Today we are honoring this beautiful season celebrating the birth of Jesus the Christ of Nazareth as we awaken and reveal Christ Consciousness in humanity. This season’s universal holistic message of light and love gives us reason to celebrate all life, every day with every breath.
I love the Christmas story and have never grown tired of hearing it. Over the years my appreciation of this story has changed with new awareness and understanding. As adults we see with a new perception, new eyes, a new revelation.
It has been documented for many years that the stories of Jesus were handed down by story tellers and various people who wanted to keep the message of the man Jesus alive. There was good reason.
Story telling is an art and metaphors are important to keep the story alive, colorful and meaningful. There was a great selection period of what stories to keep and tell and what stories to discard. The day and month of the birth of Jesus is not known. December 25 was a good choice to celebrate Jesus’ birth, 3 days after the Winter Solstice thus including the traditions of the Winter Solstice.
An interesting observation, something of a surprise to me, is that some other people before Jesus’ time on earth who were considered to be of extraordinary, were said to be born of a virgin, thus emphasizing the importance of the person. Being born of a virgin also is a way of telling us that this great person came from purity and therefore is pure.
Bishop Sponge tells us that no man in his right mind would allow his pregnant wife that is close to giving birth, ride on a donkey for over 100 miles to a place where women were not allowed at that time…a place to pay taxes… and then have her stay in a stable to give birth.
What is important is that Jesus was enlightened man who showed us as beautiful, radical way of life in his day. He did this by his example in living, his words of compassion, integrity and wisdom, and his demonstration of his relationship with God. He was a healer of mind and body recognizing the power of thoughts, feelings, our words and actions and, most important, our connection with God.
It appears that here have always been people who understood the metaphysical meaning of the story of the birth of Jesus, the birth of Christ Consciousness within.
Today I will share with you a metaphysical story of the birth of Christ… a Christmas Celebration.

CHRISTMAS METAPHYSICAL READING
And it comes to pass, as it must at some time for all people, that there is sent out a decree from the heart that all the world of effects be examined. And all must go, each into his or her own city, where no other may enter; the realm of the human mind, which is Bethlehem, crowded with random thoughts, confusion and questions, where there has been no peace, no room to give birth to the Christ Consciousness.
But it is meant that your days should be accomplished, and so with Joseph, your inner strength, and Mary, your soul of love, carrying the infant knowing of your Christ potential, you enter the den of Bethlehem, and seek shelter in the stable, your Center of Light. In this holy, complete Light, you bring forth the first-born knowing of your Christ potential, and your heart becomes a manger to nurture the power of Truth born for you this day.
And there are, in the same country of your mind, shepherds, which are your intuition and feeling, and which keep watch over your thoughts in the darkness of unknowing.
And lo! The angel of the Lord, you inner Guidance, speaks unto you, and the Glory and the Truth of your Being, shine as a great Light all around. But be not afraid of you intuition, for it speaks of great joy that shall be to all people, for into your conscious awareness this day is born a Savior, your Christ Consciousness, the consciousness of God within. And it is to be a sign unto you that forever you shall find this Consciousness cradled within the manager of your heart. Your intuition and your multitude of feeling shall sing Glory to the power of Truth in your Highest Knowing, and on the earth of your daily affairs, you shall know Peace, and Goodwill toward all people.
And when this inner Guidance seems to leave you and you enter again the busyness of Bethlehem, make haste to seek the soul of love and the inner strength which abide with the infant-knowing of your Christ Consciousness.
And when Herod, that part of your ego which is opposed to the new, and still clings to the old beliefs, hears these things, it may become troubled, and seek to gather evidence that this Christ does not exist. But follow the star, the Light of Truth within, whose Source is both external and internal, and come again to the stable, the Center of Light, and present those gifts which are of Spirit: Gold, for the Richness of Life; Frankincense, for the Beauty of Life; Myrrh, for the Eternality of Life. And be reminded by your conviction, that when you leave this Center of Light, even for a moment, you depart into the world of effects by a different door of awareness. For when you have experienced the birth of the Christ within, there is no returning to your previous level of consciousness.

You have been given a gift…an affirmation with a word written on it. This word and affirmation are especially for you with a personal message.

As I light a candle I will speak a word. Everyone who has this word please say the affirmation with me.
1. Life…I let my life convey my awareness of the pattern of perfection at the center of my being. I can hear the indwelling Christ saying, “I am the way. I am the life.”
2. Love… I discover the manger place in my own soul and feel the unconditional love of the Christ. I affirm that I am allowing the God-Self to express through me.
3. Light… I remember to radiate the light of the Christ in me, in all my pursuits, despite appearances and circumstances.
I proclaim that the Father-Mother God and I are one!
4. Power…Power is initiated in my daily living when I am solidly rooted in my spiritual identity and practice. This is the secret of a meaningful life and the answer to all prayer. I feel the power of God’s healing nature being revealed in me.
5. Beauty… God-in-me is mightier that any circumstance as I behold the beauty of what God has created for me. This truth will set me free as I forgive myself and accept the beauty of God’s perfection in me now and always.
6. Joy…I renew and experience the spirit of joy by recognizing the Christ presence within. Joy is the most infallible sign of the love of God and I proclaim the joy of my own rebirth of God Consciousness and behold its transforming glory.
7. Peace…With love and gratitude I am acknowledging the birth of the Christ in my human heart. This is a creative process revealing the understanding of myself as a child of Life and a joint heir to all that the pure Spirit has.

WILLIAM COMES UP WITH ME
Rev. Nancy: Ernest Holmes wrote these words about this holiday.
"Christmas is here, and again we are celebrating the greatest event of history...the incarnation of the living Spirit in you and in me.
Jesus was the great example and not the great exception. Everything he taught and everything he did was to provide a lesson for all time: that one man with God is a majority. As we again light a candle in our minds to his memory and rededicate our hearts to the service of humanity, let us keep this in mind, Jesus was the great lover of people. He was the one who revealed that the heart of the Eternal is most wonderfully kind..."

William: Ernest Holmes continued, "We, too, are shepherds watching our thoughts and ideas, our faiths and fears, our failures and successes in life. We, too, need Divine guidance to lead us in the pathway of the good road. We all are listening earnestly, deeply, and sincerely to the voice of the angel of our better selves, the God-child wrapped in swaddling clothes and laid in the manager of our own hearts. We all need an awakening..."

Rev. Nancy: The wise men, guided by this heavenly light, came to the place where the little child lay, "And when they were come into the house, they saw the young child with Mary his mother, and fell down and worshiped him; and when they had opened their treasures they presented unto him gifts; gold, and frankincense, and myrrh."
We, too, like the wise men of old, wish to follow the star and discover the secret of life. We, too, wish to lay our gifts of love and adoration at the feet of the little child. How are we going to do this? We cannot go back two thousand years in time. But we can follow the same light that guided the wise men and we can find the child, who already is within us, and we can adore the Presence of God in each other...

William: It is joy that brings us together today. As we continue our Christmas Service let us unite in consciousness to reveal the birth of Light and Love within our own hearts. We were born to be conscious, to know that our true nature is that of the Divine within us...our perfect, loving Self which is the Christ.

Rev. Nancy: Ernest Holmes wrote, "As the human gives way to the Divine, in all people, they become the Christ. In the case of Jesus, there was such a surrendering of an isolated will, that a greater incarnation of the Divine took place."
Science of Mind, page 111-1112

We now take this into prayer. ***

Nancy Whitson Kandel is the Spiritual Leader of the Pittsburgh Center for Spiritual Living. She has a MA in Education and a MA in Consciousness Studies with Homes Institute, CA