So. Here we are, finally and at last. Doesn't it seem that since the Thanksgiving turkey bones became soup we've all been in high gear, making and choosing and purchasing and wrapping and writing and mailing and delivering and decorating and cooking and inviting and cleaning? We've been bombarded by advertising and sales. We've endured the awful Muzak renditions of Christmas music. The profits of SoCal Edison have been raised as folks decorate with garlands and strings of lights. Our trees are decorated with ornaments, including those egg carton bells our (now grown-up) children made when they were in nursery school. Maybe we even found a few of those cheesy old ornaments that we made when WE were in elementary school!

|Long before we got to church tonight, musicians and Altar Guild and those who greened the church and Hunger Ministry workers and lectors and Lay Eucharistic Ministers and the Parish Office staff have all been at work. Everyone has labored to make this holiday season bright Ð bright because so much is at stake, so much rides on these brief hours we spend together at Christmastide. Forgive this out-of-season pun: we put a LOT of our Christian family eggs in the ONE basket of Christmastide! And when we do so, we act just like the businesses we'd like to think are so different than we are. It's been loudly proclaimed that more than 25% of the annual retail income for American businesses is taken in during the weeks leading up to Christmas Day.

We put a lot of eggs into our family Christmas basket, too. We clamor for the perfect family holiday, and it's not just Martha Stewart who makes a tidy profit out of the fantasy of a perfect holiday. We want our family to get together, yet we anxiously hope that no one this year raises old family squabbles. We believe that family members ought to behave at Christmas, even if they don't do so any other time of the year, even if our family more resembles The Kranks' Christmas than lthe family of Miracle on 34th Street.

The Church tends toward the same (perhaps unrealistic) expectations as do kinfolk and businesses. Lots of people come to Christmas Eve services who don't regularly come to church. So we want, we NEED to do a good job and say the right thingsÉso that all those who are on the very edge of believing, those who are only in church twice a year, can experience something of glory, something of hope, may perhaps hear and do and receive something so inviting, so hope-filled, so powerful that they will say, Wow! I want to know more! I want to be a part of this family! And the folks who worship every week in church deserve to receive new insights and renewal of hope while still delighting in old traditions. All the labor for Christmas has been done in that hope.

Yea and amen. HOPE is at the center of this night glowing with candles. This is a night of hope, if it is anything at all. No matter how many times we have been disappointed in the past, our hope for Christmas truth springs up again at the midnight of Christmas Eve. Tonight we catch a glimpse of the truth of love that underlies all of creation: tonight we touch for ourselves the genuine truth that God has come to be with us: God Emmanuel arrives, once again bearing gifts of hope. God is irrepressible, persistent, as impossible to ignore as a baby's shrieking cries are impossible not to hear. Hope has been driving all the frenetic action of the season: and that is a good thing.

You've heard those folks who complain that no one emphasizes Òthe reason for the seasonÓ any more, and that some shadowy Òthey-peopleÓ are trying to Òtake Christ out of Christmas.Ó Think about that: Do you really believe any human force can keep the Christ of God from permeating all the earth with love and hope and joy? Do you really imagine that human beings can force God out of any part of God's creation? As if we could!! It is written in the Gospel of John that the Light shines in the darkness and the darkness cannot overcome the Light. The author Brennan Manning counters negative claims in these words: Once a year, Christmas strikes both the sacred and the secular spheres of life with sledgehammer force. Suddenly, Jesus Christ is everywhereÉYou may accept or reject him, affirm or deny him. But you cannot ignore him. Of course Jesus is proclaimed in speech, song and symbol in all Christian churches. But he also rides every red-nosed reindeer, lurks within every Cabbage Patch doll, is spoken ever time Ôhappy holidays' is said. He is toasted in every cup of Christmas cheerÉeach cluster of mistletoe is his kiss for the world. He is here.

He is here: the Babe in the manger. God's irrepressible, persistent salvation of the world pours into our hearts, wedges between us and anything that would separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus. We hear tonight, again, the words of the Angel to the shepherds: Do not fear. Take hope! For tonight is born to you in the city of David a Savior which is Christ the Lord. That resilient, tough hope is for us Ð for us who are frequent in our church attendance and for us who are coming for the very first time or returning after a long absence, for us who have been wounded by someone in churches long ago, for the smallest child restlessly kicking the back of your pew and for the grandfather who has been coming to church since he was a little boy kicking the back of someone's pew. Here is hope: for you who grieve the fresh loss of a loved one, for you who are anxious about rebellious children and for you who know that you are preparing for that last great journey of life into death. Hope has come this night as a gift from the Most High. This is the hope that fulfills promise: sins are forgiven, burdens are shared, there is light in the darkness and light at the end of the tunnel Ð just for you, and for you, and for you, and for me as well.

And if all we did was share that hope among us tonight it would be almost enough. Almost enough. It would have been almost enough, if the shepherds had left the stable, each clinging tightly to the new hope raised in him. Thank God that they did not do almost enough. They did not stop there: they returned to the dark streets of Bethlehem, loudly praising God! They woke up the town of Bethlehem with hope! And so must we do, with the hope given to us: that hope which brings God's peace, God's order into the chaos and violence of the world. Our holy gift of hope is fulfilled only when we share it beyond our personal lives and out into the world.

It is not only Christians who put a lot of eggs in the Christmas basket! God has done more: God has put ALL God's eggs into this basket of salvation. God has come bringing hope and love and peace and joy and given them all to us as gifts to share and carry out into the world. We know that those gifts are desperately needed in the world, for all is NOT well with the world. Violence and hatred accompany the most dedicated pilgrim in Bethlehem. In Fallujah and Baghdad and Karbala tonight, armed groups of all sorts exchange the gunfire of hostility. In our local cities tonight are the homeless whose mental illnesses and addictions deafen them to the Angel's voice of hope. All over the world and very close to home in to many poaces it is not hope being proclaimed. Yet, the Angel's words resonate: I bring you good news of great joy for all people.

This night is not complete until we receive our gifts of hope and then go forth to be messengers of hope for all who are not here. After we have been fed with the Bread of Life, and drunk the Wine of the new Promise, we shall kneel and sing of the dawn of redeeming grace. And then we shall light our candles and go out into the chilly night. Rejoice that Christ's light shines in your life! Hear the Angel's song wakening new hope for your journey! Then - consider how you can share that gift of hope in family, in local community and into the world. For you have been called awake, by good news of great joy to all people. To you tonight is born in the city of David a Savior which is Christ the Lord. May you choose to go forth rejoicing, rousing the whole world with your persistent, irrepressible willingness to share all God's gifts to all God's people. AMEN