Hi everyone,
Merry Christmas! Welcome to our worship service for Christmas Eve, December 24, 2023. This service is different from our regular Sunday services, but similar to our Christmas Eve services of the past. We will be worshipping largely by candlelight, and we will be singing a lot of carols.
But the bulletin can be found here. You can download to follow along, or you might want to just enjoy the music and ponder this evening and season.
You can have your own candles at home as well if you so wish. However you would like to create the ambience conducive for worship is encouraged, as long as you are safe and have the correct fire-extinguishing protocols.
May the love seen in God with us bring you joy and peace in this holiday season and always!
O Lord, may you, on this holiest of nights, fill our hearts and minds with your truth, your love, and your Spirit, that we be born anew to reflect your light in and around us, through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
Here we are, Christmas Eve. Everyone’s favourite service of the year. I know this is everyone’s favourite, because what other time of year do we actually see so many of you here in this space at the same time? This isn’t a guilt trip or anything, but you know we have services like every Sunday, right? Well, except for next Sunday, and those other Sundays that I’m away or sick, but pretty much every other Sunday there will be a service. And you’re welcome to come to all of them, not just the Christmas ones.
So it’s clear that Christmas is a favourite for many of us. It’s a time of the year we look forward to, think about in anticipation and preparation, and perhaps even participate in things we don’t normally participate in. Of course it is, I mean what’s not to love about Christmas? There are the pretty lights, the ornate decorations, and the feel-good music. There is the visiting, the community, the cheerful gatherings. There are the events, those hallmark movies streaming everywhere, and all the wonderful wonderfulness that makes this season so jolly, so merry, so grand, so… perfect.
At least, we try to make it perfect, don’t we? Why not, if there’s any time of year to make perfect, it should be this time, right? If there’s any season to go all out, it should be this one. If there’s any reason to go bigger than big, it’ll be Christmas.
Or we try, at least.
So we spend more time fighting for parking at the mall so we can check off all those wish lists. We take more time cleaning, rearranging, and prettying up the house and learning how to make new dishes or perfecting old ones. We use up more time thinking of ways to ensure that we don’t make it on Santa’s naughty list so we won’t end up with coal in our stockings. That’s just how it is. In order to make Christmas, Christmas, we have to spend more, take more, and use up more in order to make everything absolutely perfect. Because in a lot of our eyes, if it isn’t perfect, it isn’t Christmas. If it isn’t big and grand, it doesn’t feel like Christmas. If it doesn’t take up all our time and energy then it just doesn’t look like Christmas.
And there’s nothing wrong with this, don’t get me wrong. Because Christmas is a big one for so many of us it is natural for us to go all out. But Christmas sure demands a lot from us, doesn’t it. But we happily give it for the sake of others and their joy, hoping that we won’t bah humbug the season away, or end up hating Christmas like the Grinch did before his heart grew like 3 sizes.
I mean, heck, I rewrote this sermon like 6 times, and still all we got was this. So I’m not free from this mentality either. I get caught up in the planning and preparing. I find myself busier and busier this time of year. I try to make this season, this night in particular, absolutely perfect.
I think if we don’t or if it isn’t, we’re afraid that we’ll ruin it for others and for ourselves. If we don’t do all we can, decorate all we can, be jolly as much as we can, then we just aren’t doing it right. If we don’t do all the Christmas things or totally get in that Christmas spirit, then maybe it just isn’t Christmas.
Well, the thing is, Christmas will still be Christmas whether we feel like it is or not. God is with us whether we’re in church tonight, tomorrow morning, the rest of the year, or not. The Christ child is born unto us when things are perfect sure, but also definitely when they’re not.
See, Christmas was never meant to be perfect. Not by what we would consider perfect, at least.
I mean just think about how it all started. Talk about botched plans and imperfect nights. Mary and Joseph had to travel miles away from home, their hotel reservations fell through, and they had to spend the night in a cold barn surrounded by some donkeys and other non-housebroken animals. They were doing what they could to make things work, sure, but I’ll be darned if all of this wasn’t disappointing. In spite of all their best efforts, it was like they kept hitting one roadblock after an other, making life frustrating, exasperating, and just mind-numbingly difficult.
Not really perfect by any means. In fact, I would say that it was downright awful.
And it was in this type of backdrop in which Jesus was born. It was in this kind of climate that God chose to be revealed. It was in this messy and chaotic imperfection that we can see most clearly and tangibly God present with us, among us, and in our midst.
God with us in the brokenness. God with us in the sadness and fear. God with us in all the imperfect moments of our lives reminding us that we are not alone.
This isn’t to say that our Christmases can’t be grand, or well executed, or even perfect. I’m just saying that it’s ok when it isn’t all that. It’s ok when Christmases fall apart. It’s ok when things don’t go our way, don’t go as planned, and the 6th edition of your sermon still doesn’t seem to be landing right. I mean, I’ve had my fair share of bad Christmases, not just in the sermon-writing department. Even if it isn’t difficulties around sermon-writing, or worship planning, or having 3 services in the span of 25 hours, there always seemed to be something else, almost waiting to ruin Christmas for me. Like this one Christmas when my dad was sick and fell at my aunt’s house and hit his head, so I spent the rest of the night in the hospital with him. Or this other one when I didn’t have much money and I couldn’t afford to get anyone anything so I stayed up all night writing a bunch of meaningful cards only to have slept in like crazy so I didn’t actually get the chance to hand them out. I think I still have them in a drawer somewhere actually. Or there was this other Christmas that I did have a better paying job but it meant that I had to work like non-stop right until Christmas afternoon so I was so tired that I didn’t even feel like seeing anyone or do anything. Maybe you’ve had similar Christmases in the past. Maybe this Christmas is like that now. Or, if you haven’t already, I’m sure you’ll have similar Christmases in the future. Things happen. Plans don’t always pan out. In spite of our best intentions, our Christmas might not be exactly perfect. And that’s ok.
Because again, Christmas wasn’t meant to be perfect. But it was meant to show how God’s perfection of holiness and righteousness, could be present even in the midst of all the imperfection. It was meant to remind us how love can be found even in the messiness and hectic throws of life. It was meant to reveal to us all how God is with us, here, now, and even when we completely forget to look. That is Christmas.
It is Christmas even when underprivileged and under-aged Mary had her firstborn son, this illegitimate child in very unsightly and unsanitary conditions. It is still Christmas even though Joseph went through disappointment after disappointment, and all this trouble to go to his hometown only to have no where to stay. It is always Christmas because Jesus, the promised Messiah, the Saviour of us all, enters our world in the middle of the stress and unrest, in the trouble and turmoil, in the unplanned imperfection among the smelly smells and unruly sounds of life. This is Christmas.
So it’s in contrast to the imperfection that Jesus came in that we see the perfection he brings, not because everything will go as planned but because his love and grace are pure and point us to God’s salvation. It’s in the brokenness and pain in the world that we see him coming with healing and peace and redemption. It’s in the hardships and hurts that we are reminded that we are not alone, but surrounded by a host of saints, a community that cares, a God that became a tiny human baby just to be with us.
God with us. That is the point. That is what Christmas is. That is why we are here.
Thanks be to God. And Merry Christmas, everyone. Amen.