As I imagined us all gathered here, again this year, in this beautiful sanctuary on Christmas Eve, a song came into my mind, and it was not a carol, but the old Shaker hymn, "The Gift to Be Simple." Do you know it? "'Tis a gift to be simple. 'Tis a gift to be free. 'Tis a gift to come down where you ought to be. And when you find yourselves in the place just right, 'twill be in the valley of love and delight."

Tonight, dear friends, we find ourselves, once again, in that "place just right." We have twisted and turned through the weeks of preparation to get here: busy at work, frenzied at home, beleaguered in traffic, mobbed at the mall. We have turned and turned and turned and now come down in the just-right place of this Holy Night, where all is calm and all is bright and we find rest for our weary souls.

It's the lights and the music that draw us back to this place, the faces, the love, and the story. For we know that out of all the trials and tribulations of the year now passing, we will hear tonight the story ancient and true of the birth of our Savior. Mary and Joseph are here. The shepherds and the angels. And, of course, the baby Jesus. All in their places, the place just right.

Some may be hearing the story tonight for the first time. Others may know it by heart. Telling it again is like reading a child's favorite book aloud at bedtime. You've probably had the experience as parents, grandparents, baby-sitters, aunts, and uncles. It's the book you've read hundreds of times, thousands of times it seems, but the child clamors to hear it again. And you, the reader, must not change one word. You know what I mean? You're tired yourself. It looks like the little one is finally drifting into sleep. So you try and skip a paragraph or turn two pages instead of one. And instantly the child is wide awake demanding that you read it just as it is written.

Children are like that, and so is the child within each of us. In that dependable repetition, we find comfort and security. We find reassurance that all is well with the world, and peace. And so we come to hear the Christmas story again, just as we know it will be. The Christ is born this night, and sleeps now quietly in the manger. The deep, warm breath of the ox and ass keep him warm. His mother sings a gentle lullaby. Joseph rests in awe and delight. And in the sky, the angels sing of joy and peace.

But Christmas is not just for children, nor even just for the child within us all. I'm reminded of the little girl taken by her parents to see the community manger scene each year. Having seen it several times now, the girl looks again at the baby Jesus in the manger and says to her dad, "But isn't he ever going to grow up?"

Well, he does and we do, too! We come to Christmas night as adults now, with adult questions and adult needs. We come with adult faith and complicated feelings. We've waited through long nights with those whose hearts are broken, with those whose spirits are empty. We've seen and experienced many things, some very hard. Some people have become jaded, hurt, and cynical. We've seen what comes after. We've lived far beyond "the war to end all wars," yet still another looms. And so, we come this night, longing to hear the story as we have heard it before, but now with a deeper trust, and a more expansive love.

Dear friends, our worship this night is, indeed, the just-right place for grown-ups, too. John Wesley, the founder of Methodism, wrote of this more mature longing for faith: "When I was young, I was sure of everything; in a few years, having been mistaken, a thousand times, I was not half so sure of most things as I was before; at present, I am hardly sure of anything but what God has revealed to me." And what God reveals to us tonight is a love so great, so deep as to be the Messiah, our Savior, the Savior of the world. And the truth that is found in Jesus the baby and Jesus the man, Jesus of Nazareth, Jesus the Christ, is the truth that give us hope, heals our hearts and sets us free.

Evidently, the popular media is showing a lot of interest this year in the adult Jesus. It's fascinating. The cover of Wired magazine this month features a man on the cross and explores the relationship between faith and science. The December issue of Popular Mechanics, would you believe, uses forensic science to determine what they call "the real face of Jesus."

In this Christmas season 2002, people seem hungry for Jesus to be real. Commenting on this, religious author Phyllis Tickle wrote: "I suspect that the manger is not going to get as much emphasis this year as the adult man or the message he came to give . . . people are trying to get at him-at the heart of Christianity. . . . I think it's a struggle toward authenticity. We are in pursuit of our faith right now."

And that's why this sanctuary is the just-right place for grown-up Christians on this Holy Night. It's the place for all who are struggling toward authenticity. It's the place for everyone pursuing faith in a time that would practically just squeeze it right out of you. Though we would rather not admit it, there is fear in our hearts where faith should reside. Whom do we trust? Where do we find hope? Dare we preach peace?

Ah. Listen again to the ancient story, told just for us this night. Hear the promise of the evangelist, John, carrying forward the promise of the ancient prophet, Isaiah, who proclaimed: "The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light; those who lived in a land of deep darkness-on them a light has shined."

Isaiah was God's prophet, God's spokesperson, in a time much like ours. It was a time of war and rumors of war. As one writer puts it: "a time of whetted swords and rusted plowshares. Of immense violence and social conflict . . . of sickening greed and unconscionable neglect of the poor." It was a time when people could see no end to the cycle of hatred and revenge. A time when they could no longer even imagine anything different, a new world. To that people in that time, the prophet Isaiah proclaimed: "The zeal of the Lord of hosts will do this. For unto us a child is born. Unto us a son is given. And his name will be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Prince of Peace. His authority shall grow continually and there shall be endless peace. The zeal of the Lord of hosts will do this."

Now that's a Christmas story for grown-ups, people like all of us, who come this night needing to hear a word strong enough to speak to our fear. Pointed enough to shake us out of resignation. Compassionate enough to embrace all our needs. Deep enough to ground our hope and reawaken our love.

Arguably the most famous Christmas story written for grown-ups is Charles Dickens' A Christmas Carol. In fact, it's said that that very story made popular in England many of the Christmas customs we now assume to be traditional: the tree, the singing of carols, and even the expression, "Merry Christmas," first uttered by old Ebenezer Scrooge himself.

But did you know that Dickens wrote a Christmas story each year for nearly twenty years? A Christmas Carol, written in 1843, was only the first in this long series. And they all grew out of Dickens' passion to speak to the social ills of his time. From his own experience of his father's incarceration in debtor's prison, and working himself as a boy in a rat-infested shoe-dye factory, all of Dickens' stories address social issues such as prisons, workhouses for the poor, greed, poverty. Who can forget the two little children under the robes of the Spirit of Christmas Present-Ignorance and Want?

Dickens' Christmas stories were written for people of mature faith, stories written to transform his readers through the power of imagination, to open hearts and minds and spirits to the power of what Christmas makes possible. He believed strongly in the love of family and in the importance of support and encouragement given one another-family, co-workers, neighbors, friends. And he saw clearly how that same love and compassion could flow from the human heart and be spread to the whole of the human family, that none would live in fear or want. For Christmas is, Dickens wrote, "a good time: a kind, forgiving, charitable, pleasant time; the only time I know of in the long calendar of the year, when men and women seem by one consent to open their shut-up hearts freely, and to think of the people below them as if they really were fellow-passengers to the grave, and not another race of creatures bound on other journeys."

Dear sisters and brothers, in this just-right place of Christmas night, may the old, old story become for you the new, new song. This is God's eternal true story for young and old, and everyone somewhere in between, for everyone longing for authentic faith, love and hope. Find it here. Find it this night. And cling to its power as the New Year dawns.

"Hail the heaven-born Prince of Peace! Hail the Sun of Righteousness! Light and life to all he brings, risen with healing in his wings. Hark! the herald angels sing: Glory to the newborn King!"

Let us be in silent prayer together now, as we claim the ancient story for our lives this holy night.

NOTES:

1. "This Christmas season, Jesus is a grown-up" by Kim Campbell. The Christian Science Monitor. December12, 2002.
2. Keeping the Faith in Babylon. Fernstone. Ontario, Canada. December 2002.
3. "A City in Celebration" by Leo J. O'Donovan. The Wall Street Journal. December 20, 2002.
4. Charles Dickens. A Christmas Carol.

© Patricia E. Farris, 2002. Permission is given for brief quotation with attribution. All other rights reserved.