00:00:00.000 - 00:01:11.000

[Music] Once Upon a Lonely Christmas, a message by Dr. Bruce W. Thielman. [Music] [Music]

00:01:11.000 - 00:01:34.080

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things were made through him, and without him was not anything made that was made. In him was life, and the life was the light of men.

00:01:34.080 - 00:02:05.280

The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it. When the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, full of grace and truth, we have beheld his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father. May the same God who inspired these words incline our hearts as we seek to understand.

00:02:05.280 - 00:02:47.440

Pray with me. In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, amen. Once Upon a Lonely Christmas, I learned some things I would like to share with you tonight, from my heart to your heart.

00:02:47.440 - 00:03:13.000

It was 23 years ago I was pursuing graduate study at the University of St. Andrews in Scotland, and I made arrangements with my oldest and dearest friend who was serving with the United States Air Force in Germany to meet him in Switzerland in order that we might enjoy the Christmas and New Year holidays together there, at a place called Davos, which

00:03:13.000 - 00:03:37.440

is the sports capital of that tiny nation. Davos is much like a Christmas card town, and when I got there it was surrounded and indeed covered by an ocean of snow, great waves of it coming down out of the mountains, rolling into its highways and its streets, and then lapping up against the second floors

00:03:37.440 - 00:03:59.520

of the quaint Swiss houses. I was met at the railroad station by a sleigh, two huge horses, their breath white, steamy against the cold air, their bellies dusted with the white snow, it was so deep, and the sleigh driver all bundled up with a whip that had bells attached.

00:03:59.520 - 00:04:22.400

It was an experience to ride in that sleigh to the hotel with the great mountains standing all about and the sky so blue that it ached to look at it. There was a happy reunion with my friend, we unpacked, and then we went down to dinner and began to plan the events of the next day, Christmas.

00:04:22.400 - 00:04:46.640

And it was while we were eating that the telegram arrived. Sudden alert, return immediately to base. And within one hour my friend was gone. And I was alone, not knowing a single person in the town, not indeed speaking the language

00:04:46.640 - 00:05:10.760

of most of them. And all that before had suddenly been so beautiful was not so beautiful anymore. The snow was not attractive but cold, the mountains not mighty but separated and austere, and the blue of the sky was matched by a very somber blue attitude in my own heart.

00:05:10.760 - 00:05:33.160

Davos was still a Christmas card town, and sleighs sailed on it like boats at sea. But have you ever been in a situation in which everybody else's fun seemed to magnify your own lack of it? Have you ever been in a group where everybody seems to know everybody and you know nobody

00:05:33.160 - 00:05:46.040

at all? Have you ever felt so completely alone? I went into the hotel lounge hoping to find someone speaking English. I found no one.

00:05:46.040 - 00:06:00.000

I finally went up to my hotel room, didn't bother to turn on the lights, just switched on the radio and stretched out on the bed. They were playing carols from around the world. I remember hearing First Silent Night sung in the language in which it was written, the

00:06:00.000 - 00:06:20.340

German Stille Nacht Heiligenacht. The carol that was sung from America was Phillips Brooks' O Little Town of Bethlehem. And as I stretched out there in the darkness, two lines came home to me with special power. Yet in thy dark streets shineth the everlasting light.

00:06:20.340 - 00:06:36.160

The hopes and fears of all the years are met in thee tonight. I could identify with hopes and fears. They were all met in me that night. And I believed, intellectually at least, what the carol said, that the everlasting light

00:06:36.160 - 00:06:48.240

was present in Jesus Christ. But I didn't feel much as if I was caught up in light, rather as though I was lost in darkness. Yet that's not the Christmas gospel, is it?

00:06:48.240 - 00:07:03.800

The gospel is that the light came into the world and the darkness has not been able to overcome it, that the word became flesh, that God has dealt with darkness and that no child of God need ever surrender to the shadows. I knew that in my head.

00:07:03.800 - 00:07:16.480

I did not feel it in my heart. In my heart, I was contradicting Christmas. So I realized I had to let go and let God. I had to let his light into my life.

00:07:16.480 - 00:07:35.900

And strangely, as I thought of that, I began to meditate about my grandfather. He'd been gone a good number of years at that time. It seems almost a century now. My grandfather was the baggage agent of the Pennsylvania Railroad in Pittsburgh.

00:07:35.900 - 00:07:54.180

He was known all up and down the Pennsylvania system as Mike Wheeler. And he had a very responsible job. You see, in those days, most mail was carried by rail. And Pittsburgh was a major center, especially at Christmas time, for it would not only receive

00:07:54.180 - 00:08:10.740

all the mail for Pittsburgh, but all the backup from New York and Philadelphia and all the backup from Chicago on the east-west route. And it was my grandfather's responsibility to move all of this mail. And I remember how he would work almost 24 hours a day, though he was in his 60s at that

00:08:10.740 - 00:08:24.340

time. And one Christmas, we waited very long in the day for him to return. And finally, at about 4 o'clock in the afternoon, we got a telephone call. My grandfather was lost.

00:08:24.340 - 00:08:36.180

He had become so exhausted and confused on the job that he couldn't find our home. He'd been there hundreds of times. Indeed, during the war years, when apartments were hard to find, he lived in our home for a while.

00:08:36.180 - 00:08:46.300

But now, so utterly beaten by the task, he couldn't find his way to our house. He was nearby. We got him and brought him. And he was, of course, embarrassed.

00:08:46.300 - 00:09:06.320

And we did our best to make him feel at ease, a stool for his feet and a brand-new Toby. And he got to open his Christmas presents first and all the rest of it. But the one thing I remember most vividly was what he said. The mail's through, he said, and we can see the light.

00:09:06.320 - 00:09:22.540

I felt very good about that, that my grandfather had brought the light. Oh, I suppose you might be thinking that's a rather awkward illustration of Jesus bringing the light of God's love into the world. And I'll confess that it is.

00:09:22.540 - 00:09:39.620

But you see, I love Jesus very much. And I love my grandfather very much. And so for me to speak of one love in terms of another love is very natural for me. Both of these, you see, gave everything they had, really lost themselves in their task,

00:09:39.620 - 00:10:00.180

gave their lives, if you will. Within a few months, my grandfather was dead and the doctor said it was because of overwork. So there I was in my hotel room in the darkness, thinking about how God in Christ came into the world, bringing the light to defeat the darkness and what that cost.

00:10:00.180 - 00:10:18.420

Greater love hath no man than this, that he lay down his life to bring the love letters of God and to chase away the darkness. In beginning to understand the meaning of that, I decided I would have to become more positive in my approach to the problem that was confronting me.

00:10:18.420 - 00:10:29.540

Positive thinking was what I needed. Now as soon as I say that, I know there are some who back away and suggest that such notions are not biblical. That is not true.

00:10:29.540 - 00:10:42.000

The Bible says it is not that which is without a man, but that which is within a man that influences him. The Bible says out of the heart are the issues of life. The Bible says as a man thinketh in his heart, so he is.

00:10:42.000 - 00:11:02.380

If one focuses on the negative, then one's life will be negative. William James, the psychologist, says that an emotion is a state of mind which manifests itself by sensible changes in the body. So there I was, stretched out on the bed, thinking all kinds of negative and dark thoughts

00:11:02.380 - 00:11:17.620

and magnifying my own misery. And I realized in the presence of the light that is shining where the hopes and fears of all the years are gathered, that I was going to have to shake that off. You've got to be in tune in order to be in tune.

00:11:17.620 - 00:11:32.860

So I got up and I hit those white streets. I found out very soon that a midnight mass was to be celebrated in a little church up on the side of the Bremer Buell. And I decided to walk up to that church.

00:11:32.860 - 00:11:43.140

And the stars were bright and the sky was very dark. The mountains seemed far away. It was very quiet. And the 12 winds of the Alps were blowing in my face.

00:11:43.140 - 00:11:55.940

Now I was not climbing any mountain. The Bremer Buell is not high as Alps go. But I was still toiling upwards. And as I moved, I felt as if I was walking into some kind of cloud factory, for there

00:11:55.940 - 00:12:11.620

was a snowy mist all about me, curling about the rocks and settling on the path. And I felt somehow as if the misty, the spirit in me was reaching out to the mist all about me. Socrates says that the body is the prison house of the soul.

00:12:11.620 - 00:12:26.180

And I understood that at that moment. For it was as if my misty spirit was trying to reach out to all that mist that moved about me. I can say to you that at that moment, I would not have been frightened to meet a ghost or

00:12:26.180 - 00:12:47.860

a spirit, but I did not want to meet another body. For my thoughts were as tenuous as those mists moving about me. And they were beginning with me to float upwards out of that arena of ice and rock and snow. And blown by the 12 winds of the Alps, I climbed higher in my heart.

00:12:47.860 - 00:13:08.100

The only thing I can liken it to is taking a flight in a small jet, not one of those great big lumbering planes crowded with people and playing canned music into your ears like you hear in the dental chair, not one of those. But a small one where there's just you and the pilot and perhaps one other passenger.

00:13:08.100 - 00:13:20.420

And when you get in and strap yourself down, you feel as if you are somehow too closely contained. And then the plane breaks free of earth and it finds a hole in the clouds and it seeks to soar.

00:13:20.420 - 00:13:39.580

And it goes up 20, 25, 30, 35, 39,000 feet. And you're up there in magnificent blue. And there is no roar of the engines for that is left far behind, just a soft hum. And all about you is the aching purity of the sky.

00:13:39.580 - 00:13:56.180

And Wordsworth's line, "Wandering lonely as a cloud," comes to your mind, but you don't really feel lonely. What you feel is that the purity and the spirit of this place is entering into you. You're living over the top of all that troubles you.

00:13:56.180 - 00:14:15.580

Well, that was what was happening to me as I moved up the slope of that mountain. I felt as those mists parted that I was rising above all that troubled me. That's happened at other places, not only in jet planes and in the Alps, but in deep forests and sun-dappled meadows, in any place where you can be alone and let your heart

00:14:15.580 - 00:14:32.620

soar, in the place of exercise, where you can expand your lungs. Being in tone brings you in tune. As a man thinketh in his heart, so he is. And when the heart becomes merry, as Proverbs says, it doeth good like a medicine.

00:14:32.620 - 00:14:57.500

And I felt better as I kept on climbing. Soon the church was just ahead of me, a rather plain and unattractive place on the outside. But on the inside, they had lined all the walls with pine trees just cut, and the rich resin still ran so that the smell of the pines was heavy in the place.

00:14:57.500 - 00:15:12.840

And there were real candles on the trees, lighted by choirboys in red robes with white collars. And there was a little Swiss band of five instruments down in front. And the church soon crowded so much that they opened the windows, and the lights spilled

00:15:12.840 - 00:15:32.100

out in golden puddles on the snow, and worshippers stood outside as well. Now the whole service was conducted in German, a language which I do not know. And yet, though that was the case, I found myself caught up in a great sense of wonder. Great things happen in the excitement of worship.

00:15:32.100 - 00:15:46.020

It's no wonder that the psalmist wrote he would rather be a gatekeeper in the house of the Lord than to dwell in the very tents of unrighteousness. It's not at all surprising that Paul would write, "Don't miss any opportunity to be together with others to worship."

00:15:46.020 - 00:16:02.340

There's a power in worship. There's an electricity and an excitement and an expectancy. I feel it in this room, this very place, because of all that has happened here. I have knelt on those steps with a girl when Jesus Christ entered into her life.

00:16:02.340 - 00:16:19.100

I've been told by young fellows and girls of proposals that they've made to each other seated in those pews. I watched a mother once seated here weep over the casket of her son, and then with what she received here, straighten up and strong, walk out of this place and into the world

00:16:19.100 - 00:16:34.380

again. I've heard confessions in this building, some of them terribly ugly, misguided hate, and sometimes terribly sad, misguided love. And I've heard the mission servants of the cross who've offered their lives in the service

00:16:34.380 - 00:16:48.380

of Christ speak from this pulpit. And I've heard marriage vows made here, sealed with prayers and with kisses. And I know of life directions that were decided in this room. And these very walls are saturated with a million prayers.

00:16:48.380 - 00:17:00.220

The Holy Spirit haunts this house. Jesus walks its aisles. He touches hearts and dries ears. He does beautiful things to those who gather here.

00:17:00.220 - 00:17:19.260

That always happens when you walk in a place like this where the wonders are. Oh, I know there are some who come here and do not experience that. That is because, you see, in order to experience the splendor of this place, you must frequent it.

00:17:19.260 - 00:17:36.300

I remember when I was six years old, we moved. And we sort of lost connection with the church in which I had been baptized and grown up. We had not found a new church home. And then we got word that the annual Christmas party was being held.

00:17:36.300 - 00:17:49.140

And we went back that night for the Sunday school Christmas party. And it was a gay and a happy time. And everyone enjoyed it until the moment came when they read off the names of all the students. And each one came forward to get a present.

00:17:49.140 - 00:18:06.260

And my name was not read. I had not been there for a while. My name had been dropped from the list. It's a terrible thing when you're six years old and everybody's name is read but yours.

00:18:06.260 - 00:18:26.520

I felt desperately empty that night. That experience left a mark on me so real that for all the rest of my life, I was the kind of person who put one Valentine in the box for every student in the room so that no one would feel they were left out.

00:18:26.520 - 00:18:37.840

I've never gotten past the pain of that night. Or they corrected it. They gave me a little wooden soldier about that high and his head screwed off and inside there were colored pencils.

00:18:37.840 - 00:18:54.940

I remember that. But you see, because I hadn't been there, I didn't have all the joy of reception that should have been mine. And the faithful, you see, walk often in a place like this and so are sensitive to the

00:18:54.940 - 00:19:11.960

splendor. When I come to a candlelight service like this, I bring with me a multitude of memories. I remember my family going to services like this and the deep bass voice of my father and the soprano of my mother and the tremolo of my grandmother and my brother who never

00:19:11.960 - 00:19:31.860

sang at all, singing but so soft that no one could hear him. I'm not telling you anything you do not know for you are here and finals are on and tests will determine grades and grades will, to a certain degree, determine careers and yet you have come here.

00:19:31.860 - 00:19:53.640

You have come to this place on a night when you did not have to come and you have come in expectancy and you have come in excitement, reaching out for the Christmas miracle. But for that to occur, you have to walk often where the wonders are. Then you will find them too.

00:19:53.640 - 00:20:09.520

Just as I did in that little church in Switzerland. And grand memories also. It was a long high mass with a long sermon and there was much time in it for me to remember and surely memory is one of God's best gifts to us.

00:20:09.520 - 00:20:30.420

To be able to flash on the screen of your mind slide pictures from your yesterdays. I had the grandest time remembering and it spoke to my loneliness and my depression. I knew that at that very moment there would be hanging over our mantle at home the same picture of the Madonna that had always hung there.

00:20:30.420 - 00:20:49.980

It was one that I drew when I was in the fourth grade and as far as I know is the only blonde Madonna that has ever been drawn. I knew that my father would get the Christmas spirit first in the house and that on Christmas morning he would be the first one downstairs to light the tree and turn on the train.

00:20:49.980 - 00:21:07.200

I remembered how as a boy I sold Christmas cards to buy Christmas gifts and my brother sold Christmas wreaths. And before that I used to save my pennies and once invested 39 of them in buying a glass butter dish for my mother and then ran home thrilled with my purchase and tripped and

00:21:07.200 - 00:21:31.580

fell and smashed it to a thousand pieces and my heart was as broken as the dish. And I can remember how my grandmother gave me the 39 cents and I went and bought another one and knew Christmas twice that year. And I remembered how on Christmas all our gifts were displayed never wrapped they were

00:21:31.580 - 00:21:47.740

always laid out for us to see when we came downstairs except for one which was the best gift and it was always hidden and the night before you could pick one gift and that you could give. What is it the writer of Proverbs says?

00:21:47.740 - 00:22:18.020

When I was a son with my father tender he taught me and he said to me, "Let your heart hold fast my words. Do not forget." Please turn your cassette to the other side.

00:22:18.020 - 00:22:33.420

There's a rich ministry in memory. Especially memories of people. People are required for Christmas. Once in the week before Christmas I was in Kaufman's department store at 10 o'clock in

00:22:33.420 - 00:22:53.780

the morning it was a Tuesday and I went directly to the eighth floor where they sell phonograph records to buy some gifts and I became very involved in selecting the records and suddenly I noticed it had become very quiet in the store and I looked up and I was the only one on the floor except for several service people at one of the desks and I walked over and

00:22:53.780 - 00:23:20.380

asked what the difficulty was and they explained that there was nothing about which to be concerned but a small fire had broken out in the basement of the store and they were not even asking people to leave lest they become alarmed but they were not allowing any additional people into the store and when I was finished if I would leave immediately.

00:23:20.380 - 00:23:42.980

I was finished. I went to the elevators and the elevators were not working. I went to the escalators and they were not working but I walked down the escalators eight flights and you know all the presents were there and all the gifts were there stacked

00:23:42.980 - 00:23:56.200

up as high as the ceilings more presents more gifts than anyone could buy but the place was empty of people and it was dead. Christmas isn't presents. Christmas is people.

00:23:56.200 - 00:24:18.740

And there in that old Swiss church on the side of that older mountain I suddenly began to think more about others than about myself not so much about my rights or even my duties but rather my opportunities to minister to others to give instead of to get. I kind of closed my book of complaints against the universe and opened up the ledger of service.

00:24:18.740 - 00:24:32.060

That's not new I know. When you become depressed it is natural to center in upon yourself but it's just then that you've got to shove your id aside and remember that it is more blessed to give than to receive.

00:24:32.060 - 00:24:45.740

You've got to focus on other folks. I remember a high school Christmas when in the middle of the afternoon there was a knock at the door and I went and it was one of my high school buddies one of the very closest and I was surprised to see him.

00:24:45.740 - 00:25:01.180

He came in and all the family greeted him then he said he'd like to talk and we went off to a room aside. I'd known for a long time that Jack's folks were alcoholics. But I didn't know what had happened that day how they were at that very moment in drunken

00:25:01.180 - 00:25:18.920

stupors at home lying in the midst of unopened presents and my friend's heart was broken and he'd come to me for comfort. You know every time I see those whiskey ads that seek to relate themselves to Christmas I remember that.

00:25:18.920 - 00:25:43.820

I saw one the other day a bottle of booze with the three wise men and a star and underneath it the line "wise men still choose." That's vulgar and obscene and a lie. So he stayed for most of the rest of the day and I sought in every way I could to comfort

00:25:43.820 - 00:26:02.740

him and you know the strange thing is as I look back upon that high school Christmas I can't remember a single gift I got that day but I can remember every word of my conversation with my friend Jack. It's people that make Christmas.

00:26:02.740 - 00:26:15.060

And there in that church in Switzerland that night the people that drew my attention most were the Hungarians. You see it was 1956. Now most of you are too young to remember this.

00:26:15.060 - 00:26:37.060

Hungary is of course a slave satellite of the communist Russian empire. Well in 1956 on October 23rd to be specific a group of university students decided to revolt against their Russian overlords and they managed to get the workers to assist them and they were at first successful in their revolution.

00:26:37.060 - 00:26:58.460

They actually elected a man who loved freedom as premier, a man named Emery Noge and he persuaded the Russians to leave and they did. They withdrew from the country and a new parliament was elected and a new constitution was written and October 31st 1956 a new state of Hungary was proclaimed.

00:26:58.460 - 00:27:28.540

But the very next day on November 1st the Russians that had been massing along the borders came across with hundreds of tanks and thousands of troops and they marched across that tiny country and they subdued it and they killed hundreds. They executed that premier Emery Noge and 160,000 young Hungarian students and workers

00:27:28.540 - 00:27:55.440

fled Hungary never to return again. And all the free nations that bordered on Hungary received them, set up refugee stations, and Switzerland opened its doors and it was just six weeks after that event now and there in that worship service were many Hungarian youth the same age as you are and almost as

00:27:55.440 - 00:28:11.660

I was then for I was only 24. And I remember as I looked at them they'd been separated from their families, separated from their loved ones, separated from their education, separated from many of their hopes and dreams, separated from their country.

00:28:11.660 - 00:28:43.540

I remembered thinking here we are 2,000 years into the Christian era, 180 years into the great democratic experiment, 40 years into depth psychology, 20 years into the new physics, 80 years into Darwin's ideas, 20 years into existentialism, two wars behind us, the scars still red and white and man still so inhumane with man.

00:28:43.540 - 00:29:03.680

We stood and we sang together "Silent Night" and as we sang I could hear the song in seven different languages. And to my mind came the words of the prophet, "They shall beat their swords into plowshares and they shall make their spears into pruning hooks and nations shall not lift up sword

00:29:03.680 - 00:29:24.860

against nation and they shall not know war anymore." And I wondered how long. And there we stood and someone reached for my arm and another for my other arm and I found myself in a chain of refugees, all of us spiritual refugees if you will, linking

00:29:24.860 - 00:29:49.080

arms and singing "Silent Night, Holy Night, all is calm, all is bright." In the midst of a world insane with greed and power. The world has always tried to stop Christ. Herod with his bloody plot, Caiaphas and Pilate, the mad endeavors of more and more across

00:29:49.080 - 00:30:02.500

the centuries. Do you remember how Othello when he went into Desdemona's bedchamber to murder her said, "Put out the light and then put out the light." So men have tried to put out the light of Christ.

00:30:02.500 - 00:30:19.060

They've attacked him, crucified him then, crucify him again. They've lied about him, twisted his teachings to make him fit their ideologies. They've adulterated his words. They've slain those who seek to serve him and slandered them.

00:30:19.060 - 00:30:30.260

But the light that is Christ still burns. That's the miracle and the marvel of Christmas. Not that it's dark. There is no surprise in the world's darkness.

00:30:30.260 - 00:30:54.620

The darkness in us personally or the society of which we are a part. The miracle is that in the midst of this kind of world we have the bright Christian heritage that we do and that whole armies of evil cannot stop us from linking our arms and singing. So once upon a lonely Christmas, I knew a gloomy time.

00:30:54.620 - 00:31:22.420

There's no news in that. In a world where sin is so beastly and the plight of the planet is so desperate and our moral depravity and our abysmal incompetence is so profound, inevitably there will be darkness. The marvel is that a star shined against the darkness and with the star there came hope.

00:31:22.420 - 00:31:43.460

The word became flesh. John writes, "The light came into the world and the darkness has not overcome it." And thinking of that gives your heart a hope transfusion. So we stood there, arms linked, singing in seven languages.

00:31:43.460 - 00:32:09.580

And I pledged myself then and I pledge myself again tonight when Antichrist still moves in the world and darkness looms, hideous things are going on in the world tonight, young people. Things that ought to sear our souls, blister our consciences, shame us all and turn us turbulent with indignation.

00:32:09.580 - 00:32:26.940

And what are we to do? We are to sing. We live in a world where the best are always crucified, but where there is always a third day, always a resurrection.

00:32:26.940 - 00:32:41.860

In the world, Jesus said, you will have tribulation, but I have overcome the world. The light still shines. There are stern aspects to the light. The light shows us the ugliness that is in the world and in us.

00:32:41.860 - 00:32:56.620

When you see something straight, you know that you're crooked. When you see something good, you know that which is ungood. When you see that which is bright, you're face to face with the darkness. But we must exalt and lift up the light and we must in the light of the light, utterly

00:32:56.620 - 00:33:24.820

seek to drive all the darkness out of our own lives and to the degree that we are able, drive it also out of the world. When the service was over, we walked out of that little Swiss church into the twelve winds of the Alps.

00:33:24.820 - 00:34:00.560

And I, together with some new Hungarian friends, started down the mountain. And the cold breeze stiffened our faces, but it fanned the flames of joy in our hearts. You know, once upon a lonely Christmas, when I was depressed and separated and lonely, I learned to let go and to let God, that the word became flesh and greater love hath no

00:34:00.560 - 00:34:21.180

one than this that he lay down his life, that the love letters of God might get through. And I learned that you have to get in tune to be in tune. As a man thinketh in his heart, so he is. And I was called to walk where wonders are.

00:34:21.180 - 00:34:39.260

It is better to be a gatekeeper in the house of the Lord than to dwell in the tents of unrighteousness. And I set my memory to ministry. My son holds fast to my words, "Do not forget."

00:34:39.260 - 00:35:01.660

And I focused on others because it is more blessed to give than to receive. And I experienced in my heart a hope transfusion because in the world we do have tribulation, but Christ has overcome the world. And there will be a time when they beat their swords into plowshares and their spears into

00:35:01.660 - 00:35:39.540

pruning hooks because the light has come and the darkness has never overcome it. So that Christmas in the Swiss Alps has become one of my most rare and treasured memories. It was a night like this, in a place like this. You can have a memory just like mine, for this place is filled with love and hope and

00:35:39.540 - 00:36:00.500

caring and expectancy and excitement. And you can have it all. You can claim it for yourself in such a way tonight that it will never get away from you. So relax.

00:36:00.500 - 00:36:26.580

Look at the trees with their white lights, the lofty shadowed ceilings, the red flowers, the golden harp, the soft reflections on the faces of the people about you. And if you are sitting next to someone you especially love, take their hand and hold it tight.

00:36:26.580 - 00:36:48.060

And if you are beside someone whose presence cheers you, then feel warmth and joy in that and touch one another. Claim this night. Take everything that it is and absorb it down into the very center of yourselves.

00:36:48.060 - 00:37:56.820

So that someday, somewhere, sometime, you may say to someone, "Once, upon a lonely Christmas, I learned some things I'd like to share with you from my heart to yours." Let us pray. O God, our Father, make this night for us a holy night.

00:37:56.820 - 00:38:39.820

Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen.

00:38:39.820 - 00:38:42.480

Amen. (water running)