my Christmas Eve sermonette
This is my first Christmas in my new job as a family minister. I led a children’s sermon (with some costumes) this Christmas Eve. When that portion of the service was over, I ascended the pulpit and delivered this message to the whole congregation. We are still in Christmastide until January 6th—let’s keep coming to the manger!
A sermon for Christmas Eve 2023 preached at
The Episcopal Church of the Advent (Kennett Square, PA)
And there were in the same country shepherds abiding in the field,
keeping watch over their flock by night.
And lo, the angel of the Lord came upon them,
and the glory of the Lord shone round about them:
and they were sore afraid.
And the angel said unto them,
“Fear not: for, behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy,
which shall be to all people.
For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Saviour,
which is Christ the Lord.
And this shall be a sign unto you:
Ye shall find the babe wrapped in swaddling clothes, lying in a manger.”
And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host praising God, and saying,
“Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will toward men.”
(Luke 2:8-14 KJV)“That’s what Christmas is all about, Charlie Brown.”
Linus told Charlie Brown these words in the Peanuts Christmas special in 1965, almost sixty years ago.
The version of the Bible he recited from memory dates to 1611, more than four hundred years ago.
And the story he tells, of course, is about two thousand years old.
There is something about Christmas that encompasses all times and all places.
There is something about the Bible’s story of a baby being born in desperate circumstances, in a cold, dark world full of straw and dirt and rubble and cruelty—a world nothing less than our very own.
There is something about the story of this baby, born in our cruel dark world, being surrounded by glory unimaginable.
The struggle and the glory:
on Christmas, Christianity asks you to see both in the birth of Jesus.
Christianity directs our attention to this because it believes that Christmas is for all times and all places.
Christianity believes that Christmas is for all times and all places because Jesus is for all times and all places.
It is a story that includes you, simply because you’re human.
Christmas is a story that includes you because Jesus wants to include you.
He wants to include you in His story, to play a role in His life. A shepherd. A Mary. A Magi.
You see, Christianity is audacious enough to believe that God must be real because Jesus is real.
And the things that make Jesus real must be the things that make God real.
Christianity is audacious enough to believe that the baby Jesus is more than a baby—
He is the ultimate proof that God loves you.
The Son of God loved us so much that He came down from heaven and became like you and me.
He became someone vulnerable.
God became someone that needed to be taken care of.
He did all this to get close to you.
He did all this because He loves you.
He knows how lost we feel in this world of straw and rubble and dirt,
and He decided that we needed to come home to Him.
But He knows we will not know the Way unless He charts a map in our world.
This baby, this story—Christianity is audacious enough to proclaim there is nothing more real, and more true, and more beautiful.
All of your struggle and your glory are in this manger.
Merry Christmas.
This is lovely, Ben!