Lord Jesus as we celebrate your birth pour your grace upon us and fill all the world with joy and peace. Amen
Christmas is complicated.
There’s all the planning and the presents.
All the special events and the shopping.
For some of us, all the special orders of service and sermons…
Its just so hard to fit everything in! And this year, the end of Advent and beginning of Christmas have time crashed into each other – so that we have been swept up, like Mary, into a journey that is perhaps beyond our comfort zone.
So much to worry about – so much stress.
It doesn’t always make our family lives very easy – where is the so- called Season of Goodwill? Everyone else seems to be having a Merry little Christmas – but it doesn’t always feel like that to us.
And so much bad news everywhere – the terrible situation in Gaza and the ongoing war in Ukraine, and so many people who are refugees, displaced by climate disasters.
The suffering of so many – it makes our hearts ache – what can we do to make it all better?
Christmas is complicated.
And we are never ready. It always seems to catch us out even though we know it’s coming.
Well, it was exactly that way too, 2000 years ago.
A suffering world, full of sorrow and tragedy – then as now – war, conflict, refugees, homelessness.
It makes God’s heart ache too.
Mary & Joseph were poor, homeless, strangers with no one to help them. Mary so young and Joseph so hopeful.
They weren’t ready for what was about to happen – not ready at all.
Christmas is complicated, painful and messy.
But then, a star blazed out in the sky high above Bethlehem, sheep were bleating on the hillside and shepherds were listening in amazement to a sky-full of angels, and in the stable, the oxen shifted in the rustling hay, the donkey dipped his head, and a new born baby’s cry was suddenly heard in the still of the night. A child is born!
What could be more simple than this?
Or more complicated?
God, who made the stars of heaven, who fashioned everything that is, now here, in a manger, born a child, as one of us Christmas is simple – God is with us.
Not far above the starry heaven, not remote, distant, unconcerned.
God is here, as one of us, to know our lives, our sorrow and pain, our loves and our joys!
God is with us, in the midst of it all – to show us how to live with perfect love
And this will be the answer to the bad news, the hurting, the tragedies, the aching hearts.
In this darkest time of the year – God comes among us as light!
Jesus, the babe in the manger, the man who works miracles, who loves us so much he gives his life to save us – Jesus – the light of the world.
Christmas is so simple – it is light in the darkness, it is hope in despair, it is love in the world.
We’ve been making lots of stars this year as part of our preparations for Christmas – last night the moon was astonishingly bright – the moonlight shone down as we came home from Midnight Mass.
And this morning light is there at the beginning of our service its there in the liturgy for Christmas Day – Jesus said: ‘I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will never walk in darkness but will have the light of life.’
Jesus Christ is the light of the world: a light no darkness can quench.
And in the prayer for Christmas Day:
God our Father, today the Saviour is born and those who live in darkness are seeing a great light. Help us, who greet the birth of Christ with joy, to live in the light of your Son and to share the good news of your love.
So keep it simple – light a candle this Christmas and place it in your window to shine out light, hope and love. And let the love of God fill your heart, your life and through each one of us, the world.
Hark now hear the angels sing, a king is born today and we shall live for evermore because of Christmas Day. Happy Christmas to you all!
Service: Reverend Michelle Dalliston. 25th December 2023. (St Luke’s Church Peterborough UK)
Readings: Isaiah 52:7-10; Psalm 98; Hebrews 1:1-4 [5-12]; John 1.1-14