Chicago Tribune (CT) - SATURDAY, December 25, 1993 Edition: NORTH SPORTS FINAL Section: NEWS Page: 1 Word Count: 837
Michael Hirsley, Tribune Religion Writer.

"Come Home for Christmas" is the theme of the spiritual message from United Methodist Bishop Sheldon Duecker, who heads the church's northern Illinois district.

An invitation to "worship with us" to "prepare yourself for the year to come" is offered by Bishop Herbert Chilstrom, national leader of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America.Bishop Iakovos, head of the Greek Orthodox Diocese of Chicago, said, "This year, we appeal to you and challenge you to go beyond the familiar past. Search for the truth that lies in the heart of Christmas."

Cardinal Joseph Bernardin, head of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Chicago, said, "Keeping Christmas alive is not simply a once-a-year or occasional task."

Let God "become part of our lives," he urged, adding, "God makes demands of us," including "that we substitute his values for ours."

Worldwide evangelist Rev. Billy Graham, in his Christmas message, cited "the terrible increase in violence and crime" and President Clinton's recent allusion to a "great crisis of the spirit that is gripping America today."

Graham said, "In taking God and religion out of our lives, we have lost our moral and spiritual bearings."

He urged that those seeking change "open our hearts to the child in the manger, who can bring us new life and new power over the violence, crime and evils or our day."

Bernardin, in remarks prepared for midnight mass at Holy Name Cathedral, noted that Jesus "was born to homeless people who had tried to find a better place but failed."

By arriving in a manger, without wealth and armies, Christ "comes in weakness, and somehow this means powerful healing for all," Bernardin said.

Bishop Iakovos urged the faithful to "be like the shepherds and the Magi" who went to Bethlehem to "seek out the Christ child." He suggested where the "newborn Christ" might be found:

"Seek him out and find him in those who hunger and thirst, in those who need home, in those who suffer from substance abuse, in those who suffer from physical and psychological domestic violence, in those who suffer from illness and disease, in those who live with HIV/AIDS, in those who are alone, in those who feel the distress of prejudice and racism, in all of God's creation."

Chilstrom suggested in his Christmas message that the truest adult reaction to the end of Christmas Day is not disappointment, but "relief to have Christmas over and done with."

From his perspective, part of that relief is that "many of the distractions are out of the way, and now you can concentrate on the incredible news that Jesus came to us and he gives us hope."

Calling on Lutherans to observe the "12 days of Christmas" beginning on Christmas Day, Chilstrom used his message to invite those who have fallen from the church to "come to worship with us, to praise the Lord with us, and to prepare yourself for the year to come."

Duecker said his theme, "Come Home for Christmas," is akin to that of parents urging children who are far away to return and reinvigorate the family.

There is a "pragmatic and self-serving" side to that message from churches, he acknowledged: They know Christmas is a time when many people seek, and join, specific congregations.

Such decisions are not made casually or hastily, Duecker said, but are born after realization that family and church might transcend other choices those people have made.

"There has never been a broader choice of contrived distractions available to help people avoid the emptiness in their souls," he said. "There is a never-ending supply of games, events, trips, sporting events to keep us busy enough that we never have to get in touch with our heart, which is hungry to return to God."

In his Christmas message, Bishop Frank Griswold, head of the Episcopal Diocese of Chicago, offered, "May these days of Christmas be for all of us a time of knowing again the power of Christ's healing presence in our lives and for reaffirming his call to strive for justice and peace among all peoples."

Keeping the spirit of Christmas alive beyond today, Bernardin said, means seeing Christ's face in all "vulnerable" people and reaching out to those "who are homeless or who live in unfit dwellings, who are threatened daily by violence, who are hunted or persecuted, who are lonely, who are rejected."

CAPTION: PHOTO (color): Packages of food and clothing are handed out on Christmas Eve at Greater Harvest Baptist Church, 5121 S. State St. Tribune photo by Walter Kale. PHOTO (color): Duties from a local shopping mall in St. Louis weigh heavily and force a backroom nap. AP photo. PHOTO (color): Santa, atop a jeep, leads a parade of Palestinian scouts as it winds its way through Bethlehem on Friday. AP photo.

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