Sermons from December 2022
Christmas Eve
Tonight, we hear the familiar Christmas story. But, for me, the story feels different. The obvious reason is that we’re physically in the same place this year for Christmas–we’re singing together, we’re praying together, and we can see each other’s faces. But I think it’s… the poinsettias that make it feel different for me this year…
Nativity of Our Lord
Well, I hope that you weren’t looking for the familiar Christmas Eve story this morning. Today’s gospel is not the Lukan version with Jesus, the angels, and the shepherds. Rather, today is John’s gospel. Unlike Luke and Matthew, John does not write of Jesus’s conception or birth. John doesn’t care about Joseph or Mary as a part of Jesus’s human origins. Instead, Jesus’ beginnings are described in cosmological terms with an emphasis on Jesus as God’s son…
Seventh Sunday of Advent
Well we may still be a week out from Christmas, but today we read the entire Nativity story in the gospel of Matthew! It’s ok if you missed it, it went real fast, just a single verse and not even a whole sentence long. “But he, Joseph, had no marital relations with her, Mary, until she had given birth to a son, and he named him Jesus.” That’s it! That’s the whole story! There’s no away in the mangers, no “no room in the inn for travelers weary” no “certain poor shepherds in fields as they lay” no “angels we have heard on high” Matthew doesn’t even specify what time the birth took place so no “O Holy Night” either. Thank God for Luke, otherwise we’d be really short on Christmas carols…
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