No, “cianalas” is not a word usually connected to Christmas, but it reminds me of Christmas.  In Scotland it is a Gaelic word that we have no direct translation for in English.  But it means a kind of longing for home and all that means.  It’s a yearning not just for a specific place but for a connection – to our roots, to family and to a spiritual connection that is more than just nostalgia.  It is not a sadness but a realization of what really matters.  It is a deep longing and a homesickness of the soul. 

This night, I will bet, brings back memories of home – whatever that was or wherever that was for you.  Christmas Eve calls to mind a feeling, a feeling maybe we don’t recall any other time except this night.   We can’t explain it fully, but we know we like it and we know it’s home.    Because our longing is not so much for a place or a time but for that feeling.  A sense that things made sense, that things will be alright, that goodness, in some way,  was going to overtake everything else.  Maybe that is what home is – a space where you can feel that way. 

Our lives can be a search for that sense, for home.  We search  in many ways and places.  But tonight is the great reminder that our trip to the manger,   is our trip home.  Because here God tells us that in the midst of all the things that go wrong and that get off center,  that he is there.  Tonight is the night that reminds us that God can still work his way through all that life can be, and show us the way home.  Christmas Eve is the night where God comes right into the middle of it all and says “it wasn’t a dream – I have come so that you might know you are not alone, no matter what surrounds you, no matter happens to you.  Your heart and soul can rest in that knowledge.”

Tonight is the reminder, the sign, that he lives and that he loves us and that he can work in ways that are beyond us.  Tonight is the news, the good news, that even when things seem so wrong, there is a way home.

Yes, we sometimes ache for ‘home’ – God knows how much we want to feel at home.  In what we share tonight, we are given a way back.  We stand outside the stable and through the crack of the doors, a sliver of light shines out into the darkness.  And that light is inviting us. –  saying  “Come in – come home – come and know how much you are loved”. 

Tonight we are given a gift.    A gift, a promise – a hope and a way back home. 

Friends, this is the night:

The night when heaven and earth are united.

The night when all things are possible.

The night we remember what we once knew.

The night we reclaim the hope that has always lived in our deepest hearts.

This is the night. 

Welcome home. Amen.