Christmas Eve is the day before the world changes, the last day before the miracle comes.  Because Jesus was born two thousand years ago, we celebrate Christmas Eve knowing the change that came the following morning.  But for our own time, we cannot know what tomorrow may bring.  Tonight we worship in hope and waiting.

            It’s very close now.

            In just a few hours it will be here.

            It’s already arrived in Sydney and Kiev, Paris and London.

            If you’re following the Santa tracker app, he’s in Iceland now, or Bermuda, or Brazil.  Still a few time zones away from New York… Chicago… Denver.

            After weeks of anticipation (or longer, if you’re particularly eager).  After days of preparation.  The decorating, the buying, the traveling, the cooking, the sending and receiving.  Rehearsing for the concert and the pageant.  Planning the menu.  Wrapping the gifts.  The worrying.  The beauty.  The dread.  The hope.  The traffic.

            Now the day has come, nearly.

            The final night, before.

            Stillness reigns.  Peace spreads.  Quiet at last.  Silent night.

            Ready?  Are you ready?

            But not yet…

            Because tonight is still the evening before.  It’s Christmas Eve.

            Christmas begins long before Christmas Day, doesn’t it?

            Like an old friend we’re meeting at the train station, we see Christmas in the distance, small and looking the other way.  Unmistakable in his green sweater and faux-fur hat.

            That’s him.

            And then he turns to see us, and returns our exuberant wave.

            And quickly now, and with increasing urgency, we run to Christmas, and Christmas rushes to us.  The month.  The weeks.  The days.  So close.  The hours.

            And that final moment of separation, tonight, nearly unbearable in the hope and the waiting, before the longed-for embrace, tomorrow.

            In the Christmas story of the gospels, the story also begins long before the birth.  There are months of necessary work to set the stage.

            Luke begins with John the Baptist, Elizabeth, Mary’s older cousin, and her husband Zechariah.  Next there’s the Annunciation when the angel appears to Mary and tells her that she has been chosen.  She sings the song of gratitude and wonder called the Magnificat.  Then there’s Caesar Augustus and the census.  The long journey from Nazareth to Bethlehem.  Mary’s long pregnancy.

            Matthew’s gospel begins with a genealogy that traces Jesus’ family fourteen generations back to the Babylonian captivity, fourteen generations further back to King David, and fourteen generations before David all the way back to Abraham.

            That’s a lot of build-up to the birth of a single child. A lot of hope and waiting, before the Messiah comes.

            Tomorrow.

            This night, on the eve, we are in that section of the Christmas story that happens before the story really begins.

            Without tomorrow, there would be no tonight.  We mark tonight because of tomorrow.  But we know what will happen tomorrow only because what we celebrate tomorrow already happened two thousand years ago.  On Christmas Eve, we re-live that story of hope and waiting, consummated in the events of Christmas Day.

            But two thousand years ago, tonight, no one knew what would happen tomorrow.  To re-live their story, we need to place ourselves again in that position of not knowing.

            No one knew, then, what tomorrow would bring.

            Mary is due.  That much is clear.  But would the baby come tonight, tomorrow, three days from now?  No one knew.

            For the shepherds it’s just another night in the fields.  The sheep are quiet.  The night is cold.  It’s just past the longest night of the year.  They huddle for warmth around a fire.  They have no idea that the sky is about to be torn open by angels.

            The Magi are comfortable in their foreign lands.  The sky displays no special star.  Not yet.

            The powerful in Jerusalem, and Rome recline on their couches with no premonition of the revolution about to come.

            The people in their towns and villages put the dinner things away.  The children in their beds.  A mental checklist of the business to attend to, tomorrow.

            No knowledge.  No inkling of what’s about to happen.

            Lives will change.  Society will change.  Suffering persons will be healed.  A new chapter in human history is about to open.  The old order will be reversed.  Religion will change.  The world will change.

            Tomorrow.

            All that’s for tomorrow.

            The lesson for Christmas Day is the change that came.

            The lesson for Christmas Eve is not the change.  Not the arrival.  Not the miracle.  But the lesson that any night might be the night before the miracle occurs.

            The eve.

            Even tonight might be the last night before the great turning arrives.

            Much in our world feels cold and dark.  We huddle around our camp fires.  Troubles everywhere.  Suffering persons in need of healing.  Some recline in fabulous wealth while too many go without.  Corruption in our leaders.  Weakness in our institutions.  The old teachings of love for neighbor, and welcome for the stranger, and care for the vulnerable lie forgotten or ignored.  War and anger all around.  Mistrust and fear everywhere.  Meanness in our hearts and enmity in our world.

Society needs refreshing, if not reversing.  We need a new story.  We need a new birth.

And change seems far away, tonight, or impossible.  We hope, but without conviction.  Disappointed so many times, our faith fails.  We assume that tomorrow will be more of the same.  Our sad old story will continue, maybe only with a new headline announcing yet another depressing shock.

We know that nothing will change.  Or we think we know.  We don’t believe in miracles, so we don’t expect one.

“This is no time for a child to be born,
With the earth betrayed by war & hate
And a comet slashing the sky to warn
That time runs out & the sun burns late.”

            No surely this is not the time.  Not now, in this messy, anxious, ugly world

“That was no time for a child to be born,
In a land in the crushing grip of Rome;”

(“The Risk of Birth” by Madeleine L’Engle)

            Not when the world is crushed, by plague, by war, by violence, when houses are divided against themselves, when greed motivates hearts, when ignorance rules.  When charity is gone, and mercy short, and honesty deemed naïve.

And yet, “When is the time for love to be born?”

            When is the proper time to light the light?  When the light already abounds, or when the world is dark?

            The lesson of Christmas Eve, is that the birth could happen at any time.  When you least expect it.  At its most unlikely.  But when it’s most needed.

            Now.  Tomorrow.  Three days from now.  Before this service finishes.  On your drive home.  When you’ve finished opening your presents.  Or maybe in a week, or a month.  Or maybe next Christmas.

            The text notification will arrive.  The good news will be announced.  The herald angels will sing.  The old lessons of love and peace and justice will be remembered.  We’ll turn again to our neighbors with love not fear.

            It might happen.  Even tomorrow.  We will go to bed in one world and wake up in another.  We won’t see that an old chapter  of human history has closed, until the new has begun.

            Even now, maybe, there are shepherds on a hill somewhere receiving the first teasing taste of the heaven about to explode all around us.  A dark star in the sky is about to be lit ablaze.

            It could happen.  Even to us.  Even tomorrow.

            In a bleak midwinter.  O come, O come, Emmanuel.  What happened long ago in royal David’s city, could happen tomorrow, in a city of Angels, like ours.

            In a stable.  In a manger. A holy night.

            A steady light flickering to life from darkness.

A birth.