Readings for the Day:
Sermon:
Original Manuscript:
Christmas Day was a service my family didn’t really start going to until I was in high school. I was one of those people that got asked to serve in various ways for all the services no one else wanted to go to. It was how I ended up as one of the acolyte masters at the Cathedral in Birmingham, Alabama. It’s also how I ended up as a reader for many years on Christmas Day.
Ever since I started going, I’ve always loved this service. It’s quiet and peaceful in a way that helps us connect to our Lord more fully.
It’s also a time when we can recall what this day is truly about. It’s not just about Jesus as a baby, although it is an important reminder that Jesus was indeed a baby and thus fully human.
What this day is truly about is what we hear in our Gospel this morning. That “the Word became flesh and dwelt among us.”
Jesus isn’t just a baby. He’s not even just a really important baby. Jesus is God, the Word as we hear, come into this world to be with us and to be one of us. That is the truly important message of this day.
God’s incarnation in this world shows the depth of His love for us. He cared enough to become one of us. He cared enough to die for us as a human so that we wouldn’t have to die any longer either.
Jesus Christ’s death and Resurrection don’t happen without God becoming human first. That is what we celebrate today. This isn’t just another birthday, but a mark of when the path for our salvation, our own hope in the Resurrection, truly began. For that, we can truly say, “Thanks be to God!”