St. Paul's Memorial Church - St. Paul's Memorial Church, Charlottesville, VA

Welcome, friends, welcome.  I’m so glad you’re here tonight!

We are gathered together for something very special and very important.  WE are here to celebrate the birth of Our Lord Jesus!!  The bible story we just heard tells us that this is good news for all people.

Why is this such good news?  Well, God who created the heavens and the earth,  loved his creation very much.  Whenever his people and animals and earth were healthy and happy, God was happy.  Whenever his people and animals and earth were hurting, God was hurting too.  God sent many women and men to tell the people how much God loved them – they were called prophets.

There came a time when God wanted to be able to show his love in a way that his people could see and feel it.  It’s kind of like when you know your parents or grandparents love you, they like to show it by giving you a hug, or smiling at you, or taking care of you when you are sick.  Well, God wanted to be able to care for us and show us how much he loves us, so decided to come to us as a person, and he came as a baby.

The people were very surprised that this great King, the King of the whole creation, would decide to come and be with us as a little baby.  This little baby would grow up and become a boy and then a man.   Because Jesus was a man, he could know what it’s like to feel the wind on his face and eat good food, and have friends.  Because Jesus was also God, he could heal people when they were sick, and guide them with his wise words.

During his life, Jesus gave his friends instructions, and those are written down in the Holy Bible.  He told them and he tells us, that whenever we take care of someone, we are taking care of Jesus.  Whenever we give food to someone who is hungry, or a coat to someone who is cold, or even a drink of water to someone who is thirsty, we do these things for Jesus.  He loves us so much, that we can’t help loving others – it just overflows from inside us!  This is the joy we feel tonight as Christmas comes.

No doubt Mary and Joseph were also excited about this great news.  They had to travel from their home to Bethlehem right about the time Jesus was to be born…Look, here they come now!!  Let’s take our animals and go with Mary and Joseph on their journey!