December 24, 2025
Christmas Eve MESSAGE
“SILENT NIGHT --- HOLY NIGHT”
In our Christian faith, this evening heralds one of the most important events in our lives as followers of the Way…and it has to do with a birth…we celebrate this birthing all over the world…it represents an opportunity to once again, step back and to look at what is central in our day-to-day living…and possibly more importantly, what is essential…and I know, in my own heart, that what is essential for me is Joy…and something else from my heart to yours, Christmas Eve is a challenging occasion for preachers – for ministers…this service of worship is not a time for lengthy sermons or wordy theological analysis…no…it is an occasion for sharing the story…of joy…of singing the hymns or carols that we so love… and pondering the mystery…so on this occasion, less from the pulpit may in fact be more…
The goal isn’t to explain the odd arrival of the Messiah with the unwed mother, the stable, shepherds, angels, and so on but rather, I believe, to help the story come alive in all of its radicalness and to draw you folks into the newness of what Luke writes about…
The words of the Christmas carol, “O Little Town of Bethlehem” come to mind: “How silently, how silently, the wondrous gift is given!”…those words have often sounded rather sentimental and schmaltzy to me, as if Mary gave no cries during childbirth or that Jesus wasn’t a squalling newborn baby, and there was no commotion around the manger…
There were probably all kinds of noises happening at this time in that Bethlehem was packed with people, but this isn’t important to Luke…
But maybe that’s not the kind of ‘silence’ the hymn has in mind…
for if you wiggle those letters around in the word silent – you get listen…because in ‘those days’, Jesus’ actual birth really does not make much noise…and this is the wild and the holy mystery of Christmas Eve and it’s not for me to add details to it or to try and explain it away…
This ‘quiet’ birth is the pivotal moment in the story…in your story…in my story…
And then we throw Santa Claus into the mix…the Jolly Old St. Nick… which in many households becomes the central figure so I went on the internet the other day to have a look at what some children were writing to Santa Claus about and what their wishes were, especially in terms of joy…
And so I came across a collection of letters that children wrote to Santa Claus….Some of them were pretty good….One said:
"Dear Santa, you did not bring me anything good last year. You did not bring me anything good the year before that. This is your last chance… signed, Alfred."….
And as I read many more, this has to be my favorite, and it went like this:
"Dear Santa, there are three little boys who live at our house….There is Jeffrey; he is 2….There is David; he is 4…. And there is Norman…he is 7….Jeffrey is good some of the time…. David is good some of the time… But Norman is good all the time….I am Norman."
And these little letters remind me of the play which I had seen children perform many years ago called The Greatest Christmas Pageant Ever… and if some of you folks have seen this and remember, Christmas was hijacked by the Herdman boys and the performance degenerates into chaos and the youngest Herdman, who plays the angel announces Messiah’s birth, “Hey! Unto you a child is born!”…
well, thankfully…the great news of Jesus’ birth, the event of the incarnation, can still cut through the noise of our distracted culture and our own restless souls…making room in that place called “Silent Night – Holy Night”…
If you could use one word to describe Christmas, what word would it be? Some folks would use words like, possibly, headache, busyness, expensive, or even bothersome. To many people Christmas is just another day, only a little more expensive and a lot more trouble.
I have heard many folks use these words to describe the day we celebrate the birth of Christ. How sad that an event that brought so much joy in that Holy night should bring so little joy to many folks here on earth today….
I would like to suggest to you as we begin this beautiful season of the year that this Christmas season can be a time of joy, no matter how broke you are or how busy you are. Joy is like love - it is not merely an emotion, but a decision, and I believe you can be as joyful as you want to be…..It’s all in where you choose to put your focus….and this evening, I hope that your focus is on a Silent Night – a Holy Night…for unto us, a child is born…unto us, a gift is given…and Christmas Eve, as we all know, is about singing the carols and as the church will undergo a long fast from carols until this time next year, as Martin Luther said, it is well to gorge on them now while they are plentiful so let us turn to “Joy To The World” for the Lord has come…