WEBVTT 1 00:00:06.270 --> 00:00:09.107 Because this is a university, 2 00:00:09.107 --> 00:00:11.407 most of the time 3 00:00:11.407 --> 00:00:15.690 people are here busy, growing up, 4 00:00:15.690 --> 00:00:20.681 becoming adults, becoming mature, big, 5 00:00:22.160 --> 00:00:25.811 but not tonight. 6 00:00:25.811 --> 00:00:30.811 Tonight this Holy Night, Christmas Eve, 7 00:00:30.950 --> 00:00:34.728 everyone feels young. 8 00:00:34.728 --> 00:00:39.080 Tonight everyone is given the ability 9 00:00:39.080 --> 00:00:44.080 to see the world again through five-year-old eyes. 10 00:00:45.850 --> 00:00:50.450 Tonight we come together 11 00:00:50.450 --> 00:00:52.420 over something so small 12 00:00:52.420 --> 00:00:57.420 and fragile and wondrous as a baby. 13 00:00:57.800 --> 00:01:01.810 Tonight surrounded by cyclotrons 14 00:01:01.810 --> 00:01:04.810 and millions of books in the library, 15 00:01:04.810 --> 00:01:09.810 and lasers and macroeconomics and hyperbaric chambers, 16 00:01:12.200 --> 00:01:17.200 this whole great big university world telescopes 17 00:01:17.650 --> 00:01:20.010 on the chapel. 18 00:01:20.010 --> 00:01:24.210 To focus everything in one moment 19 00:01:24.210 --> 00:01:29.210 on a small vulnerable baby, named Jesus. 20 00:01:30.669 --> 00:01:32.519 Emmanuel. 21 00:01:32.519 --> 00:01:37.316 God with us. 22 00:01:37.316 --> 00:01:41.403 Don't you find it interesting 23 00:01:41.403 --> 00:01:45.580 that when the great magnificent Lord of the universe, 24 00:01:45.580 --> 00:01:47.210 the one who hung the stars, 25 00:01:47.210 --> 00:01:50.090 who set the planets whirling in their courses, 26 00:01:50.090 --> 00:01:55.030 that when this great big God chose to come among us, 27 00:01:56.230 --> 00:01:58.240 as our scripture tonight has reminded us, 28 00:01:58.240 --> 00:02:00.470 He choose to come among us, 29 00:02:00.470 --> 00:02:05.380 something so small and vulnerable as a baby. 30 00:02:07.560 --> 00:02:10.461 And when that baby grew up, 31 00:02:10.461 --> 00:02:12.770 as Jesus told His disciples, 32 00:02:12.770 --> 00:02:15.736 you cannot get into my Kingdom, 33 00:02:15.736 --> 00:02:18.327 unless you turn 34 00:02:18.327 --> 00:02:23.270 and become as a little child. 35 00:02:24.400 --> 00:02:29.400 Here is a strange Kingdom, with a very small door. 36 00:02:31.150 --> 00:02:32.810 You can't get in, Jesus says, 37 00:02:32.810 --> 00:02:36.685 if you're all grown up and adult. 38 00:02:36.685 --> 00:02:38.750 You cannot get in unless you can revert, 39 00:02:38.750 --> 00:02:42.620 unless you can turn and become as a little child. 40 00:02:42.620 --> 00:02:44.880 And that's good news, tonight, 41 00:02:44.880 --> 00:02:49.880 because this night has a way of making children of us all. 42 00:02:50.080 --> 00:02:55.080 We turn, we return, we revert 43 00:02:55.570 --> 00:02:58.070 and become as little children. 44 00:02:58.070 --> 00:03:00.258 That's rather amazing feat, 45 00:03:00.258 --> 00:03:05.258 here at a great big, all grown up university. 46 00:03:05.720 --> 00:03:07.360 Now I tell those of you who are young, 47 00:03:07.360 --> 00:03:09.730 that as you grow older, 48 00:03:09.730 --> 00:03:13.150 you are gonna find, most of you, 49 00:03:13.150 --> 00:03:17.068 that your vision gets worse. 50 00:03:17.068 --> 00:03:20.570 The day I became 40, I noticed I couldn't see things 51 00:03:20.570 --> 00:03:22.260 quite so clearly. 52 00:03:22.260 --> 00:03:25.500 I thought it was sort of a psychological reaction. 53 00:03:25.500 --> 00:03:27.440 I went to Doctor Mitchell, over at the Eye Center, 54 00:03:27.440 --> 00:03:32.432 and he says no, this is, we call a geriatric, 55 00:03:32.432 --> 00:03:35.800 in other words, your muscles are getting weak in your eyes. 56 00:03:35.800 --> 00:03:37.410 Your eye is getting rigid. 57 00:03:37.410 --> 00:03:42.068 It can no longer focus. You need glasses. 58 00:03:42.068 --> 00:03:44.320 That's what happens to you, when you get all grown up. 59 00:03:44.320 --> 00:03:47.070 Sometimes you just can't see, 60 00:03:47.070 --> 00:03:52.070 as well as you could see when you were young. 61 00:03:52.750 --> 00:03:57.400 The older we become, the less our eyes are able to focus 62 00:03:57.400 --> 00:04:02.167 on the small and the wondrous 63 00:04:02.167 --> 00:04:07.042 and the delicate. 64 00:04:08.720 --> 00:04:10.560 Remember those of you who are older, 65 00:04:10.560 --> 00:04:14.880 remember the first time you ever looked through a microscope 66 00:04:14.880 --> 00:04:19.880 and that sense of awe at that world which awaited you. 67 00:04:19.880 --> 00:04:23.280 Remember the first time you ever saw a circus 68 00:04:23.280 --> 00:04:27.120 or a Christmas parade. 69 00:04:27.120 --> 00:04:31.200 As we grow up, our eyes become dull, 70 00:04:31.200 --> 00:04:35.497 vision is lost 71 00:04:35.497 --> 00:04:40.497 and some of the edge dulls of our sense of wonder. 72 00:04:40.630 --> 00:04:43.385 But not tonight. 73 00:04:43.385 --> 00:04:45.330 Tonight everybody gets to look at the world 74 00:04:45.330 --> 00:04:47.020 through five-year-old eyes. 75 00:04:47.020 --> 00:04:49.070 Tonight we all at last, 76 00:04:49.070 --> 00:04:53.680 become obedient to Jesus's invitation to turn, 77 00:04:53.680 --> 00:04:57.710 to turn and become as little children 78 00:04:57.710 --> 00:05:02.483 and there by to enter His Kingdom of the small door. 79 00:05:04.300 --> 00:05:08.267 At the heart of this university is the belief 80 00:05:08.267 --> 00:05:09.860 that the only way to get smart, 81 00:05:09.860 --> 00:05:12.190 the only way to become wise is to grow up, 82 00:05:12.190 --> 00:05:15.630 to become adult and mature and big and independent 83 00:05:15.630 --> 00:05:20.630 and liberated and self-sufficient. 84 00:05:21.110 --> 00:05:26.070 At the heart of the Christian faith is the story 85 00:05:26.070 --> 00:05:29.900 that the only way to get wise is to become small, 86 00:05:29.900 --> 00:05:34.560 to turn, to return to vulnerability, the openness, 87 00:05:34.560 --> 00:05:39.040 the naivety of childhood, in short, 88 00:05:39.040 --> 00:05:42.890 to revert. 89 00:05:42.890 --> 00:05:47.613 As the babe at Bethlehem so often has a way of reminding us, 90 00:05:47.613 --> 00:05:52.613 none of us are as big and grown up and independent, 91 00:05:53.200 --> 00:05:57.536 and liberated and self-sufficient, as we like to think. 92 00:05:57.536 --> 00:06:01.440 We're all much more needy, dependent, small, vulnerable, 93 00:06:01.440 --> 00:06:04.953 than we admit, on the day of our graduation. 94 00:06:04.953 --> 00:06:09.951 We are children. 95 00:06:11.360 --> 00:06:14.129 Some anonymous author said it well, 96 00:06:14.129 --> 00:06:18.055 only half I think in humor. 97 00:06:18.055 --> 00:06:20.516 "Life is tough. 98 00:06:20.516 --> 00:06:23.750 "It takes almost all of your time. 99 00:06:23.750 --> 00:06:25.953 "All of your weekends. 100 00:06:25.953 --> 00:06:28.270 "And what do you get in the end of it? 101 00:06:28.270 --> 00:06:33.270 "A watch, a pat on the back from the boss? 102 00:06:33.320 --> 00:06:37.894 "I think that the life cycle is all backward. 103 00:06:37.894 --> 00:06:40.240 "You should have to die first, 104 00:06:40.240 --> 00:06:42.410 "get that unpleasantness out of the way, 105 00:06:42.410 --> 00:06:46.232 "and then you should live 20 years in an old age home. 106 00:06:46.232 --> 00:06:47.210 "You get kicked out 107 00:06:47.210 --> 00:06:50.020 "when you are to young to be there any more. 108 00:06:50.020 --> 00:06:53.540 "You get a gold watch and then you go to work. 109 00:06:53.540 --> 00:06:54.840 "You work for 40 years 110 00:06:54.840 --> 00:06:59.010 "until you're young enough to enjoy your retirement. 111 00:06:59.010 --> 00:07:01.180 "So you go to collage. 112 00:07:01.180 --> 00:07:03.954 "You party until you are ready now for high school. 113 00:07:03.954 --> 00:07:05.450 (laughter) 114 00:07:05.450 --> 00:07:07.950 "You go to grade school. You do nothing but play. 115 00:07:07.950 --> 00:07:12.950 "You become a little kid. You have no responsibilities. 116 00:07:13.180 --> 00:07:17.713 "Then you become a little baby. You go back into the womb. 117 00:07:17.713 --> 00:07:21.390 "You spend your last nine months floating 118 00:07:21.390 --> 00:07:24.841 "and you finish up as a gleam in somebody's eye." 119 00:07:24.841 --> 00:07:27.091 (laughter) 120 00:07:28.412 --> 00:07:30.380 For me the highlight of this service, 121 00:07:30.380 --> 00:07:32.980 during this Christmas Eve communion, 122 00:07:32.980 --> 00:07:37.245 is when we are all singing 123 00:07:37.245 --> 00:07:38.830 and at some point in the communion, 124 00:07:38.830 --> 00:07:41.302 there comes that point 125 00:07:41.302 --> 00:07:46.302 when we're singing maybe, "Away in a Manger" 126 00:07:46.840 --> 00:07:48.470 and for the first time in the evening, 127 00:07:48.470 --> 00:07:53.440 you can hear the children's voices over the adult voices. 128 00:07:54.570 --> 00:07:57.368 That's a special moment. 129 00:07:57.368 --> 00:08:00.350 Now there are probably musically better, 130 00:08:00.350 --> 00:08:04.960 more sophisticated hymns sung in this chapel, 131 00:08:04.960 --> 00:08:08.070 but at that moment there is nothing more right 132 00:08:08.070 --> 00:08:10.660 about the fact that we should be here 133 00:08:10.660 --> 00:08:14.530 and that the children should be leading us in this song. 134 00:08:14.530 --> 00:08:17.401 It's wonderful. 135 00:08:17.401 --> 00:08:19.750 And how appropriate that that should be sung 136 00:08:19.750 --> 00:08:22.130 at the moment when all of us are coming forward 137 00:08:22.130 --> 00:08:25.248 with our hands open and empty, 138 00:08:25.248 --> 00:08:28.430 ready to receive the body and blood of Christ. 139 00:08:28.430 --> 00:08:31.520 Ready to be fed, needy, dependent, 140 00:08:31.520 --> 00:08:34.010 just like little children, we have turned, 141 00:08:34.010 --> 00:08:38.150 we have returned, we have become as a child. 142 00:08:38.150 --> 00:08:41.870 And that basic childlike, open, receptive posture, 143 00:08:41.870 --> 00:08:46.870 Jesus says, is the only way you can get into His Kingdom. 144 00:08:47.570 --> 00:08:50.360 I used to teach Worship over at the Divinity School 145 00:08:50.360 --> 00:08:54.600 and while we were studying the theology of holy communion, 146 00:08:54.600 --> 00:08:56.977 the Eucharist, someone would always say, 147 00:08:56.977 --> 00:08:58.920 "Now how old should children be, 148 00:08:58.920 --> 00:09:03.587 before they are allowed to come to communion?" 149 00:09:03.587 --> 00:09:06.751 "Don't you think that they, they ought to be old enough?" 150 00:09:06.751 --> 00:09:11.750 "They ought to wait until they know what it really means." 151 00:09:12.920 --> 00:09:17.810 Fortunately I learned to answer, 152 00:09:17.810 --> 00:09:21.670 the body and blood of Jesus, 153 00:09:21.670 --> 00:09:26.506 should be served only to the young, 154 00:09:28.430 --> 00:09:32.150 because you can just never be to small 155 00:09:32.150 --> 00:09:36.715 to know what all this really means. 156 00:09:38.810 --> 00:09:43.810 Tonight, tonight, this Holy Night, little ones, 157 00:09:44.540 --> 00:09:48.110 even the most disastrously adult of us, 158 00:09:48.110 --> 00:09:51.142 has the good sense to know, 159 00:09:51.142 --> 00:09:55.940 here, this is what it really means. 160 00:10:00.370 --> 00:10:01.203 Amen.