A Christmas Eve Service, 2016: The Reverend Andrea Abbott
Preacher: Reverend Andrea Abbott
Let us begin our service with light. Let us light our chalice:
Chalice lighting.
Let us light this small candle. See how the darkness retreats, just from this small candle. So may we light the hope for joy and peace, first in our own hearts and then in the hearts of all.
And let us light the Advent candles:
Advent Carol (song sheet)
One Hundred Years Ago:
This Christmas Eve we note the centennial of something which did not happen. We note the centennial of absence. We note the centennial of silence where there should have been songs, darkness where there should have been light, the centennial of bitterness and hatred on the date that should have been a time of goodwill and peace. One hundred years ago this night, in a country so devastated by bombs and entrenchments that it was as desolate as the moon, men huddled together in their dug outs, mute, cold and hungry. The two previous Christmas Eves, the Christmas Eves of 1914 and 1915, men had sung English carols and heard their echo in German across No Man’s Land. They had come out of their trenches and met with those they had been told to call the enemy and had given each other little gifts, chocolate and cigarettes, had wished each other Merry Christmas, had even played football with a can of beef as the ball. They had seen each other face to face. And then, the next day, they had gone back to the business of death.
But the high command of both sides had forbidden such contact. In some cases, those who had taken part in the informal Christmas truces had paid with their lives, court martialed and shot. And the conditions of war had hardened the men, made them more implacable foes. The deaths among them, the everlasting bombs, the hate filled speeches, the shortages of rations, of everything, had deadened in them whatever spark of Christmas might have remained. And so 1916, in western France, there was no Christmas. It was just another day. It would be two long years before it returned, in muted fashion, to those who won the war and those who lost. And who could say who had won and who had lost.
It was a war fought for empires and possessions and power. It was a war that killed thousands and thousands, a war that left hatred and bitterness smoldering, ready to burst into the next conflagration, hatred leading to hatred, war to war.
Herbert Read “To a Conscript of 1940”. (Mary Fran)
In 1916 there was little hope. The hills of western France were bare, indeed. It must have felt very much like the hymn we are about to sing. “The Hills are Bare at Bethlehem”. #232
Today:
Today, a hundred years later, we think we live in peace. We live in peace but around us war carries out its old business, trading life for death, plenty for starvation, love for hatred. Invisible to us, the trade of death goes on. Say the names: Syria, South Sudan, Berlin, Syracuse. Armaments multiply, reasons to use them multiply. And in the homes around us, invisible to us, the trade of hatred and division, rather than peace and love, also goes on. And in our nation, not at all invisible, is the trade of hatred and resentment, division and discouragement. Christmas, somewhere, in some place, some home, some heart, is just another day. So many things seem impossible, among them peace on earth, goodwill to all.
That is why we come together tonight, to prove wrong those who say that Christmas is just another day. We say that Christmas joy and peace are there every day, if we will just seek them out. And so we come to light our candles, to let the flame of our courage blaze another year, to say we are here to take our faith in humanity out into the world. We will not curse the darkness; we will light a flame. We will light a flame, not of anger and vengeance and oppression, but a flame of forgiveness and inclusion and love. We will continue to do as we have always done, light the way for change, for the full flowering of the human potential, for the coming of a world of peace.
Across hill and dale p. 80 (Tracy)
Let us raise our voices in a familiar carol written at the time of the Civil War by a Universalist minister, a carol that knows both the despair of war and the hope of a better future. “It Came Upon the Midnight Clear.” #244.
Again and again we are invited to choose hope, to choose the future, difficult though the journey may seem. Again and again, we are invited to choose peace because we are only the stewards of this world, only its temporary inhabitants. No matter the darkness of the present, no matter what the forces of despair and destruction are that surround us, we are called to the difficult work of redeeming the earth resisting the passions of fear and greed, breaking by our own efforts and by our own lives the cycles of violence so that each Christmas Eve and each Christmas morn and each day besides may be a day of peace and joy for our children and all children everywhere. Let us sing.
#246 O Little Town Of Bethlehem
And in this story that has been told for thousands of years, peace comes not through a great warrior, a powerful king or a man of great wealth but through a baby, a baby whose vulnerability calls for us all to for protection, for nurturance. We are called to join the shepherds and the wise men to give protection and nurturance to all who are most vulnerable in this world.
184 Hope Hilton (Janie)
Medley, Leigh and choir.
Let us now join together in a spoken promise for better times to come, for peace to find a home in our hearts and in the world.
197. Roger Greely Read responsively.
A the bell rings, we will light our candles from each other, as we, every day, find light from each other. When the candles are lit, we will sing that most peaceful of hymns, Silent Night #215 and we will take our light into the world. We will stand with our candles as we sing Let There Be Peace on Earth. If the stairs are difficult, stay with me on the top step.
Benediction: Rev. Libbie Stoddard p. 134. Christmas