We’ve heard the details of the Christmas story dozens, even hundreds of times —Mary’s humble status as a poor woman, the trip to Bethlehem, the birth in the stable, the shepherds.  They’re part of our religious blood.

What these rustic details communicate is the gospel:  God became flesh.  This is what “incarnation” means.  God is not so hopelessly beyond us, in heaven, or in philosophical abstractions.  God came down to us.  God appeared in Jesus’ flesh, and God appears in our flesh, in the earthy, ordinary details, and sometimes even the messy details of our lives. 

This is the Christmas message, and this is what the church is for — to teach us, to train us to see God not just in the high glorious moments but even in the low, very unglamorous details of our lives.

I want to mention two important tools to help us do this. 

The first is honesty.  I’m not going to propose that we break into small groups to bare our souls tonight, but we all know the kind of emotional heavy freight that we all carry around with us at some time or other.

Some of us have just come from family gatherings where there was a lot of love and warmth.  I hope that was the case for some of us.  But for all of us, at some time in the past or at some time in the future, or tonight, Christmas Eve is painful time. 

Not all of us have families to be with, or families we want to be with.  Family isn’t always a pretty sight.  Just because someone is in your family doesn’t make that person a joy to be with.  Some of you probably came to this service as an excuse to get out of the house.  I don’t recommend that you announce that around the Christmas tree tomorrow morning, but we can be honest with ourselves about that.  We can even find humor in it. 

Most of us, I hope, feel healthy tonight.  Others of us have heard the dreaded words spoken, ‘you have cancer” or some other life-threatening illness and you’re carrying that news around in the pit of your stomach. 

Some of us here tonight are probably newly in love.  It’s a wonderful, intoxicating feeling.  Others are feeling bruised and battered in our intimate relationships.  Most of us get hurt somehow, somewhere along the way.

You get the idea.  There’s a lot of glory in all our lives, but there’s a lot that doesn’t feel very glorious.  This is what I mean by honesty — facing reality.  This is part of what it means to be a Christian — facing the cross.

The other tool we have is poetry. 

By poetry I don’t necessarily mean writing or even reading formal, published poetry.  I actually have a hard time understanding and appreciating most so-called serious poetry written today.  By poetry, I mean something we all experience — more on the level of love songs on the radio, or country music.

By poetry, I mean seeing the beauty even in the unglamorous chapters of our lives.  Why do people write beautiful songs about misery?  It’s because that’s how we rise above misery.

The Christmas story in the Bible is the church’s poetry about Jesus’ life and all life.  Mary gave birth in a barn.  Why is that beautiful?  Jesus died on a cross.  How does that give us hope?  These give us hope because they remind us to look for God and help find God when we’re out in the cold or in our own tortured moments.

Simone Weil said “Workers need poetry more than bread.  They need that their life should be a poem.”  Your life is a poem, and the church’s mission is to help you see that, even though your life doesn’t always feel poetic.

Our worship tonight is filled with this poetry.  It’s in the songs we sing, in the prayers we pray.  It’s in this architecture, the candle-light, and just in being here together.  Poetry can turn even our raw pain into something beautiful. 

Tonight, our service will end with the sacrament of Holy Communion.  At the end of the sacrament, we’ll all be standing in a large circle in the outside aisles of the sanctuary.  The lights will be turned off, and the music will end.  We’ll be in near darkness and silence.

Then we’ll light our candles, and as you see the candles being lit in the darkness think of what that symbolizes.  Think of it as a moment of honesty and poetry.

All of our lives are shaken at some time.  But when we’re shaken, we’re better off being together than alone.  And there’s beauty in our lives no matter how shaken we are. 

When all our candles are lit, we’ll say the Prayer of Thanksgiving, which will lead into the prayers of the people.  And then there will be an opportunity for you to speak any prayer of thanksgiving or prayer for help, for you or anyone else. 

I hope that there will be many names and prayers spoken into that circle of light.  This is a wonderful way to be together.  This is life poetry.  And then we’ll sing some of our favorite carols which will be a different kind of poetry.  God became flesh.  God is in our lives.  It isn’t that we make God appear, but we can do things to help us pay attention and be alert to God’s presence. 

God is with us tonight.  This is the gospel.