Christmas Eve is a time for candles… It is the proper time for wishing upon a star… It is a time of wondering how it is that life and the promise of renewal comes to us out of the sacred darkness.
Christmas Eve is a time for recounting our blessings… And even if we enter this time feeling broken-hearted in some way, it is a time to reaffirm the blessings and support you have received, and to seek out more light, more truth, more gratitude, and more hope for the days and years ahead… Let us light our candles, let us wish upon stars, let us glow with gratitude and let it shine with love…

The Sacred Darkness
In the sacred darkness of the virgin’s womb, a holy child grows and comes forth… In the darkness of the world’s pain, the blessed light can be kindled. In the darkness of our own doubting, a great sense of hope begins to rise like a glowing heart, that the holy child will again be born in our midst, be born in each and every one of us, and that the Prince of Peace will come to a world where war, greed, and despair are found.

The birth of this new light will be our companion in a world that attests to our shared struggles, and to our common hope that when believed, will ransom us, and the social darkness of our times will relent. May the spirit that lived in Jesus be born in us tonight, so that our fears abate, and the yearnings of our world can be met and satisfied through recalling of the ancient story.

Tonight when we light our candles, and when we look to the stars, may it remind us of the light we each carry, and the light that gives us a path to follow, and in its glow, a new year, a new way to express our light and love for one another…

The Candle And The Star

Across the landscape of the holidays, and within the many variations of the holiday season and its celebration, two of the most universal themes and symbols are candles and stars.Often represented as signs of God’s presence, and the light of spiritual illumination, hope, and grace, candles and stars give a certain quality of light to our darkest days, and to our most meaningful gatherings.

In our larger Pagan-Judeo-Christian-Islamic Western world, the candle and the star represent the microcosm and the macrocosm of our lives. And we pay attention to the symbolic understanding of candles as the smallest visible unit of warmth and energy, that can be easily shared and experienced. In a larger way, we look in reverie and wonder up to the stars as being the most cosmic and expansive symbols of the light that pervades and penetrates the vast darkness of space. In this way, stars are said to symbolize the omnipresence of God; of grace, good, and guidance.

The act of lighting a candle, a chalice, or a lamp often signals the beginning of a time for reverence and personal reflection; and the star, the star reminds us of the universal light we all share. There are many ways to interpret candles and stars: Candles can represent the spark of the divine, or our best human nature, and can serve to remind us of our inner core of truths; insights that light the way to meaning for our lives…

Stars remind us of the times when we walk out in nature, that we are never lonely, the stars act as light for our path, as our shining companions that bring us to reflect on our lives and to be glad! Glad, that we too, can answer as Einstein did, that the most important question: Is the universe a friendly place? The stars proclaim that it is…

Readings And Reflections

1) Angels We Can Hear
One of the most charming and enduring images of Christmas is that of angels… most agree that they add to the “magic” of the season. When the Unitarian minister, Edward Hamilton Sears first wrote “It came Upon A Midnight Clear,” just what do you suppose he felt when he penned those words, To hear the angels sing!”

We receive one of the best definitions of angels from the father of Universalism, Origen of Alexandria, some 1600 years ago. He stated that angels were “those servants and messengers of God’s grace, given to all humanity, for the purpose of our salvation.”

In more inclusive religious terms, we can restate this definition by saying that angels are those inspired thoughts, feelings, and experiences that draw us closer to love; that assist us in transforming the ordinary into the sacred. Angels are those thoughts, feelings, and experiences that create greater opportunities for inspiration, wisdom, awareness, and inner peace.

The angels of the Christmas story point us towards revelation and fulfillment. Their message to us recognizes the creative and spiritual potential in every child, in each one of us. Now it is true that the glorious message they delivered that night was met with wonder, awe, surprise and fear… Quite understandably!

Yet, every time we read or listen to this timeless story, on this holy night, we can lay aside those fears, and allow ourselves to become enchanted by the fact that this story, and the angels message is for each of us, each day, and every night…

The angels we have heard on high remind us perpetually that the gifts of life and love, of potential and possibilities are freely given to us all, and when taken into our hearts, will serve as agents of inspiration, and servants of truth, hope, and promise in us all. PEL
A Special Starlight

The Unitarian poet and biographer, Carl Sandburg, gave us this
Reflection on the meaning of starlight, on this night….

The Creator of night and of birth was also the Maker of the stars.
Shall we look now at the stars in winter, and call them sweeter friends, because of the story of a mother and a child is never told with the stars being left out?

It is a Holy Night now descending, when a child issues out of the darkness, and emerges into the unknown, into starlight?

Down the winter evening sky, when a woman hovers between two great doorways, between entry and exit, between pain and laughter, joy and weeping, do those silver white lines that form on face and heart, come from those holy stars? …

Shall all the wanderers over all the earth, all the homeless ones, all against whom, the doors are shut and words are spoken-Shall these people find the earth less strange tonight? Shall they hear the news, a whisper on the night wind? ” A child is born…. The meek shall inherit the earth” … .

Shall this quiet dome of stars high over, make signs, and offer a friendly language among the nations? Shall nations gather with no clenched fists at all, and look into one another’s faces , and see eye to eye, and find ever new testaments of [humanity] as sojourners who toil toward new understanding?

Shall there be more believers, and more believers of sunset and moonrise, of noon set and dawn, of wheeling galaxies of stars, wheels within wheels of revelation?

Shall people’s tumult, grandeur, fanfare, panoply, prepared loud noises now stand equal to the quiet heart, gentle thoughts, and vast dreams of humankind’s ability to conquer the earth by first conquering themselves?

Is there time, time for ancient genius to be set in comparison with modern generations? Is there time for stripping the adult wrappings of life, down to simple, profound, childlike questions?

On a Holy Night, we may say: The Creator of the night and of birth, is also the Maker of the stars.

A Christmas Eve Prayer of Light and Hope

Dear God, as the source of all good, be with us this night…

Give us the grace and will to extend our light to others so that we might offer to bring light, life, and love into the darkest corners of our lives. May the enlightening spirit that came alive in Jesus be reborn in us tonight.

As the source of all good, all grace, all giving that is from the heart, we affirm the gift of a life worth living, a light worth shining, and a love worth sharing.

While it is true that we have been given the ability to live independent lives, we have gathered here together, on this holy night to remember, to worship, to pray, and to rekindle the hope that is Christmas.

May our ability to share in life’s blessings reach out to all who are hungry and need of our care, and may we, as the gathered church, be filled with compassionate strength and for the desire for peace to rule in our hearts from this night forward.

May this night be, for us, a night of light, hope, and love that guides our path, and direct our ways, so that the presence of God, good, will become ever more real, long-lasting, and abidingly true. AMEN

Benediction:
Christmas is the illumined season of the spirit, where no darkness of sense can fail to inspire us;
Christmas is a habit of the heart, when love with all its difficulties transcends, and in that spirit, all challenges can be transformed into the many blessings that can make the whole earth glad…

AMEN; SO BE IT; Blessed BE

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