Are You Feeling It Yet?

                                                         Isaiah 9:1-7; Luke 2:1-20

                                                         Christmas Eve 2011

We have spent the season of Advent preparing.  We have been decking the halls and shopping since Thanksgiving, or longer.  We have been partying for weeks.  Are you feeling it yet?  Feeling what?  You may be feeling many different things at this point.  You may be feeling the merriment of the season; having reconnected with friends and family, having expressed love and joy to those dear to you, having given even to those who remain strangers to you.  Maybe you are feeling the joy.  Or, maybe not.  Maybe you are feeling the peace of remembering and resting in the traditions of Christmases past.  Or, maybe not.  Whatever you may or may not be feeling yet, I wonder if you are feeling the mystery of Christmas yet.  Maybe there is still time to enter into the mystery of Christmas even at this late hour.  Tonight’s Christmas Eve service is what Bob Harper from the Biggest Loser series would call “the last chance worship.”  It is for all those who have worked hard to prepare but may not be feeling the real mystery of Christmas yet.  It is a last chance to focus on and abandon ourselves to the mystery before us.

We gather here tonight and focus on a manger in a stable and on the baby who was born and laid in that manger.  Why do we come, year after year, to repeat this tradition?  I believe we are drawn here by the mystery that we find only in gathering to celebrate this tradition in this way.  Whatever else we may feel in all of the preparations we have made it is here, and only here, that we truly enter into the mystery of this holy night.  Let us stand, even kneel, at the manger and behold him.  Let us abandon ourselves to the mystery of this holy night.

Notice first the mystery of the darkness of this night.  We gather in this, the darkest season of the year, because we are a people familiar with the darkness.  We are those of whom Isaiah spoke, “the people who walk in darkness.”  We are drawn here as partners in solidarity with one another against the darkness.  We gather in the darkness to defy the power and fear of darkness.  We gather in darkness to proclaim our faith in the one who was born and laid in the manger, the one who has “shined a great light on us.”

The mystery of the manger in Bethlehem proclaims that we are partners with all of creation.  Whether presented live or in art, the Nativity is never about just humans.  There are cattle and sheep.  There are stars and the open air of a night sky.  There are Angels.  This holy night proclaims that the event happening here, the birth of Christ, will touch all of God’s creation.  This mystery is about all of creation standing before the one who was born to reconcile and redeem all of creation of which we are part.

The mystery of all mysteries this holy night is the mystery of the Incarnation, God dwelling among us.  Every other religious tradition is focused on humankind’s endeavors to approach the deities, whether through feats of worthiness, feasts of enticement or fat of sacrifices.  The mystery of this night is that at this manger the God of God’s has come to dwell with us.  God has entered into the midst of the darkness, fears and oppression in the vulnerability of a human baby.  This child laid in a manger is Emmanuel—God with us.  O, Holy Night!

We have gathered here tonight from our scattered places.  I think we have come to the right place.  Something draws us here.  I think it is the mystery.  I think of the old movie, Close Encounters of the Third Kind.  There is a scene in the Close Encounters movie which speaks to the drawing power of a mystery.  People who have seen the UFO in the movie have a compelling draw to go to Devil’s Tower, the projected site of the upcoming alien landing.  Against government order, these people begin to arrive at Devil’s Tower with a determination which is unstoppable.  One of the scientists who is working for the government is intrigued by this magnetism and says, “It’s still a mystery to me why they are here.  Even they do not know why.  Mysteriously they have been drawn here in their quest for something they can’t comprehend.”  He continues, “We didn’t choose this place; we didn’t choose these people.  They were invited.…(They are) a group of people who have shared a vision in common.”

We are drawn here because we are a people who have shared a vision in common.  It is a vision of light that has shined upon us.  It is a vision of unity with all of creation.  It is the assurance of the dwelling of God among us.  Here in this place, in this moment, we enter into the mystery of this holy night.

To feel the mystery of this night we must but stop and behold the Child in the manger.  To enter into the mystery of this night we must but abandon ourselves to God…and receive our Emmanuel.