A Justice-Seeking Christmas Eve
From your friends at Methodist Federation for Social Action
Dear Justice-Seeking friends,
On this Christmas Eve, we send you love, peace, and deep gratitude. As we gather in many places and carry many emotions, the story we remember tonight is rooted in courage, welcome, and the relentless hope of people longing for justice. May this night strengthen your spirit, ground you in community, and remind you that the work we share continues to make room for all. We offer this Christmas Eve prayer as a companion for the night, a reminder that the Christmas story still speaks into the struggles and hopes of our world today.
A Christmas Eve Prayer from MFSA
Love who takes on flesh,
who chooses a body, a family, a place and time,
we gather on Christmas Eve with candles and questions,
with hope that flickers and hearts that still insist on beating.
You were born into an occupied land,
to parents who knew fear and uncertainty,
in a world that protects the powerful
and shut its doors on the poor.
You have always known how it feels
to be turned away,
to be told there is no room.
So tonight we remember:
you come first to the forgotten hospital bed,
the overcrowded shelter,
the prison cell,
the protest line,
the border crossing,
the flooded neighborhood,
the quiet room where someone wonders
if their life matters to anyone at all.
Child of Peace,
be born again wherever violence is called “order,”
where repression masquerades as “religious freedom,”
where the state targets protestors, immigrants, workers,
and queer and trans youth.
Child of Justice,
be born again in every movement
that refuses to accept that this is the best we can do,
in every voice that says “No more,”
in every person that shows up,
in every tired organizer who still writes one more email,
makes one more call,
lights one more candle in the dark.
Child of Love,
be born again in us:
in our questions and our anger,
in our grief and our courage,
in our queer, trans, Black, brown, disabled,
immigrant, poor, and hidden lives—
in every person that has been told
they are too much or not enough.
On this night, let the story be more than nostalgia.
Let it be a map.
Show us how to say “yes” like Mary,
how to dream like Joseph,
how to sing like the angels,
how to run toward good news like the shepherds,
how to refuse fear’s last word like the midwives
who have always kept new life alive.
May the manger remind us
that you do not wait for perfect conditions,
for perfect people,
or for a perfect church.
You arrive in the mess,
in the conflict,
in the unfinished struggle—
and you call that place holy.
On this Christmas Eve,
give us stubborn hope,
tender hearts,
and the kind of faith
that looks like showing up for one another.
Let your birth be our marching orders:
to protect life,
to dismantle what harms,
to build what heals,
to love without exclusion,
until every person can say,
“I have found room here.
I am home.”
Amen.