Here is a traditional Advent Circle of four candles - "Advent" meaning "coming." The meaning it's acquired in our culture is the coming of Christmas, waiting through the four weeks of December for Christmas Day to arrive, waiting (as traditional language would have it) for the Child to be born. Often, the lighting of the four candles takes place on each of the four Sundays before December 25, but this morning we're going to light them all. I'd like the help of four of you, sitting conveniently close, in lighting the candles as I say the words which go with each of them.

First, the candle of faith - faith in ourselves and our children and the good that is in all people. ---------, would you light the candle of faith for us, please?

Let this candle stand for our faith in humanity and in the goodness at the heart of the universe.

Next, the candle of hope. -------------, would you light the candle of hope for us, please?

Let this candle stand for all the ideals and aspirations that have given light to people in times of darkness, that have given strength and courage to us and all people in times of trouble and defeat.

The third candle is the candle of love. -----------, would you light the candle of love for us, please?

Let this candle stand for all the tenderness, kindness, affection, forgiveness and glory that we have ever known and still hope to know.

And the fourth candle is the candle of joy, encompassing all the faith and hope and love that is in us and will be in the lives of our children and our future. ----------------, would you light the candle of joy for us, please?

Let this candle, and the whole Advent circle, stand for all the wonders untold of this season, for through our joy we see the glory of life and find peace in our hearts and in the world.

As any child in our culture knows, this time of year is filled with anticipation and waiting for the days to go by. Even for those of us who think of ourselves as adults, and who may be burdened by a sense of how much needs to be done before the holidays can be enjoyed, there's a sense of expectation and looking forward.

This morning I'd like to explore with you our hopes for the birth of beautiful things, our faith that peace is possible, our commitment to making the Christmas spirit "incarnate, "which means "embodied," in our lives. I'm going to take advantage of the fact that we're a relatively small group, because of the intergenerational candlelight service tonight, to do what we can't do often these days - incorporate some of your responses into the service itself, rather than waiting for discussion afterwards.

I'll begin with part of a poem by Richard Gilbert, the long-time Minister of the Unitarian Church in Rochester, New York, called "A Mood of Expectancy".

The earth has turned once more in its accustomed way,
And again our footsteps quicken . . . in a mood of expectancy.
What we are to expect, we do not know.
The least surprises are hidden beneath paper and ribbon;
The great surprises are the magic that happens
Whether we will it or not.

There is a mood of expectancy,
And the beauty is -- we do not know what to expect!
Tomorrow is an open door,
An untraveled journey,
An untouched feast.

This season is like that . . .
For out of the birth of the humblest babe
May come one of the great prophets of the human spirit,
And out of each of us, proud or humble,
May yet come truth and beauty and goodness we cannot now imagine.

This is well worth considering, I think: that just as out of the birth of the humblest babe may come one of the great prophets of the human spirit, so out of each of us, proud or humble, may yet come truth and beauty and goodness we cannot now imagine. Parents-to-be, expecting a child, even if with the wonders of ultrasound and fetal monitoring they know much about the physical facts of their baby, know next to nothing about the personality waiting to be born. We may know something about the limits of our capacities, talents, energy and so on, yet I suggest we can hardly imagine what could really be born from us if we gave our full attention, in expectancy, to what we might birth and nurture. Let me ask you now to ponder this for a few moments - and perhaps you may want to respond at the end of my talk - :

What, in you, is waiting to be born?

One of our well-known Christmas carols, "It Came Upon the Midnight Clear," is unusual in stressing the importance of telling the story of Jesus' birth, rather than focusing on the content of the story. Last Sunday I talked a little about this, and I'm reminded (in the context of today's theme) of the relationship between giving birth and telling the story. Any woman expecting her first child is inundated by birth stories, and although they can be overwhelming, they're also very helpful. One of our own members was relating recently that she'd wondered how, with her small pelvic structure, she could hope successfully to birth what was obviously going to be a big baby.

"It's been done," said her doctor! We need to know that, with our own birthing endeavours, when projects and plans seem too big for our small capacities. As Edmund Sears, the Unitarian writer of that Christmas carol reminded us, Jesus' birth, or any other birth, never will miraculously transform the world into a peaceful place. No, the transformation of the world waits for people who will pay attention to the song and its story, who will tell it themselves, and who will give birth to peace by their own efforts and labour. It's by listening for the way that a song or a story sings to us that we achieve the power to transform the world and enable miracles to happen.

What might this congregation be able to give birth to, if we weren't so worried about how big the baby is and how long the labour might be?

Last year, at the Intergenerational Candlelight Service, Marnie Morrow read a story from Unitarian Robert Fulghum's book, All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten. The message of her reading was about how the birth of a Saviour, or of a new spirit of hope, can happen in the most unlikely circumstances or disguise. For those of you who may have missed that service, or who would like to hear it again, here's the reading:

A Sunday afternoon it was, some days before Christmas. With rain, with wind, with cold. Wintersgloom. Things-to-do list was long and growing like an unresistant mold. Temper: short. Bio-index: negative. Horoscope reading suggested caution. And the Sunday paper suggested dollars, death, and destruction as the day's litany. O tidings of comfort and joy, fa la la la la!

This holy hour of Lordsdaybliss was jarred by a pounding at the door. Now what? Deep sigh. Opening it, resigned to accept whatever bad news lies in wait, I am nonplussed. A rather small person in a cheap Santa Claus mask, carrying a large brown paper bag outthrust: "TRICK OR TREAT!" Santa Mask shouts. What? "TRICK OR TREAT!" Santa Mask hoots again. Tongue-tied, I stare at this apparition. He shakes the bag at me, and dumbly I fish out my wallet and find a dollar to drop into the bag. The mask lifts, and it is an Asian kid with a ten-dollar grin taking up most of his face. "Wanta hear some carolling?" he asks.

I know him now. He belongs to a family settled into the neighborhood by the Quakers last year. Refugees. He stopped by at Halloween with his sisters and brothers, and I filled their bags. Hong Duc is his name - he's maybe eight. At Halloween he looked like a Wise Man, with a bathrobe on and a dish towel around his head.

"Wanta hear some caroling?"

I nod, envisioning an octet of urchin refugees hiding in the bushes ready to join their leader in uplifted song. "Sure; where's the choir?"

"I'm it," says he. And he launched forth with an up-tempos chorus of "Jingle Bells" at full lung power. This was followed by an equally enthusiastic rendering of what I swear sounded like "Hark, the Hairy Angels Sing." And finally, a soft-voiced, reverential singing of "Silent Night." Head back, eyes closed, from the bottom of his heart he poured out the last strains of "Sleep in heavenly peace" into the gathering night.

Wet-eyed, dumbstruck by his performance, I pulled a five-dollar bill out of my wallet and dropped that into the paper bag. In return he produced half a candy cane from his pocket and passed it solemnly to me. Flashing the ten-dollar grin, he turned and ran from the porch, shouted "GOD BLESS YOU," and "TRICK OR TREAT" and was gone . . .

Trick or treat! After I shut the door, came near-hysteria - laughter and tears and that funny feeling you get when you know that once again Christmas has come to you. Right down the chimney of my midwinter hovel comes Saint Hong Duc. He is confused about the details, like me, but he is very clear about the spirit of the season. It's an excuse to let go and celebrate - to throw yourself into Holiday with all you have, wherever you are. "I'm it," says he. Where's Christmas? I ask myself. I'm it, comes the echo. I'm it. Head back, eyes closed, voice raised in whatever song I can muster the courage to sing.

God, it is said, once sent a child upon a starry night, that the world might know hope and joy. I am not sure that I quite believe that, or that I believe in all the baggage heaped upon that story during two thousand years. But I am sure that I believe in Hong Duc, the one-man Christmas choir, shouting "trick or treat!" door to door. I don't know who or what sent him. But I know I am tricked through the whimsical mischief of fate into joining the choir that sings of joy and hope. Through a child, I have been treated to Christmas.

Ponder for a moment the thought that this holiday season is, as Fulghum says, "an excuse to let go and celebrate - to throw yourself into Holiday with all you have, wherever you are." Ponder, too, that what is waiting to be born is hardly ever exactly what we're expecting - never looks identical to either parent, often shows characteristics we'd never have imagined (good or bad), and is generally surprising. In fact, if a parent has too rigid an idea of how their child will turn out, it's likely to get in the way of the birth of something unique and wonderful. It may be that a heart which is open to possibility, and not too tied to a sense of what ought to be, is a heart in which joy is most likely to be born.

What are the expectations and hopes you have which might be getting in the way of the surprise which is waiting to be born into your life?

And now, let's take a little time to share with each other, to the extent that we wish, some of the responses that our hearts have made to the questions I've asked you to ponder. Let me remind you what those questions were:

What, in you, is waiting to be born?

What might this congregation be able to give birth to, if we weren't so worried about how big the baby is and how long the labour might be?

What are the expectations and hopes you have which might be getting in the way of the surprise which is waiting to be born into your life?

Advent, it has been rightly said, is the season of the unborn. Each of us nurtures some promise that wants to be born, something in us that can help us become who we are meant to be. Yes, this is the time of the unborn, of what is waiting to be born. It's a time of yearning for life, of hunger for something more, a time to nurture in us that which yearns to burst forth. A time for dreams waiting to be born. May you find the courage and the strength to prepare the way so that, when your time comes, you can give birth to a new spirit in your life.