Wednesday, December 24, 2025: Christmas Eve: Even this late it happens: the coming of love, the coming of light. 

Even this late it happens:

the coming of love, the coming of light. 

You wake and the candles are lit as if by themselves, 

stars gather, dreams pour into your pillows, 

sending up warm bouquets of air.

Even this late the bones of the body shine 

and tomorrow’s dust flares into breath.

- By Poet Mark Strand 1934 - 2014

Christmas Eve 2025:  Light in the World, Light in Us

 Do you remember how the whole biblical story begins? “In the…” And do you remember the first creation that is spoken into being? “Let there be light… and it was good”

On Christmas Eve, we celebrate a new beginning. We welcome the dawning of a new light.

A new day begins with sunrise. A new year begins with lengthening days. A new life begins with infant eyes taking in their first view of a world bathed in light. And a new era in human history began when our light came shining into our world through Jesus.

The Fourth Gospel tells us that what came into being through Jesus was a simple command – the only one he ever gave “Love one another as I have loved you.” He didn’t come to found a religion with a hierarchy, massive churches and guilt.  The real point of it all, according to John, was life, vitality, aliveness—and now that Jesus has come, that radiant aliveness is here to enlighten all people everywhere. 

We welcome the light and bathe in joy and service to others. We receive light as a gift, and in that receiving, we welcome holy, radiant aliveness and let it stream into our lives. When we allow the light to enter us we can become portals of light in our world….

Think of birthday candles: Once the candle is lit, we use it to share light from one candle to another. When we share our light, we have more of it – more fire, more light, more singing, more dancing.

What do we mean when we say Jesus is the light? Just as a glow on the eastern horizon tells us that a long night is almost over, Jesus’ birth signals the beginning of the end for the dark night of fear, hostility, violence, and greed that descended on his world in the form of Roman Imperial power --  and has descended on our world in many forms. 

Jesus’ birth signals the start of a new day, a new way, a new understanding of what it means to be alive.

Aliveness, he will teach, is a gift available to all of us – every race and nation, every woman and man and child. It flows not from taking, but giving, not from fear but from faith, not from conflict but from reconciliation, not from domination but from service. 

It isn’t found in the outward trappings of religion—rules and rituals, controversies and scruples, temples and traditions. No, it springs up from our innermost being like a fountain of living water. It intoxicates us like the best wine ever and so turns life from a disappointment into a banquet. This new light of aliveness and love opens us up to rethink everything—to go back and become like little children again. Then we can rediscover the world with a fresh, childlike wonder—seeing the world in a new light.

May this be the day

We come together.

Mourning, we come to mend,

Withered, we come to weather,

Torn, we come to tend,

Battered, we come to better.

Tethered by this year of yearning,

We are learning

That though we weren’t ready for this,

We have been readied by it.

Steadily we vow that no matter

How we are weighed down,

We must always pave a way forward.

This hope is our door, our portal.

Even if we never get back to normal,

Someday we can venture beyond it,

To leave the known and take the first steps.

So let us not return to what was normal,

But reach toward what is next.

What was cursed, we will cure.

What was plagued, we will prove pure.

Where we tend to argue, we will try to agree,

Those fortunes we forswore, now the future we foresee,

Where we weren’t aware, we’re now awake;

Those moments we missed

Are now these moments we make,

The moments we meet,

And our hearts, once all together beaten,

Now all together beat.

Come, look up with kindness yet,

For even solace can be sourced from sorrow.

We remember, not just for the sake of yesterday,

But to take on tomorrow.

We heed this old spirit,

In a new day’s lyric,

In our hearts, we hear it:

For auld lang syne, my dear,

For auld lang syne.

Be bold, sang Time this year,

Be bold, sang Time,

For when you honor yesterday,

Tomorrow ye will find.

Know what we’ve fought

Need not be forgot nor for none.

It defines us, binds us as one,

- amanda gorman