all, and many other wonderful things. She scribbled furiously, and by the time she got back to Jesus at the counter, she had a long list.

Jesus took her list and looked it over, and then looked at her and smiled. He reached down under the counter, and picked out all sorts of things, and then laid them out on the counter for her. She was surprised. "What are those?" she asked, pointing to the small packets he had spread out before her. And Jesus replied, "These are seed packets." "You mean," she said, "I don't get the finished product?" "No," Jesus said, "This is a catalog store - a place of dreams. You come in and see what it looks like, and I give you the seeds. You must plant the seeds, nurture them, and help them grow. It might take a lifetime or more, and you may not see the results, but only with commitment and caring, can your dreams be realized." (In "Parables," by Megan McKenna, found in "Spiritual Literacy," p. 359, and adapted by Rev. Suzelle Lynch.)

Tonight, it's not given for us to know whether that woman walked out of the store empty-handed, or whether she scooped up those seeds, and went off in search of fertile ground.

Tonight, it is given for us to understand, however, that the heart of Christmas isn't the finished product, the full-blown realized dreams waiting on the shelves for us to take down and purchase. It's those seeds, not yet planted; it's the promise, not yet fulfilled; it's the hunger, not yet satisfied. The heart of Christmas isn't the story of a Jesus who became the Christ and saved the world, it's not the story of an ending. It's the story of a birth, a beginning; the story of potential, of what could happen if human beings understood themselves to be the particular living, breathing manifestations of the universal Spirit of Life and Love. It's the story of hope, reborn every year with the returning light in the legend of a child who would transform humankind. And because each night a child is born is a holy night, as Sophia Lyon Fahs reminds us, it's also your story, and my story, and the story of every child ever born.

In a few short hours, Christmas Day will dawn, for some of us bringing the cries of children's joy, the crinkle and crackle of wrapping paper pulled back from boxes and packages, mouth-watering aromas of special foods, a phone ringing with cheer from friends and family afar. Some of us will celebrate more simply, some alone; some perhaps, not at all. Yet the heart of Christmas lives in all of us - the joyous, the lonely, the tall, the small and everyone in between. From our inner darkness, our hunger, our promise, Christmas waits to be born.

May it be born in us all and bless us all and plant the seeds in us all, of peace on earth, goodwill to all.

Amen.