A Christmas Eve Message

If you're planning to be at the First Presbyterian Church in NLR Argenta tonight, you might want to hold off on reading this. But if not, read on. Merry Christmas!

Nine weeks ago when I started at this church, we were meeting in the Fellowship Hall because our heating system in the sanctuary was broken. We just assumed that we would be in Fellowship Hall for Christmas Eve. We didn’t know that people would begin to come out of the woodwork to help. Volunteering to play music. Coming out on a moment’s notice to mend leaky roofs and prop up rotting walls. Replacing light bulbs and working on wiring. Buying a new heating system for the church because we’ve been out of our sanctuary long enough. We knew that God was at work here. We just didn’t know God was going to work so fast through so many people.

Because we didn’t know we would be here, you’ll notice that our service has no traditional Christmas pageant. So tonight, as it is with most things around here, everyone will have to pitch in. We’ll all have to play all the parts.

Tonight, we are all the shepherd, startled to hear the good news of the angels, but eager to go and see for ourselves.

We are Mary, aware that somehow God is using us to accomplish things too big to imagine.

We are Joseph, not understanding fully that which God calls us to do, but following as faithfully as we can.

We are the innkeeper, busy and frazzled, but making some room, somehow, for God to be born.

We are the Wisemen, on a journey of discovery, bearing our gifts to be given to glorify God.

And yes, we are the angel, proclaiming in our own lives, the glorious good news that God has come into the world, and we shall never be the same.

But perhaps you’re thinking that you don’t feel like taking on any role tonight—much less all of them. Because you’ve had a hard year. Maybe this year has just about knocked you flat. And maybe the Christmas season has only served to intensify your pain, to shine a light on your brokenness, to magnify your loneliness.

If you’re just too sad or too angry or in too much pain, then you don’t get a part. You are going to have to direct. You are in charge of the whole thing. It is you who must lead this Christmas. If you are feeling too resentful or too disappointed or simply too exhausted for Christmas this year, then it is you who must sing the loudest. You are the one who should fling the tinsel on the tree, and call everyone in from off of the street to come and celebrate.

Because it is unto you that a Savior is born this night. Jesus came for the heartbroken and the hopeless, for the downtrodden and the depressed, for the busted and the broken, for the fearful and the faithless.

So if you don’t feel like being Mary or Joseph or the shepherd or the angel, you must draw the rest of us in. So that everyone will know that God sends light into the dark corners of our lives. That in lonely and cold moments, God bursts forth with a message of good news.

I believe in Christmas. I believe in the power of the love of God come down to earth. It is a story in which we all must participate. A miracle we cannot afford to miss.



This message was inspired by the prayers of Ann Weems and Peter K. Perry