Christmas Eve, 2005
Judith A. Davis, Rector ©
Luke 2:1-20
Christ Church + Washington Parish

+Come, Emmanuel and be born in us this night. Amen.  

     On Friday night, as I was leaving the hospital where my 92-year old father is this Christmas, I drove down the main street of his town, Henderson, North Carolina, Dad’s home town and I drove past the First United Methodist Church, Dad’s church.  The cars in front of me had slowed a bit and I looked to my left to the Church and saw, to my delight, the live Nativity scene. All my thoughts and emotions took me back to my childhood to all the many, wonderful Christmases when our home church had the live Nativity scene, where I was usually an angel (you didn’t know that part about me, I’m sure—the angel part).  I was surprised at my feelings and the joy of happening upon this wonderful scene.  All the Christmases of my life were compressed in that scene (which came upon me as such a surprise, after a hard time of seeing Dad in the hospital for Christmas).  The flood of emotions came as I remembered my parents watching the live nativity scenes in the cold as we stood as angels in our childhood. I remembered my home and my home church. 

     And so, what comes to me tonight is the juxtaposition of two Christmas songs as I reflect on this experience:  The first is Christina Rossetti’s “In the bleak midwinter,” written in 1872 and paired with Gustav Holst’s wonderful tune Cranham, composed in 1906 for Rossetti’s carol (published in The Poetical Works of Christina Rosetti, Poem # 426, in 1906 after Rossetti’s death).  The other is an unlikely song for church, “I’ll be home for Christmas,” popularized by Bing Crosby, as his third most successful Christmas song behind “White Christmas” and “Silent Night.”  Crosby recorded it in 1943 backed by the John Scott Trotter Orchestra and within two months it was on the charts and later earned Crosby his 5^th gold record in 1944.  Now I realize there may be a few of you who don’t know what a “record” is or who Bing Crosby is, so check with me later about that.  

    So, I was listening to a new CD of Christmas music and a few old CDs on the way to visit my Dad and I listened to these two songs off and on as I drove.  Let me explore how they work together, taking a few lines from each of them.  “In the bleak midwinter” is my all-time favorite Christmas carol and I have sung it since I was a child growing up in the Methodist Church in North Carolina.  The last stanza says, “What can I give him, poor as I am? If I were a shepherd, I would bring a lamb, If I were a wise man, I would do my part, yet what I can I give Him, Give my heart.” 

     What God wants most from us at Christmas is, I believe, that we would give our hearts to God and in doing that, claim the power of Christ in our lives—the power of the one who came to establish God’s commonwealth of justice, mercy and love—the power of the one who came to break oppression, to rule in the hearts of God’s people, not to rule over them in the sociopolitical sense—the power of one who came to model for us the justice-love of God’s ultimate reign in the hearts of God’s people, the one who taught us to minister to the least of God’s people, the poor, the hungry, the naked, the sick, those in prison, those who are disenfranchised.  By giving our hearts to Christ this night, we take on his incredible love that empowers us to go out into a hurting world and spread the light of his love wherever we go.  The poet says, “what I can, I give him.”  What I can give is my own heart to do mercy, and justice and walk humbly with God.  

     So what does that have to do with Bing Crosby’s song, “I’ll be home for Christmas”? Here’s what works for me.  I was lucky enough to grow up in a loving, wonderful home, where there was no substance abuse, no domestic violence, no fighting and chaos, no screaming and yelling, but a home of peace and love and joy.  Christmas was a wonderful time in our family.  St. Nicholas (aka Santa) always came and ate the cookies and milk and the fireplace was always waiting for his entry.  He usually always brought us one nice gift that we had hoped would come.  Our stockings were filled with walnuts and Brazil nuts and pecans and oranges and tangerines, things we didn’t get all year like we do now.  We had new things to play with and Daddy had a new tie and Mama, a scarf or something.  We sat around the piano and sang Christmas carols for hours with our neighbors.  Mama cooked pecan pies and we had fruitcake (of course).   We always went to Church on Christmas Eve and we were always in the live Nativity pageant three evenings before Christmas Eve.  I loved the live Nativity scene.  It was like entering the story, maybe like walking through that Narnian wardrobe and coming home again to the story we love so much at Christmas—the great timeless story of God coming down to earth as baby Jesus in the stable with all his animal friends and Mary and Joseph and the shepherds—the story of all the crèches of our lives and even our little crèche here.  

     Well, my family moved from the house and town where I grew up my senior year in college, and so going “home” to visit Mom and Dad was never quite the same again at Christmas, going to Church in a place I’d never known in another state and just being with them, not knowing anyone else in town.  Later, when I joined the Episcopal Church and its choir, I wanted so much to be with my church family on Christmas Eve after having practiced the music all during Advent.  Finally one year I said to Mom and Dad that I was going to stay at my church on Christmas Eve and I would fly down to see them on Christmas Day.  That was a hard decision for all of us since I had always been home on Christmas Eve.   

     I’ll have to say, that being with my church family was so incredible for me the first time I went to the “midnight mass” in the Episcopal Church on Christmas Eve—it was what home seemed to be about for me—coming home to celebrate the Nativity of the Christ.  And, of course, the music was glorious and the greenery was awesome and, best of all, I was with my church family.  And almost forever after that I spent Christmas Eve with my own church family and, later, especially after I was ordained, my parents joined me in my church to celebrate Christmas Eve as well.  I well remember the last time they spent Christmas eve here at Christ Church---probably Christmas of 2000.  

    So, my point really is this:  When Bing Crosby sings, “I’ll be home for Christmas, if only in my dreams,” the home I long for is not only the home of my happy childhood, but the home that Church is for me.  My mother died 3 and 1/2 years ago and my father has not been able to travel here for the last two years for Christmas and tonight as I said, he is in the hospital with the little tabletop Christmas tree from CVS I set up on Friday.  I miss him tonight, and of course I miss my Mom and my sister, who have died, but when I drove past the live nativity scene on Friday night, I was “home” for Christmas—if only in my dreams.  I was home in that church of my childhood in my dreams and I knew I would be a home here tonight with my church family.  

     I know that many of you have lost loved ones and that your own family misses those great people in your life.  I know that some of you have lost loved ones even this year before Christmas, and you’re having your first Christmas without them. I think of those displaced by the hurricanes and I think of our troops in Iraq and I think of all the people in the strife-torn world, even the Holy Land, and I think of all those people in the same hospital where Dad is and all people in hospitals and nursing homes at Christmas, and those like Bob and Inez who are still in Houston after four months. I pray that all the people of the world who celebrate the Nativity of Jesus Christ can be home in their own dreams this night and be surrounded by someone they love, and by some semblance of peace. I hope that being here with your brothers and sisters in Christ and singing these great carols and celebrating the Eucharist together will bring you great joy this night. I pray that you will give your heart to Christ this night that he will empower you to go out into our world and show the light and love of Christ to someone who needs home most of all.   

     I always count on that snow and mistletoe and presents on the tree in the song. I’m also counting on God’s incredible love to be born in my own heart again tonight that I might give my heart back to that love incarnate in our own flesh.  As we sing my favorite carol before our prayers, ask God to bring the light and love and peace of Christ to your heart this night and let us pray for those who need God’s healing love.  Let us give thanks for each other knowing that every year we can count on our church being here for us as a place where we can step into that story once again and we can go home again--if only in our dreams. What can we give him, poor as we are? If we were shepherd, we would bring a lamb, If we were the wise ones, we would do our part, yet what we can we give Him, Give our hearts.”  

Let us pray:

God of all the ages, in the birth of Christ your boundless love for your people shattered the power of darkness. Be born in us with that same love and light that our song may blend with all the choirs of heaven and earth to the glory of your holy name. Amen.