Sermon - 12-24-25

Year A – Christmas Eve – December 24, 2025

Pastor Megan Floyd

Luke 2:1-20

Grace and peace to you from God and the Holy Spirit, and from Jesus Christ, our savior, who is born this day for us… who is God with us. Amen.

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Merry Christmas, friends… this is truly a night for wonder. Christ is born this day for you… for us! …What an incredible proclamation!

Our Creator God has come to dwell with us… to share joy and laughter with us… and… to suffer and cry out in pain… with us… and for us.

Through the newborn Jesus, God has revealed God-self to us … arriving in the form of pure love… for only true and perfect love is as vulnerable as a newborn child.

To you… is born this day… a Savior… born into a world full of pain and sorrow… of war and greed and corruption… born into a world that is weeping… a world that is being crushed by Empire.

To you… is born this day… a Savior. Amazing!

It is no wonder… that Mary pondered all these things in her heart.

Stories of babies always bring me around to remembering my own children when they were young… young enough for me to hold in my arms.

And I think about those times when they were sick… when they were crying out in need… as parents, if we could have… we would have taken on their sickness just to ease their pain.

Even when they were bigger… too big to carry… as parents, the most natural reaction to your child’s sorrow is to draw close to them… wrap your arms around them… and remind them that they do not face their troubles alone.

We draw close to our children when they are suffering, and we share the burden of their pain… and on this night… on Christmas night… God, our holy parent… does just that.

Our God, who loves us beyond measure, cannot bear our sorrow from afar, and so our holy parent draws close… and takes on the pain and brokenness of the world… by being born among us… as a child… arriving to humble humans, surrounded by animals… and placed in a manger, for there was no bed.

To you… is born this day a Savior…

It’s a birth story so humble and ordinary; it takes your breath away. …So ordinary… that we may overlook the incredible circumstances that brought Mary and Joseph so far from their home in Nazareth, so near to the time of her baby’s arrival…

It was the audacity of Empire, seeking to control the whole world… compelling all people to be registered for the purpose of exploitation… that’s what brought them to that stable… to that manger, in the city of Bethlehem… the city of David.

But what Empire forced for the purpose of control… God chose to use for the purpose of salvation.

Control and conquest forced them into such a precarious situation… but from amid that brokenness, and from under the pressure of oppression, rises the green shoot from the stump of Jesse…

…as the prophet Isaiah foretold, the savior would come from the royal line of Jesse, father of King David, whose lineage seemed to be cut off like a dead stump after the downfall of Israel…

This impossible new life shines a great light in the darkness… bringing love so powerful that it can overcome cruelty… offering hope so secure that it drives out despair… and breaking the chains of oppression for the sake of justice and mercy.

This is the power and promise of God, who comes to turn the world upside down, by drawing close to us… by arriving among us…

God arrives, not amid wealth and power… not with military might or gold and grandeur… but in complete vulnerability, to those who are poor and lowly.

Christ arrives on the margins… to those who are considered disposable… this is where our God… Word of the Father… is born. …this is where Christ is found… Christ arrives, always, where good news is most needed.

It is… almost too wonderful to behold.

And then, as if daring our God to be even more subversive to earthly powers… the angel of the Lord announces the arrival of our Savior… to shepherds, tending their flocks by night.

It was to those who were even further in the margins of society… literally on the outskirts of the community… to them, the angel appears to proclaim the good news of great JOY…

And those shepherds went to see the child, and saw that it was as the angel had told… and once they saw the promise of Love incarnate… they went on their way, glorifying and praising God…

They proclaimed the good news for all to hear!

TO YOU is born this day in the city of David… a Savior, who is Christ the Lord.

God has heard your cry… God feels your sorrow and longs to take your pain… and so in pure Love, your holy parent has drawn close to you to bring comfort… and peace.

O Holy Night! …indeed… except Christ’s arrival is so much more than one holy night… it is so much more than that first, humble Christmas… all those years ago.

The arrival of Jesus Christ …the incarnation of our God… is not a one-time event… it is… eternal.

Christ is arriving… every day… to the poor… the needy… the lonely… Christ is born every day for those who are marginalized and oppressed… to those for whom justice has been too long delayed and denied.

Our world is still broken… and so our God is still arriving… still coming among us… choosing to show up for us and walk alongside us, ever faithful to the promise of Emmanuel that began on that first Christmas… God with us.

To YOU… to US… a child is born, who is Christ the Lord… ever inviting us to take notice of those in need as if they were Christ himself… to embrace empathy, and act with compassion and love for our neighbor.

Because Jesus Christ is born this day! …and therefore, we are born into the holy truth that God’s love and grace and mercy are so much greater and deeper than we can ever understand.

To us, a child is born… humble and lowly… so that we might understand that power is made perfect in weakness, and love is the greatest force of all.

Jesus Christ has brought salvation to the world, but we still live amid brokenness… we live in the truth that the healing of the world… will not be achieved in a swift, dramatic movement.

And so, the coming of our Lord teaches us… that Christ is born wherever love is shown and wherever light shines… Christ is born in humble acts of kindness… and born when we choose to live with integrity and seek justice and mercy.

Christ is born when we honor and value those who are in the margins, and when we seek to heal the sin that pushed them there.

Christ is born when we draw from the strength of God’s love, and seek to heal our world.

And so to us, a child is born, who is Christ our savior… inviting us to share the good news… and to keep the wonder that is the miracle of Christmas… that Christ is born in love… this day, and every day. Amen.