Here is an offering for our early evening Christmas Eve Service which
consists mostly of a Children's Choir pageant...

Christmas Eve Meditation for 5 PM, December 24, 1999
Prescott United Methodist Church

Can you imagine how it might have happened?

A shepherd rests from a long day's work. He sits leaning against a tree at
the top of a hill. As he rests, his mind wanders. Below him are the other
shepherds, huddled about their fires. The sheep doze contentedly on the
hillside. The stars are shining brightly: a strange new one high in the sky
makes the lights of nearby Bethlehem seem dim in comparison. Eventually, his
eyes come to rest on his staff, laying on the ground, close at hand. The
shepherd's staff. Just a big stick, really, but his most useful tool. With
the staff, the shepherd is able to guide the flock. Using the crook, he can
herd several animals at once. More importantly, he can use the hard staff
to ward off the jackals that periodically came down out of the hills to raid
his flock. And sometimes, when times were bad, he had to use his staff to
fend off a more deadly predator -- thieves who would steal the young lambs
from their mothers. The staff was his weapon and his tool for guiding the
flock, but it also had a third use. For when the shepherd grew weary, the
staff held him up and helped him to walk. As he thought about his staff,
the shepherd mused to himself; "I wouldn't trade my staff for anything!"
Such were his thoughts as he rested that night.

His thoughts were interrupted by the shouts of his companions below. He
turned to see what the shouting was about, and he saw in the sky, that still
and cold sky, the most glorious sight ever beheld by human eyes.
Resplendent in their beauty, hovering high above the flocks, were creatures
that could only have come from heaven itself. Even mighty Caesar in Rome
would have trembled at the sight of them. But the poor shepherd was too
amazed even to be frightened, for his eyes were fixed on the wings of one of
the angels. Golden wings, woven into intricate lace patterns. With those
wings the angel hovered above the hill upon which the shepherd sat paralyzed
with wonder. Words were spoken by the angel, but the shepherd didn't hear
or understand them; for he was transfixed by those beautiful wings. Those
incredible, impossible wings which in his mind marked the difference between
all that was earthly and all that was divine. WINGS! How gladly he would
trade his lowly staff for those unbelievable wings!

And then, as suddenly as they had appeared, they were gone, and the
shepherds at the bottom of the hill were pinching themselves to see if these
things had really happened. And the shepherd at the top of the hill, looked
down at his staff and tears flowed over his cheeks. For in a world that
needed hard and brutal things like the shepherd's staff, he had glimpsed
angel's wings. He knew he could never be the same again. Into his world,
where men and women toiled hard to survive, where wild animals and the
forces of nature were constant enemies, where man fought man over the
other's possessions, into this world had come the flurry of angel wings.
Somehow the shepherd knew that not only he, but the entire world, would
never, could never, be the same again. A balance of opposites; angel's
wings and shepherd's staff, heaven and earth, God and man. Incarnation. A
balance of opposites.

Nearly 2000 years have come and gone since that night, so shrouded in
mystery and legend. Nearly 2000 years since the angel uttered those strange
and contrary words, "Peace on Earth, Goodwill to Men." And all that time,
the baby of Christmas, the Christ of God, has been busy silently balancing
opposites -- heaven and earth, transcendent and immanent, God and man.
Reconciling things held in tension. Bringing justice where injustice
reigns, shedding light in the darkness of our lives, making dreams into
realities, building peace on earth.

No, we aren't’t quite there yet. There are still many places where we must
rely on the shepherd’s staff, and few places where we see the angel’s wings.
There is still sadness and grief, warfare and strife, disease and death.
But God is here, in the midst of those things of earth, showing us a glimpse
of the heaven that awaits us. This baby of Bethlehem is the bridge between
earth and heaven, the one through whom we lay down the staff and take up the
wings. We follow him, we seek to live as he lived, to love as he loved, to
serve as he served. When we take this Christ into our hearts, when his way
becomes our way, when God’s truth touches us through him and is shared with
the world through us, then God is made real right here, right now.
Incarnation happens again.

It is a strange story we tell, this story of God made real in Jesus. It is
stranger still to claim that God is made real through us as Christ becomes a
part of who we are. One poet has tried to summarize the story, and done
fairly well. His words are best known by the title of his work, One
Solitary Life.

On Christmas Day we commemorate the birth of a baby in an obscure village,
the child of a peasant woman. He grew up in another village. He worked in
a carpenter shop until he was thirty, and then for three years he was an
itinerant preacher. He never wrote a book. He never held an office. He
never owned a home. He never had a family. He never went to college. He
never put his foot inside a big city. He never traveled 200 miles from the
place where he was born. He never did any of the things that usually
accompany greatness. He has no credentials but himself.

While he was still a young man, the tide of public opinion turned against
him. His friends ran away. He was turned over to his enemies. He went
through the mockery of a trial. He was nailed to a cross between two
thieves. While he was dying, his executioners gambled for the only piece of
property he had on earth, and that was his coat. When he was dead, he was
laid in a borrowed grave through the pity of a friend.

Nineteen centuries wide have come and gone, and today he is the central
figure of the human race and the leader of the column of progress. I am far
within the mark when I say that all the armies that ever marched, and all
the navies that ever sailed, and all the parliaments that ever sat, and all
the kings that ever reigned, put together, have not affected the life of man
upon this earth as has that one solitary life.

But that one solitary life is not really solitary…not if we allow the Christ
born on this night so long ago to be reborn in our lives. God was made real
long, long ago. But God is still made real today, in my life, in your life,
in the lives of these children who told us the story so well this evening.

I would like you to join me, in a simple prayer. And the prayer is this…
"May the Christ be born in you today." Will you look around the room now at
your family, at your friends and neighbors? And say this simple Christmas
Eve prayer, "May the Christ be born in you today!" Amen.


Peter K. Perry
Prescott United Methodist Church
Prescott, Arizona USA
mailto:pkperry@cableone.net
http://www.prescottumc.com