God erupts out of heaven and pours out onto the earth.

 +For years I dismissed the hymn “In the Bleak Midwinter.” But then I heard Annie Lennox’s version on her album Christmas Cornucopia.Her rendition is haunting,  and the words hit me as being so very honest, that I now listen to “In the Bleak Mid-Winter” year ‘round and have even used it as part of a Holy Week meditation. I’m grateful to Christina Rosetti, the English poet who penned the words to the hymn in the 19th century and to Annie Lennox who got me to listen to it anew in the 21st.
My favorite line, and the one that summarizes my theology of Christmas well is this:  
“Our God, Heaven cannot hold “Him” nor earth sustain.”
God is so huge, so massive, so untamed that the very essence of God—-the pure Divinity of that being, cannot be held in check.
The Love and Light of all that is good in heaven and on earth cannot be contained, secured or held back. On this most Holy of Nights, God erupts out of heaven and pours out onto the earth.
In a barn.
In Bethlehem.
To a human mother.
Born. In the regular way---with the pain and the muck and the terror and the unspeakable, incomprehensible joy,
 GOD has come to dwell among us.
God has arrived as a squawking, hungry baby.
This evening in Batavia New York and beyond God has, once again arrived…as a vulnerable little being, neediing nurture, care and Love.
On this Holy night, God has descended from the heavenly throne to meet us right where we are.
In the Bleak Midwinter.
In Western New York.
In our hearts and throughout our souls,
God has arrived.
Here and Now, JUST AS WE ARE, God has come to us.
You who may only be here because your grandmother, grandfather, parent, sibling, spouse expects that you will—at least once or twice a year—attend church. God has come because of you.
You who may be a faithful attendee of church but who, if you’re honest, doesn’t even know what you believe anymore, God has come. For you, because of you, with you.
You who have so much fear, so much loss, so much doubt, God has come. Here and Now.
To be with you.
To be for you,
To be in you
To Be.
Here and Now
In the reality of our lives right now God, as God does time and again, God has come to be with us.
In the bleak midwinter our God, the God for you, the God for me, the God for everyone everywhere, always and forever, has come because neither Heaven can hold this God, nor can Earth sustain.
So on this holy night our God bridges the here and now with the always and forever.
On this Holy Night, during our regular lives, full of hope and joy, full of doubt and despair, full of wonder and wander, God has come.
Not to judge.
Or to destroy
No, on this Holy Night, in this mid winter and in this place, God has broken into the world because God cannot stay away from us.
For God so loved the world that God came to be among us as Jesus the Christ.
God has broken free of heaven to roam this earth because God wants us.
May we want God as well.
Merry Christmas and Amen.