A sermon delivered on December 24, 2024 by Patrick H. Wrisley, D.Min.

John 1:1-14

^1.1 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. ²He was in the beginning with God. ³All things came into being through him, and without him not one thing came into being. What has come into being ⁴in him was life, and the life was the light of all people. ⁵The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it.

⁶There was a man sent from God, whose name was John. ⁷He came as a witness to testify to the light, so that all might believe through him. ⁸He himself was not the light, but he came to testify to the light. ⁹The true light, which enlightens everyone, was coming into the world. 

¹⁰He was in the world, and the world came into being through him; yet the world did not know him. ¹¹He came to what was his own, and his own people did not accept him. ¹²But to all who received him, who believed in his name, he gave power to become children of God, ¹³who were born, not of blood or of the will of the flesh or of the will of man, but of God. ¹⁴And the Word became flesh and lived among us, and we have seen his glory, the glory as of a father’s only son, full of grace and truth.

For 64 years the power and profundity of this night has amazed me so. As a child peering over the back of the sofa staring at the Atlanta winter night, my eyes would scan the sky searching the twinkling starlight above. Back then I was full of awe and wonder and believed in the magic of Christmas. As I became older, the awe and wonder never really left but their sense of presence seemed to fade somewhat. In their place settled a spirit of busy-ness and rush. The nights of awe and wonder melted into fulfilling obligations in the giving of gifts or showing up someplace during the frenetic season. The magic of Christmas had very subtlety moved from the power of the newborn Christ the King to consumerism, a trajectory from the manger to the marketplace. 

I’m grateful that I have grown up so much since then.  They say that the older you become the more you regress back into childhood, and I proudly say this has happened to me, especially at Christmastime. I find that the older I become, the more I realize how much I dislike hunting for deals on Black Friday, Small Town Saturday, Cyber Monday or Prime Days; rather, Christmastime has once again become a time for me to go hunting for the gift of the manger while intensely listening for the little baby coo as he wiggles for the warmth of his mother. I suppose one could say that with each passing year, I am growing back into Christmas.

The Welsh have a word which describes how many people feel this time of year. The word is hiraeth (here-eyeth). It’s a noun and it describes a feeling a person has who possesses a longing and yearning for home and the past for the way we imagine things used to be; it’s a type of homesickness found deep in your soul, and it’s tinged with a little touch of grief over the times and experiences lost to the past and with those who have departed. As writer Gretchen Peters notes, “Hiraeth is a kind of nostalgic homesickness for a home you can’t return to, or quite possibly one that never existed. It’s a deep yearning for a rootedness that’s irrevocably lost.”^[1] Yes, the older we become, Christmas births within in each of us a deep sense of hiraeth.

We long for the Christmases of yesterday, either the ones we had or ones we wish we had. It’s a longing for home and a life that is simpler and more grounded. Yet, Christmas also evokes a spiritual hiraeth within us, which in all honesty, is what Christmas is all about in the first place. We listen to the Christmas stories, watch the kids enact the birth of baby Jesus, smile at the children dressed as angels. We sing familiar carols and are taken by the hand of the Spirit and are led back to what Christmas is truly all about. We suspend our callous, stubborn hearts and once again open our spirit to the possibility, to the reality, that unto us this day, in the City of David, Christ is born. 

Beloved, we live in a swirly, mixed-up, muddled-up world in the words of Sir Raymond Douglas Davies.  But tonight, this holy night, we practice hiraeth. 

Tonight, we go back home again, longing and looking for those reminders that God is still in control and that God has not left his beloved forsaken. 

Tonight, we remember God and how Gods loves us enough to put skin on and join us in this journey of life.  

Tonight, we remind ourselves that God placed his trust in a young girl’s weary and feeble arms to hold, love, and care for his only begotten Son. Ultimately, the birth of Jesus is God’s active expression of God’s faith in you and me. God allows you and me to care for this child who has no place to rest his head except in your arms and mine. 

Friends, John reminds us that if we only receive the baby Jesus, literally, pick him up, we then become children of God. As we lean over the manger, he cries to be picked up in your arms. Tonight, let’s grow back into Christmas and receive the baby being placed carefully, lovingly, in our arms this night. Let us revel in the presence, joy, and hope the birth of Jesus provides. Feel him in your arms. Feel him in your heart. Feel his soft hair and breathe in that lovely baby smell. He was born for you, beloved; yay, he was born for you. Amen.

© December 24, 2024, Patrick H. Wrisley, Pastor, First Presbyterian Church, 8 West Notre Dame Street, Glens Falls, NY 12801.  Sermon manuscripts are available for the edification of members and friends of First Presbyterian Church, Glens Falls, New York and shall not be altered, re-purposed, published or preached without permission. All rights reserved.

^[1] Gretchen Peters, Hiraeth. How to find our way back, The Oxford American, Issue 119, Winter 2022. Accessed at https://oxfordamerican.org/magazine/issue-119-winter-2022/hiraeth.