Isaiah 9: 2 -7
Titus 2: 11 – 14
Luke 2: 1 -14
In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen
In those days a decree went out from Caesar Augustus, that all the world should be registered. This was the first registration and was taken while Quirinius was governor of Syria.
Such mundane ordinary words begin the story of our salvation. God comes to be with us in Jesus in a country that is experiencing all the usual political, economic and social events that are familiar even to us 2000 years later. A government wants to know how many people they have, so they can tax them. A general order is sent out through the land, and even a heavily pregnant woman must make an arduous journey to the town of the family of the man to whom she is engaged.
I must admit that I always get pleasure from hearing these words spoken aloud on Christmas Eve. It seems to me that they bring us down to earth with a bit of a bump, reminding us that the ‘first Christmas’ was less than perfect. Just in case we are worried about whether we have enough food, have sent out enough Christmas cards or forgotten any last minute presents, the Bible snaps us straight back to reality and into the simple, the mundane and the practical.
It’s easy to allow the pressures of the season to take over. This year I noticed that signs were going up in August outside local pubs exhorting us to book our Christmas parties. John Lewis were advertising for temporary Christmas staff in September. Each year it seems that more and more pressure is being applied on all of us, to achieve some kind of perfect Christmas.
And we are also supposed to feel something this evening. We are supposed to feel warm, loving, and joyful, especially if we have spent lots of time planning all the small details of this Christmas. It is my sincere wish that everyone here this evening will feel great peace and joy, but I also acknowledge that 2025 has been a hard year both politically and economically, at home and abroad. How can we hold in balance the joy of the birth of Jesus with the sorrow that many have experienced this year?
Perhaps a start would be to listen to what St Luke tells us about this special child. Firstly that he is to bring peace—not the secular, temporary peace of a king or politician—although that is of course important. But this peace is of a different order – it is peace in our hearts, deep and steadfast, especially for any of us this evening who come here with sadness, pain or fear.
We hear this peace proclaimed by the angels, the great messengers of peace. Nine months earlier it was the angel Gabriel who announced to Mary that she was to bear a son. Here they are again, ready to announce the birth of Jesus. Who do they speak to first? They announce the birth first and foremost to the shepherds—just ordinary working people. As one writer comments ‘did the angels take a wrong turn that first Christmas night? Had they intended to announce the king of peace to movers and shakers? ‘.
I think we can be sure that the angelic messengers had a clear sense of their task that night. The new king born this night has brought peace to all men and women, whatever their status, even to those ’outside the city walls’.
Announcing the birth to the shepherds shows us God’s willingness to draw near to any of us who will listen for him. God came unexpectedly, at night, to those who were simply going about their daily work. The shepherds were not holy people who had withdrawn from the world to pray and contemplate. And yet God came to them through the message of the angels. God moves unexpectedly, and this night reminds us to be attentive so that we too can encounter him. God shows up even in small and ordinary ways in the middle of the most mundane tasks.
Very soon it will be Christmas Day, we will leave this place to rest, sleep and then celebrate the great joy that a Saviour has been born to us and that he is the Messiah.
And if you have suddenly realised—while I was speaking—that you have forgotten to buy the cranberry sauce, or the special turkey gravy, please be assured that just as the first Christmas was less than perfect, so the God who was willing to be born in a stable and die on a cross does not expect you—or your Christmas Day—to be prefect. Even when things do not go as planned, God arrives.
And if you have found this year a challenging experience, whether through personal circumstances or global unrest, please be assured that God loves you. He is always with you, not a moment goes by that you are not held in the mind of God, and that he desires nothing other than peace and joy for you and for the world. God desires nothing more than to be with you. Coming to us in the form of a helpless child reminds us that God is willing to cross oceans, move mountains, span stars, to be with those he loves.
And if there is some small way that you can be (as St Teresa of Avila famously said) be God’s hands and feet on this earth, being a messenger of peace and concord, then you are in the company of the angels and great will be your reward in heaven.
So draw near today and and hear again what the angel said ‘I am bringing you good news of great joy for all the people, to you is born … a Saviour’ …
Merry Christmas to you all …
In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit
Amen.