Photo by Árni Svanur Daníelsson on Unsplash
So…this happened.
We’re in a pandemic with grief and ripple effects too many to number, and more people are going hungry and getting evicted because they don’t have money because they got laid off from their job, and relationships have ruptured because we can’t agree about what constitutes a fact which is the basis for reality and problem solving, and we had one of the worst hurricane and wildfire seasons in history, and more and more Black and Brown people continue to be killed for no crime other than the amount of melanin in their skin, and Antarctica is too darn warm, and, and, and…..
And oh, right, Jesus was born, too.
Merry Christmas.
When life is easier to live, it’s easier to point to the joy of the birth of God.
When life is this hard, it’s hard to even get up enough energy to blow into a celebratory noisemaker.
Given the reality of grief and joy this Christmas, here are my ten Do’s and Don’ts for preparing your Christmas sermon this year.
1) Don’t feel like you have to be a cheerleader
It’s not your job to buoy everyone’s spirits or make them “feel” joyful.
It’s a hard year.
It was a hard year for Mary and Joseph, too.
That’s when Jesus came.
Draw the parallels.
2) Don’t add pressure to your sermon
You might be comparing yourself against an internal measuring stick based on what you’ve offered in past years, or what you assume your listeners expect this year.
You might be putting extra pressure on yourself to preach the “best,” “most meaningful” Christmas Eve sermon you’ve ever preached.
You might be adding that pressure, but I sincerely doubt God is.
Preach what you can.
Preach what you believe.
Since the Spirit gives you the message and the words, it will be enough.
3) …and don’t add pressure to the liturgy, either
Same holds true for planning worship.
It can’t be like Christmas Eve services in the past, so don’t try.
And don’t try to make it a performance so that people feel a certain way by the end of it.
It’s OK to let the liturgy work for itself and not pull out all the stops.
The early Church didn’t have “all the things,” yet it was enough to tell and marvel at the story of Jesus’s birth.
Let the simplicity and beauty of prayer, Scripture, and music do its work to celebrate in keeping with the time and occasion.
4) Do Be honest
It’s going to be a hard Christmas for many.
Loved ones won’t gather to spare each other the spread of the virus.
Others will—and spread the virus.
Many have lost their loved ones to this illness in the past year.
Not only will their traditional place at the Christmas dinner table be empty, but so will their square when the family gathers online.
Some families won’t even gather online because they’ve split over politics.
Others won’t have enough money to buy presents for their kids or afford to cook their traditional Christmas feast.
Still others will be alone on Christmas Eve and Day, perhaps for the first times in their lives.
Name the grief.
People need their sorrows acknowledged as they stand alongside a celebration.
5)…But Don’t preach a funeral homily
With so many griefs and sorrows it would be easy to skew the balance of the sermon toward grief instead of joy.
It would be easy to preach what sounds more like a funeral sermon than celebrating the birth of Jesus while we grieve en masse.
What does Jesus’s birth bring to this grief?
How can Jesus help them hold their gladness and grief at the same time?
Why would God send Jesus into a world that at the time had many parallels to our own?
Look at your word count (or equivalent if you don’t use a manuscript) to make sure there’s a balance between the reality of this year and the joy of Jesus’s birth every year.
6) Don’t Say This Christmas Isn’t “Normal”
One definition of normal is the average of all the times something has occurred.
By this definition of normal, celebrating the birth of Christ while people are experiencing hardships is the norm. Uncertainty and grief at Christmas is the historical average of all the times we’ve celebrated Jesus’s birth.
In fact, the ratio is roughly 1950:70. Meaning, until the year 1950, when the US economy after World War II became its most stable, most people in the U.S. lived with some kind of economic uncertainty, uncontrolled illness like the Spanish flu or polio, and there was not yet a chicken in every pot.
Only in the last seventy years have we become accustomed to certain types of stability, especially for the majority caste.
The stability many have enjoyed is not the norm. It’s a pretty small piece of the pie for a pretty small segment of the world’s history and its population.
“Accustomed,” however, means that this is what we’re most familiar with.
Yes, there is grief in not celebrating Christmas in the manner to which we are accustomed in the past.
Enter into this truly average, normal Christmas of hardship and uncertainty to more fully appreciate the joy and nature of Jesus’s birth in a world that doesn’t make sense.
And still, Jesus comes. Even now.
7) Do put away (for good!) the blue-eyed, blonde baby Jesus
It’s a-historical.
It reinforces the majority caste as being more godlike than People of Color.
It doesn’t include those who deserve to see themselves in God’s image.
Instead, use images with more historical accuracy or multiple images to show the beauty of God made flesh.
8) Do Sink into god-with-us for Yourself
How does the celebration of Jesus’s birth fit into your own life this year?
How do you hold together your fatigue, the sorrows of your parishioners and family, the fear and grief of those in our world who are suffering?
How do you answer Mary’s question “How can this be?”
God is showing up for all of us this year, and that includes you personally, too.
Plan and zealously guard some quiet time when you sink into “God-with-you.”
9) Don’t pretend there isn’t a toll
The emotional toll this year has taken is perhaps incalculable.
What do you need to express some of it so it doesn’t stay bottled up?
How will you give yourself permission to admit to yourself that it really has been this hard?
For example:
Soak extra-long in a hot bath.
Color in a new coloring book with new pens.
Draw in a journal just one word that speaks to you about Mary, Jesus’s birth, or the slaughter of the innocents. Make the word look like the emotional impact the word has on you.
Make a list of the noteworthy things that have happened this year and add to it as you remember other events.
Practice yoga or stretch.
See your spiritual director and therapist.
Talk to a friend.
Remain in perpetual prayer with the “Jesus Prayer” or similar.
Have a long talk with God about you how feel God has been handling things this year, and don’t hold back.
10) Don’t Be a Lone Preacher
It’s never the year to try to be a lone preacher.
Not only is it honest to the Christian tradition that we err on the side of community over individualism, but stress and isolationism increase in proportion to our insistence that we are supposed to lead and preach all by ourselves.
Says who?
Join preachers like you at Backstory Preaching where we offer companionship and preaching resources to lighten the load.
Let’s Talk (Free!): find it in “Events” on our private network for preachers
The Backstory Preaching Collective/+: weekly sermon prep resources, preaching formation, spiritual nourishment, and community. BONUS: join now, and participate in next week’s “Start to Finish” Advent 4/Christmas Eve Sermon Workshop (formerly Christmas Sermon Bootcamp)