Christmas Eve & Christmas Day

Christmas is alive in us!
​Rev. Jennifer Masada - St. Augustine’s Episcopal Church - Kapa’au, Hawai'i
December 24 & 25, 2025 - Christmas Eve & Christmas Day, Year A
Isaiah 9:2-7; Titus 2:11-14; Psalm 96; Luke 2:1-14(15-20)

​Ever-present God, you are always coming to us as light of love. Open our hearts to receive the love being born in us this holy night. Amen.

Tonight, we began our service by asking for wisdom. We chanted E Ho Mai—give forth knowledge from above—to clear our minds and open our hearts to the Divine wisdom that comes from all of creation.

With our hearts open, we realize Christmas is more than a story we tell once a year. Tonight’s story tells us something essential about our Creator: God chooses human flesh, human hearts, human lives. Christmas is a story that is alive, and we are invited to enter it. 

As we enter the story, we see Mary carrying the light of the Christ Child in her body. We see Joseph choosing love over fear. And we see God entrusting the healing of the world to ordinary people like us who are willing to say “yes” to being the light of love.

In church language, this is what we mean when we talk about incarnation: WE are the light of love. Divine Light is seeded in human flesh. Love is written into our DNA. Christ doesn’t merely hover above us, Christ consciousness dwells within us—waiting to be expressed. “I am in you, and you are in me,” Christ says.

Tonight, in this sacred place, we see such symbolism all around us, woven into what we experience here. The candles of our Advent wreath remind us that we are made to carry “the light that holds all hope, peace, joy, and love—the Holy Light of the Christ Child.”

When we share the bread and the cup during communion, we will sing Ho’omanao I Au, remembering Christ’s words: “I am in you and you are in me.” “I am Love and I am Peace.” We are invited to carry that truth with us into the world. And the beautiful truth is that each of us shares Divine Love in a different way, making love more diverse and stronger in its expression! 

This is how the light grows - through us. It begins inside us—in our thoughts, our feelings, our intentions. And then it radiates outward in how we speak, how we listen, how we respond to those around us, and how we care for a world that longs for healing.

In tonight's story, the shepherds did not bring power or certainty to the manger. They brought their presence. The angels did not give instructions for control. They sang of peace. And the child in the manger did not arrive to demand anything. He arrived to invite us into love. This is how God comes into the world. Not with force, but with vulnerability, humility, and love. A child is born, not in a palace, but in a stable. Not to dominate the world, but to dwell in it through us.

A friend recently told me about a moment of wisdom offered by one of her young daughter’s friends. He said, simply, “Every time you love, you are creating NEW love that never existed before.” That single sentence captures the heart of Christmas.

“Every time you love, you are creating NEW love that never existed before.”

Love does not run out. The light of love is never used up. Think of it: there is more love in the universe today than there was yesterday! Each act of kindness, each moment of patience, each choice to stay tender in a hard world creates more love in the fabric of creation. That is what “God’s infinite love” means!

That is why, later tonight, we will share the light. One candle to another. One heart to another. The flame of love is not fragile or limited; it multiplies as we share it. 
So tonight, rest in the Christmas wisdom of love working inside you. You do not need to have everything figured out. You only need openness. Openness to the possibility that something holy and magical is being born in you—right now.

The light has come. God’s infinite love has taken flesh. And every time you love, you create new love that has never existed before.

Let us stand to sing about this love in our hymn, “Love came down at Christmas!”