I'll Be in Church for Christmas
by Rev. Dr. Cornel Todeasa

Some years back while I was a fresh immigrant, every time I heard the song I'll Be Home for Christmas I felt terribly homesick and outright guilty.  I felt homesick, because my home was still in my village in Romania and I knew that I could not be there for Christmas.  I felt very guilty for not being with my parents, with my brother and sister, and with the other people I loved in my village.  I was longing for the home where unto us Christ was born many years ago.  This feeling continued and stayed with me even after I had started my family here in America.

Our home for Christmas is our parents' home for a long time in our lives, and maybe, in a subtle and subdued way, for the rest of our lives.  That home is the place where we grew up and where we felt secure and loved.

At some point in time, however, our homes become “home” and our own children will come to see us for Christmas.  Especially after our children have moved way, we wait with great joy to see them and to celebrate the birth of Christ together.

But even in this new situation, we are still ambivalent about what is our home.  We slowly sense that we have become a home, different from the home that we loved as a child and still miss.  And then our children themselves begin not to be home for Christmas, their new residences becoming the home for their children.  The time will come when we will leave our homes for Christmas, to travel to our children's homes.

That's the way life goes on with every Christmas.  No matter how old we are, we still desire to be home for Christmas.

There is a home, however, which has always been with me.  That home is my church.  And even when I was not in my village in Romania, there – in the church – I could come home for Christmas.  Besides our home where Christ should be born anew every year, we have the church where Christ is born for sure.

As a person who had a home for Christmas, and then missed that home until he made his own home for his children to come home to for Christmas, I understand the pains of those who don't have or can't be in a home for Christmas.

To all of them I say, come to church for Christmas.

The church is our true home for Christmas.  It becomes the stable in which our Lord is born on Christmas Day.  The cupola is the sky which shines with stars and with angels coming to announce, “Peace on earth, glory to God and good will among men.”

Our parents' home is not ours forever.  It is ours until we grow up and move on to build our own.  That one doesn't last forever either, but only until our children grow up and move on to their homes.  But the church is that place where we can always be “home” for Christmas during all the years of our lives.

Come, join me!  I'll be in church for Christmas.

Come, let us glorify God!  “This is our festival,” said St. Gregory of Nazianzus, “this we celebrate: God coming to man that man might go back to God our Father. Off with the old man, on with the new!  Once dead in Adam, now alive in Christ, born with Christ, crucified with Christ, buried with Christ, risen with Christ.”

* from "Glad Tidings" Bulletin (December 2009) of St. Dimitrie Romanian Orthodox Church, Easton/Bridgeport CT