St. Thomas’ Episcopal Church, Owings Mills MD
December 24, 2021
Christmas Eve (4:00PM)
Isaiah 9:2-7
Psalm 96
Titus 2:11-14
Luke 2:11-14
Carrying Jesus Into the World
Merry Christmas, everyone!
It is so good to be together here in this beautiful place, to experience the joy of Christmas.
First of all, I want to thank everyone who worked so hard to make today happen – thank you to everybody who decorated the church and all those who are helping with the service.
Thank you to Wanda and our music team – and thank you to Sara and all who helped put together the “Christmas Tableau” that we’ll get to enjoy in just a few minutes.
The tableau will be wonderful, I’m sure, but we have to admit how sorry we are that for the second year in a row we’re not able to have our usual Christmas Pageant, which I know so many of you love and miss very much.
I’m sure many of you parents and grandparents here have special memories of particular Christmas pageants, when your children and grandchildren had the honor of making the Christmas story come alive for us.
As you might guess, I have been to a lot of Christmas pageants, but there is one in particular that I will always especially remember.
About a decade ago I served for a year in a church in Florida that, like St. Thomas’, had its own preschool.
Each year the schoolchildren would put on a pageant in the church on the last day of school before Christmas vacation.
Just like every pageant, the kids looked adorable in their costumes, and they all took their parts very seriously.
But, that year I noticed that the little girl playing Mary seemed especially serious – she knew and delivered all of her lines perfectly, and moved about the “stage” with a lot of confidence.
With great care, she held the doll that was meant to be the Baby Jesus – as if it really were a baby, as if it really was Jesus.
After the pageant was over, I said a few prayers and then we were done.
The children all ran to their families and there were lots of hugs and congratulations all around.
And, no surprise, the families and kids were eager to hit the road – to get Christmas going at last.
But, as the little girl who had played Mary began to leave with her family, she stopped short with a look of remembering something important.
She turned around, walked back to the manger and picked up the doll.
And, cradling the Baby Jesus in her arms, she walked beside her parents out of the church and into the world.
It was just a small moment, but you can see why I’ve never forgotten it.
Even more than in her pageant performance, in that moment the little girl captured what Mary did two thousand years ago – and in that moment the little girl captured what we Christians today are meant to do.
On the first Christmas, Jesus came among us.
And now, you and I, all of us, no matter how young or old, we are all meant to carry Jesus into the world.
We carry Jesus into the world by being kind to everyone, even the people we don’t like.
We carry Jesus into the world by sharing what we have, especially with people who can never pay us back.
And so, I hope that in a little while when we leave this beautiful place, we will all remember to carry Jesus out into the world – out into the world that is waiting for him – out into the world that needs him so very much.
Merry Christmas to you all.
Amen.
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