Sermon Workshop: Luke 2:1-20, Christmas Eve
Welcome sermon planners. Hits to this blog searching for Christmas Eve related posts sky rocket this time of year. For your planning pleasure, I’ve made easy links below:
- several helpful comments in this post (click on the little number button above)
- full sermon: “Christmas Boots“
- Family service sermon: “Food Trough Festivities“
- Recent reflection, “Does the Manger Matter?“
—— original post from Christmas 2007 ——
I didn’t think it would come this year, or even next, but here it is: I’m preaching on Christmas Eve. The service is the evening family service with lots of loud children, hungry parents, and thirsty grandparents (can’t drink too much sherry or egg nog before worship, you see).
I just surfed the net looking for ideas (remember I don’t have books here), and was disgusted by 90% of what I read. Christmas is not about “the gift of ourselves,” or “peace for our family,” or “Jesus is the best present of all,” or at least, Christmas is much much more than these over-simplified cliched versions.
So what is a young pastor to do for his 5-7 minute sermon?
My Columbia Seminary profs said, over and over again, on Christmas and Easter “just preach the story.” Don’t get too fancy or touchy-feely. Don’t try to impress or get mushy “awws” from the grandparents. Just preach the story.
Well, I’m sorry but I have no idea how to do that. And my impression of the service is they would much rather have something impressive, emotive, or touchy-feely. Now that’s not an indictment of my congregation, it’s a description of what most of us want on Christmas Eve. It’s so nice to sing carols and open presents, to drink wine and sit by the fire, rather than contemplating what we’re really celebrating: the scandal of God becoming human, for our sins, as described by a largely metaphorical story in Luke.
So what do you think? What would you preach? How do you write a 5-7 minute children-parent-grandparent inclusive address that is succinct but covers the Christmas Eve bases? What, indeed, is the Christmas story?
[Update: see the finished sermon here, but do also enjoy the conversation in the comments of this post.]
Luke 2:1-20
1In those days a decree went out from Emperor Augustus that all the world should be registered. 2 This was the first registration and was taken while Quirinius was governor of Syria. 3 All went to their own towns to be registered. 4 Joseph also went from the town of Nazareth in Galilee to Judea, to the city of David called Bethlehem, because he was descended from the house and family of David. 5 He went to be registered with Mary, to whom he was engaged and who was expecting a child. 6 While they were there, the time came for her to deliver her child. 7 And she gave birth to her firstborn son and wrapped him in bands of cloth, and laid him in a manger, because there was no place for them in the inn.
8 In that region there were shepherds living in the fields, keeping watch over their flock by night. 9 Then an angel of the Lord stood before them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were terrified. 10 But the angel said to them, “Do not be afraid; for see—I am bringing you good news of great joy for all the people: 11 to you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, who is the Messiah, the Lord. 12 This will be a sign for you: you will find a child wrapped in bands of cloth and lying in a manger.” 13 And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host, praising God and saying, 14 “Glory to God in the highest heaven, and on earth peace among those whom he favors!”
15 When the angels had left them and gone into heaven, the shepherds said to one another, “Let us go now to Bethlehem and see this thing that has taken place, which the Lord has made known to us.” 16 So they went with haste and found Mary and Joseph, and the child lying in the manger. 17 When they saw this, they made known what had been told them about this child; 18 and all who heard it were amazed at what the shepherds told them. 19 But Mary treasured all these words and pondered them in her heart. 20 The shepherds returned, glorifying and praising God for all they had heard and seen, as it had been told them
Photo credit (by permission): Hilde Vanstraelen
Connect Online
I’m with your profs. Tell the story, dramatically. Go through what happened. Open it up and make it live again. then you can close with some comment or other. But seriously – the story shines and should shine at this time.
adam,
wow. preaching on christmas eve – that’s huge! and something we’re going to have to do for a long time! have fun with it. and i mean that. what an exciting day/passage/birth to be able to share. i know you’ll do well.
and stay warm!!!
- taylor
In the free advice from strangers department (which includes probably everything you already know):
Richard Horsely makes it clear in his book, “The Liberation of Christmas: The Infancy Narratives in Social Context” just what a mess Jesus was getting himself born into the middle of. This book was very helpful to me personally in that it cut through the media/secular over crusting of cuteness and back into the sheer crazy vulnerability of it all.
Also, Robert Karris points out in his book, “Eating your Way Through Luke’ Gospel” that if the author of Luke writes three times in a couple of paragraphs that Jesus was laid in a manger – he’s trying to say something important. Manger is way overcrusted by us urban types with an image of a little baby size crib with some straw sticking out the sides. Must have been comfortable ‘cuz “no crying he makes” A way to get back perhaps to Luke’s point is to say: Jesus was laid in the Food Bin. On top of the Purina Cow-chow. In other words, since Luke is very much about Jesus being with the poor/hunger and uses food and eating throughout the Gospel – its about Jesus=food; Jesus=sustenance for a people that were hoping to eat at least several times a week.
We all have deep hungers – and the media frenzy of Christmas surfaces them very effectively with images of skinny, healthy, young people laughing with their hundreds of friends and great big families in their beautiful and tastefully decorated homes.
Perhaps it isn’t just about the scandal that the most innocent of the innocents, the most vulnerable of the vulnerable is destined to die on the cross; perhaps this is a good night to remember that Jesus self-emptied and took on this form to Be With Us and to Sustain Us in this life and in these places of difficulties, loss and grief.
For what it is worth,
peace and trust the Word will come
5-7 minutes on Christmas Eve is not the time to teach textual criticism but it can be a time to remember that deeper truths lie under the fiction/not-fiction label. Let the symbols speak their deeper truth.
oops – last paragraph is actually meant to rise higher in the more intro section but got lost instead – guess thats what I get when I go long winded.
These were my thoughts last year… people gather to hear the story, because it speaks to them of God made flesh for us, huge theology… but simple truth
http://rumoursofangels.blogspot.com/2006/12/god-with-skin-on.html
Many thanks so far, folks.
Anitra: Thanks for the close exegesis. Luke is certainly trying to do more than our nativity scenes can show. I hadn’t thought about the manger before as it relates to a place of eating. I can’t get my bible program to work, but before it broke I did find that “manger” is only used those three times in all of the NT. I’m not yet convinced Luke was plugging the hunger motif, but he certainly was doing something. Then again, maybe his later focus on the poor and hungry fits in here.
Danny: Thanks for the sermon link. Incarnation is certainly a good place to go, and you did well to open the concept well in such a short time.
Thanks for the comments, folks. Let’s keep ‘em coming.
Give ‘em something to chew on. Everyone’s heard the story, try something different. Besides, how much damage can you do in 5-7 minutes?
Here are my non-exegetical, off-the-top-of-my-head thoughts: Don’t run away from what people are hungry for. Why do they want emotive, touchy-feely, etc? I think that if they are coming to church they want some good news. They want something to reach them through the busyness, the family gatherings, the menus, the gifts, the schedules, the craziness that is Christmas and to put it in perspective. They need something to be bigger than all that. I think most people settle for trite because we often send the message that trite and surface-level (with the occasional tug at the heartstrings) is the best we have to offer. (And really it is easier for all of us.) But I think that deep down people come to church because they want something more, something amazing, something that makes God worth worshiping. So tell them the story of God doing something inexplicable, improbable, and impossible out of God’s inexplicable, improbable, and impossible love for us and all of creation.
I think that if you answer the question, “What makes Jesus’ birth good news?” in a way that anyone (Christian, non-Christian, grandparents, grandchild) could understand, you will have what you need.
I realize that my comments might sound trite, but they express why I want to be in worship on Christmas Eve.
I’ve been asked to tell the Christmas story on Saturday to a group of children who stay at the Women and Children’s shelter, The Haven, here in Mobile. The context is making me think differently about the Christmas story. About the parallels between Jesus’ situation on that night and soon afterward and these children’s stories. Jesus’ parents had a shotgun wedding. His family spent Christmas Eve in a “shelter” of sorts. They soon became refugees. I did Matthew’s genealogy at our homeless Bible study and we talked about how Jesus had skeletons in his family closet just like the rest of us–adultery, prostitution, foreign blood, bad leadership. Talk about fully human!
hey, you’re Columbia Seminary link is bad. I think it needs a www, maybe?
Thanks, Emily. Link fixed.
Not practical, but a cool project would be an actual nativity play and discussion set in a real barn with a real baby in a real manger. That might get to Rebekah’s “God doing something inexplicable, improbable, and impossible” and Emily’s shelter context.
This is all great…but I’m glad I have a week or two to think on these things. Nonetheless, let’s keep ‘em coming folks!
I agree, I would love to do an “actual nativity play.” I think people would be at least a little shocked to see Mary as a girl in her early teens, with Joseph in his early twenties. They would be a stark contrast to the older “kings” and shepherds who come to visit. As a youth pastor, it blows my mind to picture some of my girls in Mary’s place. It gives me a new depth to Mary pondering things in her heart… how does a girl so young begin to absorb it all?
I just realized I am posting this three years after the original postings… I hope it will still be helpful to someone.
This was tagged onto the bottom of Matt Rindge’s e-mail. I thought it was appropriate to our discussions.
“The essential point as I see it, about Christ’s birth is that it was so poor and so humble. The Son of God was born into the world, not as a prince, but as a pauper. So, to deck out the legendary scene of his nativity with precious hangings, pictures, glittering lamps, and other ornamentation, is to destroy whatever valid symbolism it might otherwise have. Truly, we human beings have a wonderful faculty for thus snatching fantasy from the jaws of truth.”
–Malcolm Muggeridge, Jesus Rediscovered
Emotive? Touchy feely? I (and most everyone else I suspect) was moved to tears when my daughter was born…in a safe hospital room…with a highly trained doctor and staff in attendance. I was moved to exuberance at new life. I was moved to a fear I’d never had before that I was responsible for caring for a helpless infant who would be so dependent on me and Margaret.
I fall on the side of just telling the story. Tell the mundaneness of it – the utter ordinariness of birth. Millions of babies are born. Everyone of them taps primal emotion of some type, be it elation or dread. (By the way, the Harper’s Bible Commentary says wrapping a baby in strips of cloth was a common (ordinary) practice.)
Don’t be afraid to say you don’t yet know this personally as a father yet. You can relate to the fact that people around the inn had no clue that the Savior was taking on flesh and borrowing a cow’s dinner table. Yet you and everyone else hearing the story knows something extraordinary has happened in the middle of an “ordinary” trip to meet governmental tax obligations.
Of course babies being born is an ordinary event in the sense that we’ve all been there. But it’s not an everyday occurrence for most of us.
The terrifying herald angels declare to the shepherds something amazing has happened and the sign of it is simply a baby lying in a manger – not the heavenly host itself.
We want extraordinary, emotive extravaganza. At least the shepherds get heavenly host.
God provides “ordinary” human life. The sign of a SAVIOR provided by GOD ALMIGHTY is a baby in a manger. This year, the sign will be a simple 5-7 minute message by Adam Copeland, at least for some of those Scottish “shepherds” and God will be doing an amazing, not fully appreciated thing.
Peace.
No Room at the Inn
I love the idea of demythologising Christmas – in a friendly way. How about a quick quiz to ‘warm up’ earlier in the service?
- Where was Jesus born? (easy start: Bethlehem)
- Who was at the manger? (shepherds, yes, wise men, NO! Matthew says they came later, hence the 2 year ceiling for Herod’s infanticide)
- How did Mary get to Bethlehem? (no little donkey in the Bible – note that a poor family couldn’t afford such an expensive mode of travel)
Getting some shouted answers, maybe dividing the congregation into two / three teams could be fun!
Luke tells the story not as allegory but as history. Whatever you think about it, he wants us to believe this actually happened the way he said, hence reference to times and places – even if we struggle to fit them together now. Take them to Bethlehem: definitely cold at night at this time of year (but who knows what time of year). Take them to the inn, and to the courtyard where the animals were stabled; or to the ‘guest house’ where a family would sleep at one end and animals at the other. Hold your noses as you get in with the smells. Wonder at the reality of it all.
Can this child mean hope for us all?
Peace on Earth
How did it happened? Simple with poor woman. When was it promised? Since Creation Genesis 1:1-5. What is missing now in this world? Peace among God’s people. Who will bring this peace.? Jesus Christ the baby, not the kings, or ruler of the universe;but simple baby on the manger. Jesus Christ will bring peace, hope and give His’ people mercy and fulfill the promise.
It is it true that there will be no peace on earth if we don’t acxcept this baby in our hands.
That is all good stuff. I would go with the messiness of the reality of the story vs. the story as told.
God comes to us in the midst of our messiness and brings us a miracle from the least expected places/people.
Some are going to be with family and want to hear a nice story.
Some are going to be in crisis and are at church looking for reconciliation or a different approach to the miracle.
One thing you won’t hear in church is Mary’s story. RDP is dead set against hearing about Mary pondering in her heart what it all means. But isn’t this where the congregation finds itself, trying to take it all in and make some sense in their own lives about the impact that Jesus is going to have for the rest of their lives. Jesus comes to us a bloody mess in the manger and he leaves a bloody mess on the cross and through it all we are like Mary wondering what it all means for us. GO WITH MARY AND BLOW THEIR MINDS
Of course this is coming from a middle reliever preacher…I get the first Sunday after Xmas and the first Sunday in January while the A-team is on vacation…..Remember always bring the story back to me.
Peace,
St. G