"Offer Jesus the Manger of your Heart" - Sermon for Christmas Eve & Midnight, 12-24-25

Most every week, in my priest’s kit, I take a long walk at night. I travel through the Upper and Lower Haight, the Tenderloin, South of Market; and occasionally I wander into Union Square, Chinatown, and North Beach. It gets dark early in these last days, which makes places with the lights on really stand out. I see into well-appointed homes, decorated for Christmas. Pubs and restaurants filled with festive-sweatered holiday revelers mixing with the regulars. Shops hopeful for trade enough to eke out a year-end profit.

And I see onto the sidewalks, alleyways, and doorways in the harder-edged districts. Lights are on here, too – not the warm lights of cozy celebration, but the harsh white glare of spot, street, and security lights, accented by the red and blue strobes perched atop empty, parked police cars. Unpleasant, unwelcome lights, meant to move people along from where they’re not wanted.

We take lights in the nighttime for granted, until they go dark without notice, like they did in last weekend’s power outage in much of the city. But for most of human history, nighttime was dark for most people most of the time. Wealthy people might afford wax candles and fuel for lamps and lanterns, but folks who scrimped for every shekel, shilling, or cent made-do with daylight.

I wonder what the lighting-options were for that young couple traveling from Nazareth to Bethlehem? Lighted inns were out – there were no rooms to be had. They ended up, we’re told, in a shed or a stable or a stony cave – wherever an animal’s feedbox was to be found. Livestock don’t need the lights on, and barns aren’t the safest spots for open flames, anyway. Jesus likely was born in darkness. An easy enough transition for the infant’s eyes, I reckon: from a dark womb to a dark room.

Then Jesus saw the light; later he and others claimed he was the light. Darkness is a spiritual symbol of where bad things, fearful things happen. God showed up in Jesus to overcome the darkness, to shine and to save us from sin.

But I think – in these dark days, and in these fearful times – I think it’s helpful to recall that God started off God’s incarnate humanity in the dark.

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That said, and near as we can tell, Jesus liked a good meal and good company; bad company, too, what with prostitutes and tax collectors and all. Jesus would have made himself right at home in the warm lights of cozy celebration that I see in my night-walks. If you’re blessed enough, lucky enough, to keep the holidays this way, trust that Jesus is among you. If you’re not sure, take a moment to say a prayer and invite him.

Jesus doesn’t have to wait for an invitation to show up among the people suffering in plain sight on some of the streets I walk at night. He’s there – he told us so – in the hungry and the thirsty, the sick and the imprisoned, the homeless and the hopeless. And – and – more often than not, these are the people among whom Jesus did his best work. Jesus is comfortable in the dark. It’s where he got his start, remember?

Now, if you’re anything like me, you have some dark doorways and lonely alleys in your soul that you can’t help but direct the harsh white glare of guilt and shame at. Such fears occupy our thoughts, and they crowd out compassion and mercy and love.

So if there’s no room in the inn of your mind, then offer Jesus the manger of your heart. Let the One who started in darkness find rest in your darkness. Let the One who is the Light of the world gradually fill you, just as our ancestors awaited the approaching dawn to overcome their nighttime and signal a new day. Give the newborn Son of God yourself as his humble home. He’s waiting for you, even now.

Merry Christmas!

Father Daniel S.J. Scheid, SCP

Christmas Eve – December 24, 2025

All Saints’ Episcopal Church, San Francisco

“Offer Jesus the Manger of your Heart”