<html><body><div><div><br></div><div>I wrote this last week and haven't had time to look at it since. </div><div><br></div><div>Anyway, the most joyful of celebrations this weekend!</div><div><br></div><div>Best wishes,</div><div><br></div><div>Bob</div><div><br></div><div><p style="margin: 0px; line-height: normal;"><span style='margin: 0px; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;'>THE EPISCOPAL CHURCH OF ST. ALBAN, ALBANY<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>CHRISTMAS EVE/DAY 2016</span></p><p style="margin: 0px; line-height: normal;"><span style='margin: 0px; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;'>ISAIAH 9:2-7<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>PSALM 96<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>TITUS 2l11-14<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>LUKE 2:1-20</span></p><p style="margin: 0px; line-height: normal;"><span style='margin: 0px; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;'>ISAIAH 62:6-12<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>PSALM 97<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>TITUS 3:4-7<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>LUKE 2:1-20</span></p><p style="margin: 0px; line-height: normal;"><span style='margin: 0px; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;'> </span></p><p style="margin: 0px; line-height: normal;"><span style='margin: 0px; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;'><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>“Dear Diary:” began the article. “On a downtown No. 5 train during a recent rush hour, I grabbed the only pole that had room around it. Just one young woman was hanging on. She wore an unusual knitted hat, with lots of whirly strings hanging from it.</span></p><p style="margin: 0px; line-height: normal;"><span style='margin: 0px; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;'><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>“As I looked at the hat, I noticed the scarf wrapped around her neck — a replica of a lizard. Very realistic, I thought. Somehow my eyes kept being drawn back to the scarf, and suddenly it blinked and moved its head.</span></p><p style="margin: 0px; line-height: normal;"><span style='margin: 0px; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;'><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>“It’s wonderful (wrote the author) that, after 80 years on this earth, 55 of them in New York City, I can still be surprised.”<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span><sup>1</sup></span></p><p style="margin: 0px; line-height: normal;"><span style='margin: 0px; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;'><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>It’s wonderful, indeed, that, after two thousand years – for that matter, after the four and a half billion years since earth was formed – it’s amazing that we can still be surprised. Because that’s what can happen, often, on this day. Of course, we don’t walk into this room completely unaware. We <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight:normal"><u>DO</u></b> have an inkling of what might happen, what we might hear, what we might see. Yet, thank God, we can <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight:normal"><u>STILL</u></b> be surprised! Being surprised by joy and with joy – <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight:normal"><u>THAT’S</u></b> what we celebrate all during this Christmas season, because, as a headline put it a while ago, “with all that’s going on today it’s easy to, lose hope, but tomorrow is another day.” <sup>2</sup></span></p><p style="margin: 0px; line-height: normal;"><span style='margin: 0px; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;'><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>The news of this moment, of this day, of this season, is that God is so aware of what’s happening to us and in our lives that God came among us. God is so concerned about our day-to-day living that we’ve been given an incredible sign of acceptance, of patience, of love.</span></p><p style="margin: 0px; line-height: normal;"><span style='margin: 0px; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;'><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>I find myself wondering, in a good, an exciting way, who will attend the services on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day.</span></p><p style="margin: 0px; line-height: normal;"><span style='margin: 0px; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;'><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>I’m not implying anything negative at all.<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>I’m pleased as punch to see folk here and worship with them at this time of Holy Celebration. But this is the time of year, this is the season when people travel. Children and grandchildren; parents and grandparents; friends whom one hasn’t seem in ages and those whom we see frequently but whose company is always so special – there’s no telling whom may be here, who’s made a special effort. Yet, despite the pleasure of visiting, despite all the other pressures, people gather together beside one another to sing both familiar and less familiar hymns, to join in making special prayers, to listen to the same scripture passages our ancestors heard. Together, we gather to experience all sorts of emotions and, I hope, to allow all sorts of new thoughts and feelings to colour our lives. It’s a familiar story, yet it seems so fresh, so amazing every year. It’s like falling in love all over again, or, at least, admitting to the possibility that that might happen. It’s God speaking, softly<span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>or loudly, “Surprise!”</span></p><p style="margin: 0px; line-height: normal;"><span style='margin: 0px; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;'><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Perhaps it’s this last thought that’s so powerful. Something <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight:
normal"><u>MAY</u></b> happen. None of us are <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight:
normal"><u>SO</u></b> old, <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight:normal"><u>SO</u></b> jaded, that we think we’ve seen it all, that nothing could possibly happen., especially something that might give us a wonderfully surprising amount of pleasure. We’re here, not just because we know the story, but because our hearts and minds may have been shaken, may have been disturbed, may even have been broken, and are in need of a touch of surprise, a touch the brings life. Christmas, and all the layers of God’s love that it represents, is such a touch. </span></p><p style="margin: 0px; line-height: normal;"><span style='margin: 0px; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;'><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>The newspaper headline that ended “tomorrow is another day” belongs to an article about patience in times of stress. It’s not a patience that implies that we do nothing and experience nothing. It’s the sort of patience we need every day when we struggle. It’s the sort of patience that Mary and Joseph, and their extended families, indeed, the whole nation was needing while they suffered so much. As one of the lines of the familiar hymns pouts it, “the hopes and fears of all the years are met in (God’s Bethlehem) tonight. … For Christ is born of Mary.” <sup>3</sup></span></p><p style="margin: 0px; line-height: normal;"><span style='margin: 0px; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;'><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>The author of the newspaper article echoed what the angel said to the shepherds, and which has been passed on and on. There is never a reason to lose hope …”tomorrow is another day”, and there’s another after that, no matter what dire circumstances may impinge on us.</span></p><p style="margin: 0px; line-height: normal;"><span style='margin: 0px; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;'><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Along with the people of Mary and Joseph’s time, it’s so easy for us to feel overwhelmed, possibly to flirt with the temptation to despair. We have to admit that it takes courage to face up to problems. A pianist remarked that, “If people are to be taken out of this world by music, (to be uplifted, given hope and joy), it’s done through bravery. You’re so involved in your own world,” the pianist said, talking about the act of playing what someone has composed, “You’re so involved in your own world, but you have to persuade other people to come into it.” <sup>4</sup></span></p><p style="margin: 0px; line-height: normal;"><span style='margin: 0px; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;'><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>This is what God says to us, now, and again and again. “I want you to experience the joy and glory of creation with Me. I don’t want you to leave. I simply want you to be able to rise above all the crises. That’s why I am here. That’s why I’m trying to persuade you to come into this way of understanding My Love.”</span></p><p style="margin: 0px; line-height: normal;"><span style='margin: 0px; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;'><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>God was <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight:normal"><u>SO</u></b> brave to come among us. Think of the worries about rejection, about misunderstanding, about the way we might misappropriate God’s Presence. God must know about all of that, yet God came anyway. <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight:normal"><u>THAT’S</u></b> bravery! <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight:normal"><u>THAT’S</u></b> Love. God has to overcome all the difficult aspects in our lives so that we may experience true joy, true love, true peace.</span></p><p style="margin: 0px; line-height: normal;"><span style='margin: 0px; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;'><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>And this involves bravery on our part too. No matter what others may think; no matter what others may say; no matter what others may do; God in Jesus, walking in our midst, even as a baby calls us to follow. If others don’t accept the gift that God offers, then perhaps it’s our vocation to model how God acted at that shelter. It doesn’t matter who we are, or how inadequate and harassed we may feel, we’re to accept and to share the understanding and compassion of God so that we and others can rise above that temptation to despair. God in Jesus says to us right now, “You are <u>N<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight:normal">OT</b></u> alone. You’ll <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight:normal"><u>NEVER</u></b> be alone.”</span></p><p style="margin: 0px; line-height: normal;"><span style='margin: 0px; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;'><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span></span></p></div></div></body></html>