After months of, for the children among us, waiting, and for the parents and other adults among us, pondering, shopping, scurrying, and worrying, the big night is upon us:  Christmas Eve.  For some, it will be just another night; for others, a time of deep familial connections; for still others, a night of profound religiosity; and for some, perhaps a combination of the two or three.  Whatever the case may be, Christmas Eve is a night that resonates in our inner and cultural imaginations.  It's a night apart.
     Why?  Consider the words of the old hymn that, "The hopes and fears of all the years are met in Thee [Jesus] tonight."  We all have hopes, we all have fears.  Some delight us, some overwhelm us.  Some amaze us.  Christmas Eve remembers and commemorates a night in which God, the loving and transcendent God, in the person of Jesus, enveloped, reconciled, conquered, and resolved them.  Whatever we hope for, and whatever we fear, in Jesus we find their meaning, trajectory, and resolution.  There is nothing more we need.
     Of course, we will continue to nurture hopes, and we will continue to experience fears.  We're still human.  But Christmas Eve tells us that we need wait no longer to know what life's hopes and fears, with all their challenges, frustrations, wonders, and curiosities, ultimately mean.
     God has come.