Christmas Eve in our Christian calendar marks the end of the Advent season, a time of reflection and contemplation, and heralds in the season of Christmastide, twelve days when we celebrate the symbolic birth of Jesus the Christ, around whose way of love, we gather. And we have just passed through the Winter solstice, the longest night in the year where we live, and a very real reminder of the astonishing complexity of this blue orb we are privileged to call home.   

So, here is our Sabbath Story, our mystical Lukean telling in scripture and song.  It is the story of a couple who slipped through the heavy net of imperial conquest to offer us a view of God as subversive, hidden, surprising, right here in our midst in a way we could not imagine. It is a story of choosing love in the midst of adversity. And that courageous choice, then, and now, always heralds the singing of angels and a joyfulness that echoes through time.