Christmas: Too big for one day

 Christmas is a funny time of year. It can seem like something that we look forward to, or perhaps dread, for a couple of months in advance and then, when it comes, it’s over in no time at all. 

Christmas Day seems the pinnacle as we often try to pack so much into the day – we might go to church, either for a midnight service on Christmas Eve or on Christmas morning, we might give and receive presents, eat a big dinner, try and get in a bit of a sleep after dinner (!) and spend time with family and/ or friends. For some though the day will be one of reflection, spent quietly, but one which remains poignant, special in some way. 

But in the church calendar, we have a lot more than just the one day to reflect on Christmas, recognising that the magnitude of the event can’t and shouldn’t be crammed into one day. 

In fact, Charles Dickens, who obviously had nothing at all to do with writing the church calendar, offered an important message about Christmas (Scrooge in A Christmas Carol) when he wrote, ‘I will honour Christmas in my heart, and try to keep it all the year’.

Christmas isn’t a day, or even just a season, but something that invites us to be changed forever… 

Today, on the Second Sunday after Christmas, our readings invite us to step away from Bethlehem and look at the bigger picture. The picture of God who has always been, God who calls us home and God who blesses us in Christ…Christmas is not just a story to be told once a year, but God offering a much bigger picture as he is revealed to us through Jesus. 

In John’s gospel (1:1-18) we have again the passage famously used in Christmas services and it starts, “In the beginning…”  There is immediately that sense of God stepping into our world… John doesn’t begin with descriptions of a census or Mary and Joseph travelling to Bethlehem or of angels and shepherds… He starts with the story of the world! 

“In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.” Through the words which are all too familiar we are to consider God – there before creation, before time itself… 

John wants us to understand that Jesus is not simply a holy baby. He is the eternal Word through whom all things were made. The One who spoke light into darkness is now stepping into the darkness of the world Himself - not to condemn it, but to save it.

Because what follows is the verse that changes everything: “The Word became flesh and lived among us.” I think the Message Bible puts it really well, ‘The Word became flesh and blood, and moved into the neighbourhood.’

It highlights the incredible reality outside of romantic images of stables and shepherds and nativity costumes, that God has come into the world, into our neighbourhood, living among us. The incredible reality that God is not distant, but close, God is with us… whoever we are… 

The gospel goes on, “He came to what was his own, and his own people did not accept him.”  

But then comes the promise: “To all who received him… he gave power to become children of God.” Not servants, not spectators, not club members, but children… 

Christmas is God declaring that we are wanted, chosen, and loved... by God who is close to every one of us.

The Old Testament reading from Jeremiah (31:7-14) is a passage spoken to people who feel scattered, defeated and forgotten. People who have lost their land, their identity, their hope.

But into that despair, God speaks hope: “See, I am going to bring them from the farthest parts of the earth… With weeping they shall come, and with consolations I will lead them back.”

Sometimes people write off church by saying they’re not good enough to be part of it. Well, perhaps the response is to say that they can’t have looked hard at our churches which are full of people with all kinds of challenges (!!) but more seriously, it is to invite people to look at a church full of people who recognise that God doesn’t wait for His people to ‘pull themselves together’.  

God searches out his people. God gathers them and leads them to their true home with him. And he leads everyone, the strong and the weak, the confident and the anxious, the faithful and the doubting, the ones who feel they belong and the ones who feel they don’t.

Jeremiah paints a picture of God who refuses to leave anyone behind.

And that’s what we see in Jesus – God gathering the lost, sitting with those who are lonely, welcoming the outsider…   

So, John has explained who Jesus is, and Jeremiah tells us what God does, and the reading from Ephesians (1:3-14) tells us who we are because of Christ.

Paul writes with joy: “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing…”

And he lists some blessings in this short reading: Reminding us that we are chosen, adopted, redeemed, forgiven, sealed with the Holy Spirit and destined for glory

This is not the language of a distant God, but of a Father who delights in His children.

And that is the heart of the gospel:  God does not love us because we are good. God loves us because God is good. Christmas is not about our search for God. It is about God’s search for us.

So, what does this mean for us today? We live in a world that is hungry for identity – with people searching for belonging and meaning. Some are asking who they are, where they fit in, what is their purpose, even does life matter?   

Christmas answers these questions – we are children of God, part of a worldwide family, living in the light of Christ and called to reflect his love…  

And yes, life matters so much – each one of us is chosen by God… Jesus came into the world for all of us, to offer us life in all its fulness… 

The gospel of John says, “From his fullness we have all received, grace upon grace.”

Grace upon grace. Christmas is not a one‑day event. It is a season of receiving – of receiving light in our darkness, of receiving hope in any despair, forgiveness for any failure.  

And receiving belonging in our loneliness. Receiving Christ Himself.

And the invitation of Christmas is simple:  

Receive Him. Not understand everything.  Not have all the answers. Not be perfect or even strong or spiritually impressive.  Just receive.

Because the God who comes to us in Jesus is the God who gathers, the God who blesses, the God who adopts, the God who restores, the God who leads us home.

And if this is who God is, then this is who we are called to be. So as individuals and as churches we are offered the challenge – to gather the scattered, to welcome the weary, to truly celebrate every person as a child of God. To shine with the light of Christ.

We’re not to be churches of perfection, but of grace; not of insiders and outsiders, but a home for everyone… Not a church that says, “try harder,” but a church that says, “come and see.”

Because the world is full of people who feel forgotten, or who feel unworthy or lost or like they don’t belong anywhere.

And Christmas gives us a simple message for all - You belong. You are loved. You are chosen. Come home.

Back to John’s gospel and the passage ends with a promise: “No one has ever seen God.  It is God the only Son… who has made him known.”

If you want to know what God is like, look at Jesus. If you want to know how God feels about you, look at Jesus.  If you want to know whether God cares, look at Jesus.

The Word became flesh, and the Word still becomes flesh – in the church, in acts of compassion, in the quiet whisper of prayer, in the breaking of bread, in the lives of those who carry His light.

Christmas is not over.  Christmas is never over because,  

 God who created the universe has come close

 God who gathers the lost calls you by name.

God who became flesh invites you to receive grace upon grace.

This is the heart of Christmas, and the promise of the gospel. This is the light that shines in the darkness - and the darkness has not overcome it. And it never will… Amen.