keep the Χριστός in Xmas

Merry Christmas, Happy Christmas

What do I still like, love, about Χριστός-mas? That there is a Christmas Eve service, happy, yes, Holy Commotion. Last evening was the best yet.

Maybe in part because I remember Christmas Eve 2010, when I was scheduled into Cleveland Clinic some three weeks later for heart surgery that would give me +Time, and during our 4:30 service at Holy Nativity, at the Offertory, our priest motioned me over to the Altar to be Celebrant for the Holy Communion, but my angina was so severe and almost constant that I was popping nitroglycerin tablets, and I had to tell him I couldn't do it. And here I am more than a decade later still marveling at life and love!

But oh, Holy Commotion. Before the service started, the angels and shepherds and sheep and goats and kings and all were crowded into the space behind the wall next to me on both sides,

the littlest ones who recognized me kept waving at me in their excitement of the event. The event itself was indeed a commotion,

and as the nativity scene unfolded, or came unglued in front of me I watched with some fear of his falling from his ladder perch as the Star of Bethlehem

shone down, beaming happily. O holy star of Bethlehem ...

So at this age for me, the evening is mostly about memories. A decade ago. Nearly forty years ago. A quarter century ago. For many years I believed and knew that Christmas only happened at Trinity Church, Apalachicola. Place of my heart where Wesley Chesnut sang "O Holy Night" from the balcony, then the choir sang "Adeste Fideles" as the thurifer helped me light the incense before we started smokingly down the aisle to "O Come, All Ye Faithful". In later years as some grew allergic to the incense, I was warned from the choir, "That BETTER NOT be incense," as I poured water on the block of dry ice for smoky if not smelly Xmas Eve Mass.

And there was the year when, at the end of the service, the over-confident thurifer took to swinging the thurible around and around at the Altar rail as the choir made ready to process out, and the thurible struck the Altar rail and spread live coals all over the red carpet, and each choir member, as they reverenced the Altar on the way out, paused to stamp stamp stamp the glowing, smoking rug. Was that you, Wayne?

For communion bread every Christmas, Mary Williams baked a huge, elegant, round loaf with Greek letters and sparkling red cherries, and the little kids, who for long years now have been parents themselves, would say at the Altar rail as I broke off chunks of the Body of Christ, "Father Tom, can I have a cherry?"

A golden age of my life. Arriving at Trinity Church in 1984, I was 48. Retiring I was 63. For years afterward, I missed Christmas Eve beyond all sadness. Now, Holy Commotion makes up for everything, especially when little ones wave at me from beneath their sheep's ears and before their angel wings. All things come of thee, O Lord.

Anyway, Merry Christmas. Joe's here, he and Linda are outside on 7H porch sipping coffee and gazing out across the Bay, over Shell Island, into the Gulf of Mexico. Me, I am tippy typing this blogpost and still contemplating Low Sunday's homiletic endeavor for an absent non-crowd. Here's my gospel foundation:

In the beginning was the λόγος, and the λόγος was WITH God, and the λόγος WAS God. The λόγος was in the beginning with God. All things were made through the λόγος, and without the λόγος was not anything made that was made. And the λόγος became flesh and dwelt among us, full of grace and truth: Jesus Christ the λόγος, the Word of God, God Incarnate, Man Divine. The Athanasian Creed says it’s “incomprehensible”. What’s it all about?

Come and see.

T+