Hi everyone,
Merry Christmas! Welcome to our worship service for Christmas Day, December 25, 2023!
The bulletin for this service can be found here. Unlike last night’s Christmas Eve service, this service will look like a regular Sunday service. You can download to bulletin to follow along or just use the words that will appear on your screen.
To enhance your worship experience online, you can have a candle in your space, lit at the beginning of the service and extinguished near the end when the altar candles are. You are also welcome to join in communion by having something small to eat and drink ready to be consumed. Further instruction will be given at the appropriate time.
May God’s love incarnate lift you up and bring you joy, this Christmas Day and always!
Loving God, your love has created all things and your grace has welcomed us to be a part of it. Open our eyes to see the hope, peace, joy, and love that you bring to us this day and always, through Jesus Christ our Saviour and Lord. Amen.
Ever hear the term, “no rest for the wicked”? I remember the first time I heard it, back when I was working in retail and our manager said that just as he was piling more on our task lists. I later found out that it was actually a term that has biblical roots, as some of the prophets would talk about how the wicked will receive theirs, like unrest, while the righteous can have hope that they will find peace.
But these days it just means life is busy and it’s all about work, work, work.
I bring this up because this past week for me has really been all about work, work, work. I tried really hard to stay on top of things, but as many of you know, the more you work, the more tired you get. And the more tired you get, the less efficient you are. And the less efficient you are, the longer you have to work. It was this vicious cycle that I tried to battle by taking as many breaks as I could to do some online shopping, read about comic books, and of course play games on my phone. But still for some strange reason, it still took me forever to get my stuff done. No rest for the wicked I guess.
Don’t get me wrong though, I’m not complaining or anything. I mean, it’s Christmas, after all. Of course it’s going to be busy. Of course I’m going to feel a bit more overworked and unrested. Of course I’m going to go to bed super late and still wake up super early. Wait, maybe I am complaining just a bit.
But then I wonder how Mary felt when she was going through what she went through. I mean, I look at her life, the pressure she must have gone through, what it must have been like to raise the Messiah, and I think to myself, “go ahead, complain more about how difficult your life is.” If I thought I had it bad… oh no, she had it bad.
Not only was she super young, like 12 or 13, not only was she likely from a very humble upbringing, not only was she found to be with child outside of wedlock, but she had to give birth for the first time with a barn as her maternity ward, a pile of hay as her bed, and a clueless carpenter as her midwife. She was days away from home. She had to rely on this man that she barely knew for support. She rocked her baby to sleep with the sounds of farm animals grazing and gnawing and hee-haw’ing as her lullaby. Of course she must have felt stressed, isolated, and very overwhelmed. There’s no rest for the wicked.
I don’t mean to call Mary, the mother of our Lord, wicked. No way I’d ever. But at times like this, of great overwhelming stress and loneliness, don’t our minds sometimes turn to maybe possibly perhaps that we might be wicked? Or insufficient? Or maybe even… unloved?
I mean, why else would we be feeling the way we feel? Why else are we going through what we go through? Why else does it seem like we face these hardships either completely alone or whoever is along side us doesn’t really understand or empathize or care? The truth is, it isn’t hard to have these thoughts when we’re in this kind of a position. So when we hear “there’s no rest for the wicked,” it really hits as we can totally relate. We might feel that about ourselves. We might feel like of course we would. We might feel like we deserve it.
So maybe that is what was going through Mary’s head. Sure, she was pretty joyful waaaay back on the 4th Sunday of Advent that happened like yesterday. She was singing about the good news that she had and how her cousin was going through the same thing as her.
But where was her cousin now? Where is the joy? Where can God be seen in all the work, all the busyness of life, all the unrest? Although just a day passed for us in the story, but for Mary it was 9 months. That’s 9 months of thinking, worrying, and wondering why her. That’s 9 months of planning and preparing only for it to go up in smoke once they got notice of the census, when they heard there was no room in the inn, when they first took a whiff of the smells her child was to be born in. That’s 9 months of being reminded of just how not in control Mary is.
And to top it all off, these shepherds show up and just let themselves in. I guess they’re outdoorsy animal types so they didn’t mind those smells. But the text tells us that the shepherds shared with Mary and Joseph everything that happened to them with the angels and the message they gave, and Mary pondered all these things in her heart.
What was there to ponder?
I mean it was pretty straight forward, yeah? Those angels told the shepherds pretty much what Gabriel told Mary, no? Both stories lined up pretty good so it should be an open and shut case, shouldn’t it?
There was the “don’t be afraid bit”, the ancestor of King David thing, and the whole baby will save the world news. Sure, the angels didn’t tell the shepherds the whole conceived out of wedlock situation, but I guess that was just information that they didn’t need to know. So what did Mary need to ponder that she didn’t already ponder over the last 9 months of her pregnancy?
Well, one thing that the angels did for the shepherds that the angel Gabriel didn’t for Mary, was that song that they broke out into just as they were leaving. Do you remember it? The lyrics they sang were, “Glory to God in the highest heaven, and on earth peace among those whom God favours.”
Peace? No, not really. Not around the childbirth, not in the running to Egypt for their lives shortly after, not for any of us who don’t get any rest. No, we don’t really get peace, and so through simple logic we can conclude that we’re not among those whom God favours… Maybe that is what Mary was pondering.
Maybe Mary was pondering the whirlwind of life she had endured over the past 9 months and probably beyond. Maybe Mary was wondering how much more difficulties she’d be able to endure before completely losing it. Maybe Mary was remembering the words that our angel Gabriel said to her when he first appeared: “Greetings, favoured one, the Lord is with you,” and, “don’t be afraid, Mary, for you have found favour with God.”
So… Mary is favoured, Mary should have peace, Mary is actually loved. In spite of the hardships she faces in the recent past, in spite of the rough life that she’s led, in spite of anything that could happen to her and her newborn son, Mary has favour in God’s eyes.
Well, that’s a funny way of showing it, she might be thinking. But then she might be realising just how true those words are. Sure, life isn’t easy, she had some tough breaks, she is still trying to get the animal smells from out of her clothes and hair, but she is at peace.
Peace in knowing that God loves her. Peace in feeling God’s hand at work in her life and the life of her family. Peace in looking into the eyes of God with her and all of us, cooing up at her with an innocence that redeems us all.
So you see, the promise of Christmas is not just peace on earth and goodwill to all, but it is that God is with us through the conflict and hardships. The message of Christmas isn’t just that we shouldn’t worry but just be happy, but it is that we are redeemed and saved by the grace of God. The whole point of Christmas isn’t to give us a quick fix of joy so we can continue living life for another year until the next Christmas rolls around, but it is to remind us, each and every one of us, that we are, always have been, and always will be highly favoured and loved by our God and we will be given rest.
We might not see it right away, but there is comfort in knowing that we are not alone. There is joy in seeing that we belong in community and family. There is peace in feeling God’s love wrapped around us and constantly revealing to us that God is most definitely with us, now and always.
So as we head out to whatever festivities or events or gatherings we have, may we always be on the lookout for God in our midst, showing us love, and giving us peace. Thanks be to God. Amen.