Sermons

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Christmas Eve
December 24, 2000
Christmas Eve 11 pm Communion Meditation
Pastor Dan Baumgartner

John 1:1-5, 10-14

I love this night. Sometimes on Christmas Eve night I like to walk outside and look at the stars up in the sky. I marvel that God up there came down here, became flesh and bones. I marvel that the very Word of God would come into the mud and muck that can be the earth.

Sometimes on Christmas Eve night I walk outside and try to remember those times I have felt closest to God, and duplicate them: Do the same things, think the same thoughts, say the same words I did at some other time, a time when I felt God tangibly right beside me. But of course…it never works. It doesn’t work that way. God is not under my control, and is not summoned by some magic formula.

The Christmas story reminds us that the most wonderful arrival ever came to a people who were unprepared, undeserving and unexpecting. At God’s choosing, at God’s initiative, for God’s purposes…when the time was just right…The Word became flesh and lived for awhile among us. Jesus Christ came into the world and showed us what God is like. There’s a story that talks about this:

There was once a little 4-year-old girl named Sachi. Soon after her brother was born, little Sachi began to ask her parents to leave her alone with the new baby. This worried her parents a little. They wondered if, like some 4-year-olds, she might be jealous and want to hit the baby or shake him…so they told her “no.” But Sachi showed no signs at all of jealousy. She treated the baby very gently…but continued to ask with increasing urgency to be left alone with him Finally her parents said, “yes.”

Sachi tiptoed into the baby’s room and shut the door, but it opened a crack…just enough for her very curious parents to peek in and listen. They saw little Sachi walk quietly up to her baby brother, put her face close to his, and say quietly,

“Baby, tell me what God feels like. I’m starting to forget.”

Tonight we get to come to the table of the Lord Jesus Christ. We experience again in this supper the presence of the living Christ. I don’t know where you are on this night. Perhaps your heart is full…perhaps you are lonely and empty. Perhaps you have started to forget what God feels like. Tonight I just want to tell you that God’s love for you is deeper than you could ever guess. And I invite you to come and experience God’s healing…and forgiveness…and love...in Jesus Christ.