[Transcript of video]

Goudy here and I bring you greetings from Metropolitan Community Church of the Lehigh Valley in Bethlehem, PA, USA where I have the honor of serving as pastor and I also have the honor of serving Metropolitan Community Churches as Elder. 

Prayers for all God’s people to experience a glorious Christmas Eve.

There is the beautiful song that many churches sing on this night and it is titled: "O Holy Night:”

O holy night, 

The stars are brightly shining

It is the night of our dear Savior's birth

What does it mean to be holy?

To be holy is to be set apart for God

To be holy is not to consider oneself better than anyone, that’s being “holier than thou.”

Again, to be holy is to be set apart for God, to separate oneself out from ordinary awareness and to enter into spiritual awareness.

I will never forget one of the sermons of the founder of Metropolitan Community Churches.

Rev. Troy Perry was preaching about God’s love for LGBT people and I was still pretty new to MCC, so it was probably sometime in the late 1990s.

During his sermon, Rev. Perry shared a piece of scripture from chapter 2 of the First Letter of Peter:

“But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s own people, in order that you may proclaim the mighty acts of One who called you out of the shadows into God’s marvelous light.

Once you were not a people, but now you are God’s people.”

That day, without a doubt, it was confirmed to me through Rev. Perry’s sermon that LGBT people were holy, that MCC was holy, that we were a people called to proclaim God’s mighty acts. While we may not have been a people, we were now God’s people and we were expected to share God’s mercy and grace and justice and goodness and love.

This night is unlike any other night on the 364 other days of the year. It is holy and set apart. On this holy night, the Prince of Peace and Wonderful Counselor has broken through to our broken world, giving us renewal and hope. The Word became flesh and dwelt among us and we are not the same.

Through the Savior of the world God has called us, is calling us and will continue to call to MCC in the decades and centuries to come.

God says: you are my chosen ones, you are my people, you are holy and we are astonished and yet we say “Amen” and trust that it is so.