Tonight Everything is Different---Christmas Vigil Homily in English

Wrapped in her worn robe in front of a crackling fire in her living room, an elderly woman sits alone and sips her tea.  Alone.   Alone on this Christmas Eve.  Alone, back in the hollers of some long forgotten range of mountains.  Her husband recently passing from this life and her kids having abandoned her because the pain was too great.  And so she sits.  Alone. 

 

Oh come, oh come, Emanuel. 

 

Bent over in both heart and body a Syrian man sifts through ashes, glass and rubble, that are still smoking from the blast the day before.  He reaches for a charred photo, blowing the dust from the faces on the print.  This is all they are now.  His family.  Just faces on a print.  Everything that ever had meaning in his life:  gone in an instant.  His heart explodes into pieces like the shattered debris around him as he realizes he is alone. 

 

Oh come, oh come, Emanuel.

 

A few signatures are all it took.  A few signatures and 20 years came to an end.  20 years of living in basements, buying and crying their first home, kids, kids and more kids.  20 years of memories: camping, moving, laughing, and loving.  A few signatures are all it took to end that which God had joined together.  A few signatures to find herself wondering how she will raise her kids alone.  A single mother with four kids.  Alone.

 

Oh come, oh come, Emanuel.

 

He has been set free. Free and not really free.  Free from a system that placed him in one broken home after the next.  Homes that were supposed to be havens yet turned out to be hell.  As a wayfaring foster child he was moved from one place of abuse and misery to the next.  And now turning of age he has been set free, free and not really free.  And the very system he learned to loathe is the only place he wants to be.  For he walks the streets on this cold, dark night:  alone.

 

Oh come, oh come, Emanuel. 

 

The snow settles on the fresh roses and overturned dirt covering the sadness of the last week.  No one is supposed to bury their child.  No one.  And yet this cross came to so many in that town in the Northeast.  It came to so many.  And so the snow falls like a blanket over the stone marking just 7 years in this world.  7 years and now that precious body is alone.

Oh come, oh come, Emanuel.

 

For four weeks now we as a church have been begging our God to come.  Come to us and set us free.  Come to us and lift us out of our loneliness.  Lift us out of our despair.  Lift us out of the sadness.  For each of us journeys through this life and cannot help but feel at times, deep down in the very recesses of our heart, that we feel alone.  We find ourselves surrounded by people and noise and busyness and phones and computers and tablets and TVs and yet we cannot completely drown out that silent hint inside---the hint of loneliness. 

 

And sometimes it is more than a silent hint.  Sometimes it overwhelms us.  For who of us has not had the experience of feeling abandoned by those who are supposed to love us? Who of us have not lost loved ones and felt at their death that our very heart was ripped from our chest and nothing could replace that loss?  Who of us has not been faced with the task of carrying a responsibility far too great for two people: and now is faced with carrying it on their own?  Who of us has not meandered from one broken relationship to the next wondering if love will ever come to rest in our lives?

 

But tonight it all changes.  Tonight everything is different.  Tonight nothing will be the same.

 

For tonight our very gathering here, here in this storefront in this small town nestled in East Tennessee we make a witness to our each other.  We make a witness to the state.  We make a witness to this country, to the world.  And even to the cosmos.  Because the event we celebrate tonight has cosmic consequences.  With our presence here and the sound of the Gloria and the lights and the trees and the presents and the love shared together we make a witness that we no longer beg for Emanuel to come.  Emanuel is here.  Our God is with us.   He has called us from the north and the south, from the east and the west.  He has called some of us every day for years and years and some of us have just been called.  But he has called us all to gather here together to witness to all people that God has come.  We are never alone.  We are never alone.  God is with us.  Jesus came as that little child as God and man.  The perfect marriage of humanity and divinity.  And only from this precious miracle can we say that we are never alone.  Never.

 

And so our song changes.  No longer do we sing Oh Come oh Come Emmanuel.  But now, our voices carry a new tune.  A tune of joy: Joy to the world, the Lord is come.

 

For the lonely widow nestled in the mountain…the Lord is come.

For the Syrian father without a family… the Lord is come.

For the single mother raising her kids…the Lord is come.

For the foster child without a home… the Lord is come.

For the despair in Connecticut…the Lord is come.

For us…the Lord is come.

 

And from the depths our own loneliness we look to one another seated here in this church.  When we have been the grieving widow or the Syrian father or the single mother or the foster child or the despairing parent.... the Lord is come.  The Lord is come for each of us--each of you sitting in this church—and your neighbors, families and friends.  For he has come for each of us and so we come together to give glory to the one who has set us free.  Yes, tonight, nothing is the same.  Everything has changed.  And so as we make our ways to celebrate with family and friends, to eat and be merry, we have the confidence to say both now and in the deep recesses of our heart:

 

Joy to the world, the Lord is come, let earth receive her king.  Let every heart prepare him room. And heaven and nature sing.