Christmas Eve Sermon 2025

Christmas time is the one time of the year when we have this pressure to creat the perfect family get together. I talk to lots of people, and I always find myself asking, ‘so where are you going to be for Christmas?’, and people tell me various stories of the people they will see and the traditions they have. I think as humans we find comfort in the familiar and routine. We are nostalgic for Christmas’ in the past, remembering how magical it was and I wonder if sometimes we are all trying so hard to get that magic back that we lose sight of what it’s all for? I also wonder if we look back with such rose tinted glasses that we forget that things were not always as good as they seemed.

I noticed a post on Banbury info the other day of someone who was reaching out to the community because they just didn’t know what to do. Their mother had just died, and I got the sense from the post that they just wanted to curl up and be left alone, but they felt this pressure to keep Christmas as magical as it had been because that’s what their mum always did. I really wanted to say to them to not put pressure on themselves and to just take care of themselves. Give yourself permission to just be if that is what you need. There are good intentions behind our desire to make Christmas perfect and magical. We want to bring joy to those we love. We want our children to have those core memories of magic that we had when we were young, yet ultimately, they’re most likely to remember the box a toy was wrapped in than the toy itself.

As Christians we spend the time leading up to Christmas to pray and reflect on the coming of Jesus into the world. At St Mary’s the congregation did this through our Advent course which explored the birth of Christ. I think we take for granted the simplicity of that story and we try to dress it up with carols that remind us of good cheer and merriment. Yet the amazing thing is that God came among us, not on a cloud descending from the heavens, but was born just as we all are. There was no preparation, no desperation to make it perfect or special, Mary and Joseph trusted that God would provide for them. It can be hard to trust that God will provide, especially when we have been hit with hard times, but there is joy to be found.

A friend of mine was diagnosed earlier this year with breast cancer, so as you can imagine this year has been pretty tough for her and all of her family. They all went off a week or so ago to get a Christmas tree as a family and had done it a little late, so there weren’t many trees left at this point. There were two straggly looking trees left, and my friend was about to leave and go somewhere else when their eldest child insisted on one of the straggly trees was the one for them. So, they took it home and, in the end, after they decorated it, they made it look like the most beautiful tree. She said that actually it was the perfect tree for them because out of the worse year they had had, they were able to make something beautiful.

Jesus was born somewhere humble with no preparation, yet the shepherds and the magi still found them. God provided an angel chorus to the Shepherds to share with them the good news of Jesus birth, because God wanted those who are often overlooked to know about God and to know that they are special and trusted with this precious story. God provided a star in the sky for the magi to follow so that they could pay homage, yet like many of us they made the mistake of thinking that God would be found in a mighty palace. Yet scripture tells us that God is rarely found with the mighty, God is always on the side of the weak, the marginalised, the forgotten.

Before Jesus was born, his mother Mary told us that the lowly would be lifted up and the mighty would be cast down. However, we still find it hard to trust the lowly, we would rather trust those who are mighty, those who have power, those whose voice is loudest making promises about bringing back a world where we believe it was safer because like Christmas, we only remember the good and the magic and sparkly lights. If we want to put Christ back into Christmas, then we need to actually look at what Christ did and continues to do through the work of the Holy Spirit. God was born into poverty to parents who had to flee for their lives, yet do we feel anger towards Mary and Joseph for the situation they found themselves in? God put his only son in danger as soon as he was born. He experienced danger and hardship like many across the world do, and yet this child changed the world.

The birth of Jesus is miracle because out of so much that could have gone wrong everything came good. Every year when we hear this story we can be reminded that there is hope to be found, even when everything seems hopeless. So, if this year things aren’t as perfect or don’t feel as magical as you hoped, look out for the star in your life and guide yourself back to what is important. Trust in the God who was not born in a palace, but the God who was born just as we all are, as an innocent vulnerable child. Born for all of us so that we may all have hope.

Amen

Prayer

Christ of the manger, Christ of the womb, Christ of the tomb and the rising dawn, be born again in us.

May our hearts become cribs of compassion.

May our hands become vessels of peace.

May our lives become songs of joy.

May we carry you into the world with hope.

Amen