Christmas Eve 2025 God Is Here!

 

Christmas Eve 2025 – God Is Here!

That’s how we left it Sunday: God. Is. Here. Where do we go from here? That is the question.

 

Christmas Eve Eve I woke up early. It is dark. Really really dark. Some kind of rain or mist is going on. I feel my way through the dark into the living room and fire up the Lenovo Think Pad one more time. As I was falling asleep last night after baking dozens and dozens of cookies, poet Mary Oliver was describing a black snake. The snake “came like a whip…like black water flowing down the hill./ Watch me it whispered / then poured like black water through the field/ then hurried down, like black water into the mouses hole…” A black snake, like black water, underground with a mouse where it is darker than this Christmas Eve Eve morning, I thought.

 

And Oliver observes, “dear God, we too are down here in such darkness.” Yes, I thought, we are. Like Sisyphus, we try to claw our way back into the light, only to slip once again into the darkness…the Lenovo lights up. Breathe deep. Too much of its blue light can disturb your sleep. Disturb your peace. Darkness can be both disturbing and somehow reassuring at the same time. Calming or anxiety provoking. I open Facebook and my eyes fall upon the following from a lifetime friend and fellow traveler towards the Light and Life of the world:

Then He appeared and the soul felt its worth.

The thrill of Hope, a weary world rejoices…Please heal our world

 

Jesus would call it Tikkun Olan: repair the world. It is what he came to do. Repair the damage we have done to the world he created. God. Is. Here. And suddenly the soul feels its worth. Hope is reborn whenever we bear him, as Mary did, and give him to the World, a weary world, a jaded world, fearful of rejoicing, seeking healing for all that keeps us chained to the darkness. None of us are free, none of us are free, if one of us is chained, none of us are free...until we let his light to shine within...the morning star that knows no setting...He comes, He rises still, He appears in the oddest moments, in the oddest of people we meet, in a manger with shepherds of all people. Do we see him? Do we call him? Do we seek him? Do we ever see him in others? And then he is right here, where two or three are gathered, he is in the midst of us lighting the way home, home to ourselves, our true selves, our loving selves, our light filled selves…we feel our worth, we feel the thrill of Hope, we rejoice, ideo o o ideo o o, ideo, gloria, in excelsis Deo!

 

Google AI reveals: that last part first appeared in a Finnish Song Book in 1582. We don’t know how old it really is, but of course Id-e-o-o-o" is a vocalization from the Christmas carol "Personent Hodie" ("On This Day Earth Shall Ring"), where it leads into the Latin phrase "Gloria in excelsis Deo," meaning "Glory to God in the highest," a joyful chant by the angels announcing Jesus's birth. The "Id-e-o" is meant to mimic angelic singing. He Is Here. Lying in a manger. Or, as Matthew has it, in a house. Some commentators remind us, 2,000 years ago, the first floor of a house might have a manger where the animals would spend the night indoors. Something like those Charleston, South Carolina homes, where the sitting room is on the second floor. The last time I saw The Reverend Frank Mcclain was in one of those homes.

 

Frank+ was my first rector out of seminary. He retired to Charleston, and on a visit, Frank took me to the top floor of their house and said, “Look out this window.” And through a rather small window on the top floor, one can see the place that started it all – Fort Sumter. That’s where it began. When will it ever end? Or, as Pete Seeger would ask over and over again, “When will we ever learn? When will we ever learn….” In the holy darkness of Christmas Eve Eve, I miss Frank. I miss my father Robert. I miss my mother, Patricia. The Holy Darkness of Christmas brings out the ghosts of our past. I miss Missie, Frank’s wife. The last time I saw Missie and the girls, we were sitting in that second floor sitting room getting ready to head over to Frank’s funeral just before Christmas that year. I shared with the family the sermon Frank delivered my first Christmas as a priest in Christ’s One, Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic Church. They had never heard it. I re-read it every year. It concludes:

“Christmas, we have often emphasized, has been and is a time of giving. The letters that come in the mail, stack upon stack of them, tend to underline those words of Jesus, “It is more blessed to give than to receive.” This is recorded in the Book of Acts and not in the Gospels. That of course is true – and yet, never forget it, Christmas is also a time to receive a gift, wonderful truth.

            “We will each of us receive some special gift tomorrow from someone who loves us. More wonderful even, we will each of us, singly and together, receive a gift from someone who loves us even more, from God.

            “In any of our lives there is a manger, now doubtless empty, cold, malodorous, surrounded by beasts – the heartbreaks, tragedies, and disappointments of our lives. But it is there that you will find the child, new born, if you will look on him and be open to receive God’s gift.

            “It can come to you this Christmas, that gift, that birth within you of the Christ Child, when you become aware of and touch, perhaps only fleetingly, the whole and complete person God intended you to be; that God intends you to be. It can happen when you are alone or it can happen when you are in company. It can happen here, at this present Bethlehem, this Holy Table, when and where you receive tangible evidence, symbols of bread and wine, God’s Body and Blood, God’s life.

            “As in receiving any real gift, your response will be astonishment, humility (Why me?), and deep, restorative joy – to which you can only say Gratia, Thank You, Eucharist, Grace!

            “Be open tonight/today to receive that gift, open-handed, offering nothing but your need, your empty manger. Centuries of experience assure you that God’s gift is being offered, God’s Son, born within you. Arise and go out into the world with astonishment with humility, with joy. Respond in whatever language you may know, Thank you, Eucharisto, Gratia. Your gratitude will show forth – and – a Merry Christmas.”

 

A few days later, back home in Maryland, Frank’s Christmas card arrived, dated just a few days before the heart attack took him home. At the end of the card he wrote, “May your coming year be bright and the kind of world you deserve. With love, Frank/Missie.” Frank knew better than just about anyone I have ever known that God. Is. Here. Immanuel: God is with us. Let God In. Let in The Light! Become the Light of Christ. Help others to see the God who is here!

 

That’s the joke of it all, isn’t it. We wait and wait for God in Christ to return when it seems he never really left. That’s the hook in his final words to us at the very end of Matthew’s gospel, “Lo, I am with you always, to the end of the age!” Whenever we think we are done with Jesus we discover that Jesus is never done with us! God is with us. To the end of the age. The darkness has not overcome The Light! God is here. Jesus is here. Always. Forever. And ever. It’s like what I saw on Facebook: He appeared and the soul felt its worth. The thrill of Hope, a weary world rejoices. Please heal our world, He says! Tikkun Olam, He says! Repair the world, He says! That’s where we go from here! Gloria, in excelsis Deo! God bless us, every one!