Three (Merry) Christmas Sermon Themes
Photo by Myriam Zilles on Unsplash
It probably feels hard to keep the “merry” in “Merry Christmas” this year with the ills of the world too many to name, and the real-world consequences being felt disproportionately—as usual—by the marginalized.
Rather than forcing “merriness” and pasting smiles on our faces during the “Hap- happiest season of all” (as the song goes), maybe we could focus on what makes this season merry.
It’s not merry because of a cute baby Jesus, and it’s not merry because of snow and tinsel and Christmas carols.
It’s merry because God came to live among us in the world as it is.
Here are three reasons we can preach a genuine “Merry Christmas!”
Reason #1: “To Compassionate”
I know “compassionate” is an adjective, but the dictionary should also claim it as a verb: to compassionate!
God lived, breathed, demonstrated, and “verbed” compassion by living through what we live through.
God was compassion incarnate.
Think of what God accepted by being born:
Human vulnerability through dependency on parents to be fed, clothed, sheltered, kept from harm, learn a trade and make a living
Human maturation like growing pains, and outgrowing his sandals. (Did a poor, adolescent Jesus ever yearn for cool sandals like the rich kids wore?)
Human ignorance that required teachers and study to learn Hebrew to read, math and geometry to shape wood into furniture or a shack, and Roman law to know his “rights” as a citizen.
Human confines of time and space. Assuming God is omnipresent, did the human Jesus miss not knowing what was happening in the Americas, or Indonesia, or Antarctica? Did Jesus experience that like a long news blackout?
And all the human feelings, like fear, joy, sorrow, frustration, anger, curiosity, gratitude, shame, wanting to belong, be seen and understood.
Why go to so much trouble?
So we would know that God, the most powerful force in the universe, knows.
Never can we say we learn, suffer, fear, mourn—or die—alone.
What could make Christmas merrier than that?
Reason #2: To Serve
Imagine if your favorite (and not so favorite) politician, CEO, and entertainer gave up their fame, power, and existing and future income beyond the 2025 median American household income* to live on $85,000 per year, and instead:
Uplifted the poor in spirit
Comforted those who mourn
Empowered the meek for leadership
Worked at the local level to change the laws for those who have not received righteousness
Forgave those who dissed them
Praised community peacemakers and organizers
Organized welcome efforts for newcomers to their neighborhoods
Sought out and addressed the root causes of poverty, fear of others, and the selfishness of “me and mine” above “you and yours'“
Suggested to their fellow rich and powerful that they join them in service
It’s almost inconceivable that people with that much at their disposal, people who can do pretty much anything they want whenever they want, would give it all up.
How much more astonishing for God to have done so then?
God who has all the power, all of it, and gave all of it up to serve.
Even though God gave everything up to serve others, Jesus still always had enough.
If we were to do the same, I’m pretty sure we would too.
The Incarnation would become us—and keep on giving.
Once again, Preacher: Merry Christmas!
Reason #3: To Redeem
Kathleen Norris wrote, “For me, the Incarnation is the place, if you will, where hope contends with fear. Not an antique doctrine at all, but reality—as ordinary as my everyday struggles with fears great and small, as exalted as the hope that allows me some measure of peace when I soldier on in the daily round” (Amazing Grace: A Vocabulary of Faith, p. 30).
Yes, God came to redeem us from “the big one,” death, by forgiving us our sins, for which we can (literally) be eternally grateful.
But as death happens only once and at the end of our lives, Jesus also redeems the day-to-day.
Jesus reshapes our daily fears and turns them into hope.
Our fears, after all, are the manifestations of dread that we might lose something that matters to us, like power, wealth, fame, respect, safety, or regard.
But what happens when compassion and service get a hold of our fears?
They reshape our fears into hope.
Hope for a future God envisions.
For instance, you know those heroes and saints we admire, like Mother Teresa or Nelson Mandela, and those from World War II whose stories inspire us?
They were people who contended with fear and hope, and allowed hope, compassion, and service to help them decide what to do next.
They incarnated the Incarnation.
They created a different future than the one fear promised.
We can too, with Jesus’s help.
What future do our fears promise?
Whatever it is, it’s pretty grim.
What alternate future does Jesus hope for us?
Whatever it is, I like that one better.
And Jesus’s future doesn’t depend on our current problems being resolved before hope can be realized.
Jesus’s compassion and service are available to redeem our fears right now.
Three for three!
Merry Christmas.