Ponder, Rejoice

Have you had a good Advent? I have to say I did, although it also has been a challenging time in my life, somehow I suppose mirroring the world at large. Still, I have learned much this Advent, including how grateful I am for this venue and the revelations it brings to me.

Can we measure Advent? No, of course not. Not really. All we can do is ponder—ponder introspection, ponder revelation, ponder theophany, pondor comfort, pondor joy.

Was it introspective? Did you receive revelation?

Not long to wait now. Christmas will be here in a few hours; perhaps, given God’s space-time continuum Christmas already is with you. Expectation fulfilled once more, joy received in sweet harmony, blessings manifested eternally … in love.

We who are the LGBTQ+ people of creation are called to be hosts of love. We are called to be people of love. When love manifests in our hearts the dimension in which we reside expands with joy. When we learn to walk in love there is no longer any limit for those of us who are connected. And in this way, we perceive the joyous revelation that God is always with us because God is always within us.

Love dwells within, in the soul, it bursts forth from the heart, it finds realization in the Spirit. All we need do is remember to feel the love in our hearts.

The transformative power of love is ours.

All we need do is be present, to ponder all these things in our hearts, to let it be with us according to God’s word.

Our world is indeed a mysterious place. War rages, unrest is all around us like a raging sea.

And yet the truth rises to the surface and love always wins. What greater Christmas present could there be for the LGBTQ+ community than the announcement that the Roman church will join much of the rest of catholic Christianity in welcoming and celebrating and, indeed, blessing, our love.

It is a challenge, a Christmas challenge, a loving joyous challenge, to let our love shine like the star in the night leading creation to the fulfillment of the synchrony of love.

Merry Christmas.

4 Advent Year A 2023 RCL (2 Samuel 7:1-11, 16; Canticle 15 The Song of Mary Magnificat; Romans 16:25-27; Luke 1:26-38)

©2023 The Rev. Dr. Richard P. Smiraglia. All rights reserved.

Palpable Real Joy

Beauty is everywhere in God’s creation. Beauty is the physical manifestation of the love that is God, that is the breath of God, that is the power and glory of God. Beauty is the love that made us and is within us and that propels us into loving synchrony with each other and with all of creation. Beauty is the power of love spinning the wheels and meshing the gears that move all of us constantly forward toward God’s dimension of love.

And Christmas is the annual celebration of this beauty, the ritual feast when we not only prepare for beauty but we express beauty in every way we can, from weird sweaters to fruit cakes to special cookies to the love expressed in every gift.

Thus, the message of Christmas is that God is inviting us to palpable real joy, the kind that comes with the reality of babies and immigrant journeys and meals and wonder and the joy of feeling warm and feeling loved. God is inviting us to feel loved.

God is inviting us to invite each other to feel loved. God is inviting us to love, to give love, to “build up the highway, clear it of stones” to make the way of love the way of joy and gladness.

God is inviting us to rejoice that we, too, are loved. God is inviting us to listen to the earth give thanks to God, God is inviting us to rejoice in the snow and the ice and the bitter cold and the relief that comes after in the gentle rain and the cool crisp air and in the beautiful colorful lights in the night.

God is reminding us that we are already, by our creation in God’s own image, heirs of God’s eternity.

Yes, all of us– gay men, trans folks, lesbian women, bisexual and queer and nonbinary and questioning people and all who wish they did not have the curse of being who they are in a society that is often oppressive in its homogeneity—yes, all of us: God is inviting us to rejoice in our creation in God’s own image. God is inviting us to rejoice in the persons we now are and always are becoming. We all, always, are becoming. That is the grace of the life God has given us.

“Do not be afraid.” To fear is to give yourself over to the absence of love with which God created you. When you can set aside fear you too will see the multitude of the heavenly host and you too will sing “Glory to God in the highest heaven and on earth peace.” And then, like the shepherds of yore, you must “go” to “see.” Because life is to be lived on a forward trajectory.

The message of Christmas again, is that God is inviting us to palpable real joy.

Merry Christmas.

Christmas 2 All Years RCL 2022 (Isaiah 62:6-12; Titus 3:4-7; Luke 2:(1-7)8-20; Psalm 97)

©2022 The Rev. Dr. Richard P. Smiraglia. All rights reserved.

Concentric Spheres of Love

Christmas has come. The key is to make it permanent in our hearts. Christmas is not one day a year, but an eternal epiphany in our hearts. Christmas is the manifestation of the love that is always near us, always within us, always in our grasp, always coming anew into our hearts. Christmas is the joy of loving, of giving, of knowing that our love is building up in concentric spheres outward from our hearts.

This is why we pray that the light of Christ’s love “enkindled in our hearts, may shine forth in our lives.” Our response is to rejoice with singing and feasts and gifts, mostly gifts. A jar of homemade preserves, a box of cookies, a warm shirt, a good book. The gifts we give at Christmas are manifestations of loving care. Not just presents, but love given and received—love built up in concentric spheres outward from our hearts.

We celebrate the birth of a child who is God who is incarnate among us, who is love within us. What we have to remember is that each of us was born a manifestation of love and loving. Christmas is about reminding us that “God has sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, crying, ‘Abba! Father!'” (Galations 4:6). We are to retain this childlike love forever, building it in concentric spheres through life. Christmas is the celebration of the manifestation of love in life forever. This is why (John 1:5) “the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it.” Christmas, the coming of love incarnate, not only was, but is, always has been and always will be.

It is snowing in the Willamette Valley today. We will have to hurry out to run an errand before it gets more intense, because, as I keep reminding my husband, we’re not in Wisconsin anymore! Still, it will be a great day for a roaring fire and a big pot of chili. Not only as good eats, but as a loving antidote to our Christmas feast of smoked salmon mouse and roasted goose with fruit stuffing and apple-cranberry pie.

We will wear our new warm shirts, gifts of love and caring. We are warmed not only by the fabric but by the knowledge they were given with love. We will celebrate with our new tv (Santa had to save us when the old one went the day before Christmas!). We will hug and keep warm together because that’s what families do. We will celebrate the joy of our 44^th Christmas together. We will revel in the love that life in the 21^st century has brought to LGBT couples and their logical families.

We are sharing our love with our friends as best we can in pandemic mode. We send you our love. We wish you a joyous Christmastide. We embrace you with the love God has incarnated in us, building ever outward in concentric spheres.

Amen.

First Sunday after Christmas all years RCL 2021 (Isaiah 61:10-62:3; Psalm 147 or 147:13-21; Galatians 3:23-25;4:4-7; John 1:1-18)

©2021 The Rev. Dr. Richard P. Smiraglia. All rights reserved.

Making Room for Love

I now declare it officially Christmas; Advent has ended, the expectation is fulfilled. Go ahead, light up your lights, power up the Christmas tree, knock yourself out with Christmas music.

The solstice is imminent, soon there will be more daylight than dusk in our days, soon love will blossom.

The Jeopardy professor’s tournament is over, Amy Schneider, trans-glorious champion will be back tomorrow.

Love will blossom this week, its power growing day by day until we reach Christmas Eve on Friday night and then Christmas itself on Saturday. We will sing “Joy to the World” and we will feast and we will hug and kiss. We will exchange gifts, because they are symbols of our love. My husband put all the ornaments on our enormous tree himself last weekend, and yesterday eagerly piled wrapped presents under it, his smile ebullient, his joy permeating the whole house. It made me love him even more, if you can imagine such a thing. Love builds up. We are so blessed.

It’s Christmas. Christmas is all about making room for love. God has prepared a mansion of love in which God has called us to dwell. God has prepared the path for love into our hearts and from our hearts into the world, a synergy of love building up joy and peace and righteousness and justice. Our souls proclaim God’s greatness and our spirits rejoice. In God’s love we are blessed, and with God’s love we bless each other.

The pandemic surges again, but this time we are prepared, we know how to take care of ourselves, we will not let even this suppress the love God has called us to live into, to share, to build up.

Go ahead, embrace joy.

4 Advent Year C 2021 RCL (Micah 5:2-5a; Canticle 15 Magnificat Luke 1:46-55; Hebrews 10:5-10; Luke 1:39-45 (46-55))

©2021 The Rev. Dr. Richard P. Smiraglia. All rights reserved.

Light and Love

Christmas is all about hope. In Christian hearts it is all about the intertwined revelation and realization of Emmanuel “God with us.” The idea of God with us is all about hope, trust, faith and relief. At Christmas we are reminded of the revelation of God’s eternal presence with and within us, but we also are reminded of the revelation of the humanity of God in the Christ child. The realization that God has the experience of breath and hurt and hunger and sleep and growth and work and of all of life is the understanding that God always is with us. Even in a pandemic.

On the eve of Christmas we “gather” around our symbolic offerings of gifts and candles and we sing the carols that tell the story of the child born in a manger—divinity born in humility. On Christmas we “gather” around tables laden with the special gifts of sustenance and nourishment. At some time or other we give each other gifts as we act out the ritual of the revelation of goodness and mercy that comes in the loving act of giving. Even in this 21^st century pandemic we have managed to gather online, on the phone, through social media—we have gathered because the essence of Christmas is the shared revelation of the arrival of full-blown love among and within us.

On the First Sunday after Christmas the lectionary leads us to more spiritually metaphorical insights. The scripture points to light in the darkness. We remember in prayer the new light enkindled in our hearts. We listen to Isaiah (62:1) prophesy Jerusalem’s “vindication shines out like the dawn, and her salvation like a burning torch.” The imagery of light covers the panoply of metaphor from the slow emergence of enlightenment to the consuming fire of love. In the opening passage of John’s Gospel (1:1-18) we are treated to the image of “the light of all people” that “shines in the darkness” and yet “the darkness did not overcome it.” We learn that the prophet John the baptizer “came as a witness to testify to the light,” the “true light, which enlightens everyone.”  We are reminded of the eternity of God’s love that both “shines” right now and yet was not ever past present or future overcome by the absence of light. We are reminded in the epistle to the Galatians (4:4) that it is forever now “when the fullness of time had come” that God reminds us that we are children of love.

The metaphor of light as love is powerful precisely because as humans we have daily and constantly the experience of the revelation of light emerging and growing and shining and bringing warmth, indeed as the sunlight in Western Oregon has today brought comfort into the midst of the string of winter rain. We are reminded that this new love that we experience each year at Christmas, like light, is the realization of a promise of eternity in our hearts. In households everywhere as we hang up our new shirts and move the furniture to make way for something new, as we smile and say “thank you” over and over for our new gifts, we demonstrate how much our lives are enhanced by the sudden understanding that it was love in action that acquired that gift that now changes our daily life in simple and yet profound ways. Love enters in and once in, like the light, grows.

The metaphor for Christmas is that the truth, the now, the revelation and the realization is the moment to embrace love. Now the fullness of time has come, now we see that as children of God, created in the image of God, which is love, we must open our hearts to reveal and realize that in this love we have seen a glory full of grace and truth (John 1:14); and that “we have all received, grace upon grace” (1:16).

The light, the grace, these are love.

First Sunday after Christmas all years (Isaiah 61:10-62:3; Psalm 147 or 147:13-21; Galatians 3:23-25;4:4-7; John 1:1-18)

©2020 The Rev. Dr. Richard P. Smiraglia. All rights reserved

Christmas without the trappings*

I spent most of Christmas in a hospital, first in an emergency department and then in a room in the hospital. I won’t go into the details at the risk of making readers crazy, but frankly it isn’t relevant to my point. In writing this I have rediscovered the success of my childhood inculcation into the spirit of Christmas, Santa Claus and herald angels and joy to the world all wrapped up together in my six decades of experience.

This year was the first time in my whole life Christmas Eve didn’t include sleeping in expectation with memories of midnight mass (even midnight mass that was actually at 8pm) to sustain me and the hope of something sublime awaiting me in the morning. It was the first time in my life that Christmas morning held neither cinnamon rolls around the tree nor early mass, Christmas daytime was not about cooking and family and all the rest. Instead a full night of wakefulness was followed by dusk asleep in awkward positions upright in a chair. (At one point I remarked that this was exactly how I feel when I arrive in Europe after twelve hours in transit from the middle of the US—my Facebook friends know these posts as “arrived Amsterdam … ugh ugh.”) Then the day included quiet and many naps and fortunately, even a visit from a rabbi. It was sunny and cold but there was nowhere any evidence of Christmas.

So what is Christmas like without the trappings? My immediate sense is that it made me sit up and remind my emotional intuitive being of what my intellect always has known—that Christmas is about hope and eternity, about faith lived out over time, about a celebration of that which is ongoing in our hearts and souls if only we can live into it. Christmas is about the power of knowing that God is with us and within us and among us, now of course, but always as well.

This is always a tough lesson for Christians in the west because we live in a world that is mostly secularized, where Christmas means shopping and “holiday” parties and ends at sundown on the 24^th, Christmas daytime means driving some place and eating too much like a sort of second class Thanksgiving only with different traditional dishes but probably the same family fights. Awaking on the 26^th is no longer even either Boxing Day or The Feast of St. Stephen but instead some sort of new black Friday with even better sales than in the days running up to Christmas. What happened to hope? Where is faith born of the internalized knowledge of unity with God? It is as though it all has vanished, poof, in the night.

So we have to think carefully about how we can keep Christmas alive. In the church we celebrate it through the feast of the Epiphany on January 6, the famous “twelfth night.” A few years ago I was amused when a new priest colleague set up the nativity scene at the front of the church but placed the wise men and the shepherds at different places around the church, even Mary and Joseph were about half-way back. Each Sunday in Advent the pieces moved forward a bit, and as we moved through Christmas week angels began to appear as Mary and Joseph made their way to the crib. On Christmas Eve the child appeared and the shepherds drew near. And over the next two weeks of Christmas the wise men moved closer and closer as well. It was amazing to experience this sense of Christmas in motion—not static, not just one night, but dynamic and fundamentally about the growth of faith from hope rewarded. This is the meaning of Christmas.

In Galatians 3 and 4 we hear always at Christmastide this passage about “before faith came” when we were captives of “the law.” It is always read as about the past, but I think we should read it instead as being about the present and the eternal. We are not to live solely according to a list of rights and wrongs, as though some ecclesial Santa Claus is keeping a list. Rather we are to live according to our faith in the hope that Jesus makes ever visible as he continually is born and dwells among us (John 1). We are to love God always and to love each other as ourselves, always. It should be second nature, no list required.

“From his fullness we have all received, grace upon grace.” (John 1:16).

We are home now, everything is on the mend, Christmas dinner is cooking and the presents under the tree will become the warm experience of giving and loving in vulnerability. We are filled with the renewed love born of shared experience and the faith born of hope revealed in answers to prayer and the firm knowledge of God’s presence with us and between us and within us.

How is this relevant to lgbt lives? In the most direct way possible, it is my story—our story—lived fully as Christians and fully as gay people. It is the story of our hope rewarded, our faith, our redemption in Christ, for we too are God’s children and heirs. It is the story of love fulfilled in the living, just like every day of every lgbt life.

Merry Christmas.

 

©2015 The Rev. Dr. Richard P. Smiraglia. All rights reserved.

*First Sunday after Christmas (Isaiah 61:10-62:3; Psalm 147 or 147:13-21; Galatians 3:23-25;4:4-7; John 1:1-18)

 

No need to dream, it’s Christmas for sure*

It has been snowing in Wisconsin for a couple of weeks now; the biggest snowfall yet was Sunday (about 8 inches fell then). I love snow. I love the romance of it falling in the night, the flakes like millions of stars floating against the inky night sky. I love the quiet it brings, blanketing everything with sound-absorbing insulation. I love the new sounds of neighbors shoveling, cars slushing past, and icicles melting in the afternoon sun. It is indeed a winter wonderland. Here’s a photo of the street where I live, taken Christmas morning after a new overnight snowfall. But more than that, it is nature’s own Advent, bringing us enforced quiet time, enforced indoor together time, and very very sweet quiet nights for sleeping and regeneration.

It is Christmas now, and once again the world has seen the glory of the Word made flesh who dwells among us. All things came into being through Him. What has come into being in Him is life, life is the light of all people. We see now his glory, glory as of an only son, what more glory could there be than the love of a parent for a newborn child? It is the powerful love born of nature’s own forces, like winter, Christmas is a moment of seeing and knowing and feeling the light, which is life, which is love. Love which is full of grace and truth.

(That bit of theologopoetry is based, of course, on John 1:1-14, which is usually thought to describe the birth of Christ, the anointed Savior, but also describes the creation in full. Apologies to my theology professors!)

Last night for maybe only the second time in twenty years, instead of working, I went to mass with Brad. Memories swirled around. Our first Christmas Eve mass together decades ago took place on the night after a major blizzard, in a high church with liturgy of the sort I knew before I became a priest, replete with incense and chanting and candlelight, and ending with an episcopal blessing. It made me realize that Christmas is always a miracle, because Christmas is the miracle of love come among us, and because Christmas always is. Me sitting at Brad’s left singing the pitch into his ear for the hymns, watching him nod in agreement during the sermon, taking the bread and wine together at the rail, driving home in the snow for some eggnog and turkey soup. We are truly blessed.

Love one another my friends. Christmas is here. For sure.

*Christmas (Isaiah 52:7-10; Psalm 98  Cantate Domino; Hebrews 1:1-4, (5-12); John 1:1-14) ©2011 The Rev. Dr. Richard P. Smiraglia. All rights reserved.

I am so sorry I missed posting on Christmas*

We had a delightful Christmas at CHT. Not only did we have a zillion (ok, 38 or so) kids in our Christmas pageant, but we had hundreds at all of our masses. And finally I have been there long enough to have experienced in a real way the continuity of what other priests have told me about—that is, that we have a Christmas congregation of people who come every year, and thus are regulars—but it is a different group from the group that we see most Sundays.

But the kids … the kids were great!

Now you’ve got to love it, if you are a gay person, to find yourself in an open and affirming parish, one in which many of the clergy are gay even, and yet young families find this such a loving and affirming home that they are growing the population of the children of God even in our midst, especially in our midst.

Another reason I did not post on Christmas was because one gift I was given was a rhinovirus, just 3 days after recovering from a month of bronchial asthma. So, I have coughed and choked and gasped through the whole season, thanks to someone who should have stayed home or not shaken hands. (Now, don’t worry; at the door on the way out you can shake our hands. We have lots of Purell, and we also go immediately to washrooms to wash our hands. Most priests learn this in seminary (ha ha, not in the classroom, but in field placement).)

I do have to say that shaking hundreds of hands after mass is terrific; and the smiles are especially beatific on Christmas Eve. And I loved it that this year, at long last, there was nary a generic “happy holidays” to be heard—Merry Christmas it was.

And still is. For the Word became flesh and now dwells among us, and we have seen his only son, full of grace and truth. And we have, seen grace and truth, which dwell among us.

Whatever is on your heart this First Sunday of Christmas, give it over to Jesus. Say this prayer: “Jesus be with me, Jesus with me, Jesus in me, Jesus heal me, Jesus _____. I love you Jesus because you are the Word made flesh who livess within me.”

Okay, if that’s too complicated try this: “Jesus, … Help … , _____. Amen.”

Merry Christmastide my friends. And a happy New Year to you too.

*First Sunday after Christmas (Isaiah 61:10-62:3; Psalm 147; Galatians 3:23-25;4:4-7; John 1:1-18)

©2012 The Rev. Dr. Richard P. Smiraglia. All rights reserved.

The light really does shine*

Isaiah 9:2 “The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light; those who lived in a land of deep darkness– on them light has shined.”

Gay people know about this walking in darkness business. I remember as a teenager always feeling apart from my “friends.” I remember cringing at every Christmas party because my parents’ friends would inevitably ask me about having a girl-friend. I hated Christmas movies because in the end, the really cute guy always wound up with a woman. I knew that I walked in darkness, indeed (I thought) that I always would have to do so, because my happy ending would never be permitted. I knew that there was no way to reconcile my innermost truth with the world around me. I think we all have stories that fall somewhere along a continuum like this. Christmas was not happy because it only served to highlight the differences, the other-ness of gay life.

This year my husband and I celebrate our 33rd Christmas together. Our tree is lighted, presents are (mostly) wrapped, the refrigerator is stocked, and we look forward to mass together. Is it a miracle that after all of these years we go to mass, not only as life partners, but as priest and mate? Of course it is. It is the miracle of Christmas. The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light, on us this light has shined, brilliantly.

The light, of course, is the presence of God in our lives, in our family, in our work, in our home, in our neighborhood. God is always in our midst, right here in the thick of everything. Through the mercy of God the child Jesus was born for us—yes, us—you and me gay and lesbian and bisexual and transgendered us. He has brought peace, and justice, and righteousness. He has ended the darkness of our own exile with the brightness of the fullness of life.

All of us in the gay, lesbian, bi-sexual, and trans-gendered community can identify with those shepherds standing on the hillside that night, long ago. The angel that appeared in their midst terrified them. The presence of God can do that, if we are not prepared. And yet, if we can get past our fear, if we can get past our own self-judging territorial walls, then we can see this great light, and we can hear the voice of the angel saying to us: “Fear not, I bring you news of great joy for all people.” The child Jesus was born to bring the very human word of God to us in a way that nobody could miss. The grown up Jesus would mount his ministry among the down-trodden, walking from place to place, proclaiming the good news: “The kingdom of God has come near.” And he would teach us that the kingdom of God was already in our midst. To see it, to touch it, to bring it into our reality means tearing down all of those walls, putting our closets behind us, freeing ourselves to love as God has called us to do. All we have to do is love God and love each other, to see this kingdom.

Is everything perfect? Of course not. We still cannot marry in most of the world. We must keep one eye out all the time for the presence of oppression or violence. Too many of us are ill or alone. Too many still dwell in the darkness of their closets. Although life for our community is better in many ways than it was when I was a boy, it still is far from perfect. Rose-colored glasses do us no good. But good old-fashioned faith can change our lives. Belief is the essence of faith, and our belief in the possibility of the fullness of life is critical. The joy of a life lived in the fullness of Jesus’ call to us to love one another can drive away the terror of the closet and shine the brilliant light of God’s love into our hearts.

The darkest exile, my friends, is the one we create for ourselves when we choose to hide who we really are. And when we finally see the light and put that exile behind us, the brilliance of God’s light can be overwhelming—terrifying even—or, it can be awesome. But as the angel says, fear not, my friends. Be who you are. That is how God wants it to be. Reach out your arms in love to your 3-year old nephew, to your Alzheimer’s ridden parent, to your constantly irritating siblings, to everyone you meet. Stretch out your arms in love and you will see this bright light that God has brought among us.

God’s grace, my friends, has appeared among us, bringing salvation to us in freedom to be who God has made us to be. The miracles of Christmas are in our hearts and souls, just waiting to spring forth and shed God’s brilliant light on the whole world. This Christmas, let the light of God’s love shine in and on, and through you.

Christmas I (The Nativity of Our Lord)(Isaiah 9:2-4,6-7; Psalm 96:1-4,11-12; Titus 2:11-14; Luke 2:1-14)
©2011 The Rev. Dr. Richard P. Smiraglia. All rights reserved.

Sometimes the Light Really Does Shine*

I don’t know about you but I’ve been having something of a – hmmm, let’s say trying – time. It isn’t the recession, but it probably is related to the general malaise around it. And it isn’t anything else in particular I can point to. But I must say, that the first line of the first reading appeals to me this Christmas: [Isaiah 9:2] The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light; those who lived in a land of deep darkness – on them light has shined. It is comforting to remember that forever in the history of creation, people have walked in darkness, and that forever and eternally, on us, the light of Christ shines. It helps to know we are connected to creation through God who created us in God’s own image, and through God’s only Son, given so we might get it — about living in unity.

I heard a report on the nightly news that most Americans — 73% I think they said – celebrate “Christmas” but only a few — maybe about 20% of them — celebrate the birth of Christ. That’s sad of course. It explains why we’ve been listening to “Silent Night” at SuperFresh since Halloween. But it is too sad to think that all of those people out there rushing around buying presents and hanging decorations and worrying about their dinner menus don’t get it. Hmmm. Well if my job is to give us an uplifting message I’m not doing too well here, am I?

What about “don’t ask, don’t tell?” Well, if ever there were a case of people walking in darkness having the light shined on them this is it. And it is a terrific example of God fulfilling the purpose of God’s creation. God made us gay for a reason.  Whether you ground it theologically by saying God made us gay in God’s own image, or whether you appeal to sociobiology, which says there must be a part of the population whose job is not reproduction in order to lift up the spirits of the rest, either way, God made us gay and now God has made light to shine on our lives, here as indeed it already does in many other parts of the world. It is a little bit like new birth, isn’t it? And there is the Christmas metaphor. If all Christmas means is gifts and groaning boards that’s pretty empty. But if we can imagine that what Christmas means for us – both this Saturday and always – is that there is always the possibility of rebirth, then we truly know what it means to be people of faith.

Isaiah goes on to say the yoke of their burden is broken. And they shout “Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.” Hallelujah! For the grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation to all — even you and even me. God loves us, the sign God has sent to us is the birth of a child, a reminder that everything can always be made new.

So let’s be like the shepherds who wanted to go have a look. Let’s go with haste to that place in our souls where God’s fire is burning brightly, where a child’s birth can shake the world, where everything can always be made new. When we get there, let’s sing “Joy to the World.”

Merry Christmas my friends.

*Christmas Eve 2010 (Isaiah 9:2-7; Psalm 96:1-4,11-12; Titus 2:11-14; Luke 2:1-20)

©2010 The Rev. Dr. Richard P. Smiraglia. All rights reserved.