Sermon Reflections and More!
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Christmas Eve & Christmas Day                       December 24 & 25, 2015


Christmas Eve Readings (click each reading to view the passage)

Isaiah 9:2-7Psalm 96Titus 2:11-14;  Luke 2:1-20
 

Pr. Steve's Christmas Eve Sermon: Syria and the Census
Pr. Steve's Christmas Eve Sermon: Syria and the Census

Pr. Christine's Christmas Day Sermon - A Christmas Play
Pr. Christine's Christmas Day Sermon: A Christmas Play


Christmas Eve Children's Sermon - Happy Birthday Jesus!
Christmas Eve Children's Sermon: Happy Birthday Jesus!

Youth Anthem - Christmas Eve: There Was a Little Baby
Youth Anthem - Christmas Eve: There Was a Little Baby

Christmas Eve Choir Anthem - Love Came Down at Christmas
Christmas Eve Choir Anthem: Love Came Down at Christmas

Christmas Cantata - 2015
Christmas Cantata - 2015

Christmas Pageant 2015 - 'Twas the Light Before Christmas
Christmas Pageant 2015 - 'Twas the Light Before Christmas





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Sermon Notes from Pastor Steve on Christmas Eve...
 
One of the great things about Christmas Eve is that it's an opportunity to wrap ourselves in the warm, comforting feeling of a beautiful silent night.  We put candles in the windows, light the Christmas tree and listen to sweet, comforting music.
 
And we read the story of Jesus' birth, which as Luke tells it, happens on a silent, starry night.  Shepherds are relaxing in their fields as choirs of heavenly angels sing.  All seems at peace in the world, and it feels like a retreat from our everyday reality.
 
It often feels like that to me, too.  But this year, my retreat into the peaceful, silent night was interrupted before I ever got to shepherds, or angels or sleeping babies.  And that's because before I even got to the shepherds, I had to read about "Syria".
 
It was the Roman province of Syria, but it's pretty much the same place as the modern country of Syria.  "In those days a decree went out from Emperor Augustus that all the world should be registered.  This was the first registration and was taken while Quirinius was governor of Syria."  Luke begins the story with a census that was being taken, and it somehow involved Syria.
 
Most years, most of us just read quickly through those verses to get to the good parts!  If we consider them at all, we're usually just happy that's it's the Pastor who has to pronounce names like "Quirinius"!
 
But when Luke put his Gospel together at the end of the first century, his first readers wouldn't have passed over these verses quickly at all.  To them, the mention of the census - and Syria and Quirinius - was still a well known event.  And it wasn't a sweet, happy event either.  It was, in fact, a traumatic memory even for those who hadn't personally experienced it (much like the Stock Market collapse of 1929 or the attack on Pearl Harbor is in relatively recent American history.)
 
Then, as now, people could have read about angels and shepherds and a baby in a manger and had sweet feelings.  But even as the mere mention of "Syria" conjures up in us images of conflict, fear and violence, the mention of the census reminded Luke's first readers of a time when the whole world around them seemed to be falling apart.
 
Unlike the reports of angels and shepherds, for which there's no other evidence than Luke's account, the census that took place under Quirinius is quite well documented. 
 
And it's well documented because it wasn't just a normal census.  For the very first time during Roman rule, the province of Judea was going to come under direct Roman taxation.  People were going to have to pay taxes directly to Rome, which not only meant paying tax directly to a foreign power, but it also implied paying tribute to the Roman Emperor, who considered himself a god. Quirinius, the governor of Syria, drew the short straw and got stuck having to administer it.
 
To say the least, this didn't go over well!  There was chaos and even revolt.  Almost a century later, people still remembered an uprising that spread through the whole province because of the census.  It was led by a guy named Judas the Galilean (cf. Acts 5:37), and lots of people got caught up and killed in the revolt.  (And because Easter comes so close to Christmas this year, it's important to remember a connection here - when Pontius Pilate hears that Jesus is a "Galilean" he DEFINITELY remembers the census and the revolt that a Galilean was responsible for.)
 
So honestly, if the word "Syria" jolts us out of our fantasy world of silent nights and angelic choirs, it's actually what Luke intended to happen when we read this story.
 
For in fact, by relating the story of Jesus' birth in the context of the census, Luke is making the point that when God decided to act in human history, it was not in the midst of a peaceful, quiet time.  Rather, it was in the midst of a time when there was chaos and violence, and in which people felt like their whole world was coming apart.
 
God was present, God was acting, and God was saving the world even at a moment when the world was preoccupied with violence and fear.  But God's action was not thwarted by the violence.  God's purpose was not undone by the fear.  And God's plan continued in the midst of the chaos, even though to the outside world it didn't seem like anything had changed.
 
For many people, the "unlikely" aspects of Jesus' birth are things like the virgin birth; the choirs of angels singing in the skies; or even that shepherds should be the people who first found out about it.
 
But for many ancient people - as well as many people today - the most "unlikely" and even unbelievable thing about Jesus' birth is that God would be present in the midst of fear and confusion and violence.  It's in those moments - in moments like the world finds itself right now - when people are most likely to ask "where is God in all this?"
 
Luke's story of Jesus' birth shows God to be present in the midst of it all, even if the world doesn't much notice at the time.  In the end, the violence from the revolt of the census died down.  The Roman Empire disintegrated.  But God's love in Jesus continued to spread and give hope and peace in the midst of whatever chaos, fear or violence were happening at any particular time.
 
It was an unlikely message for Luke to tell his first readers that God was breaking into the world and doing a new thing in the midst of chaos, fear and violence.  It's a message that seems unlikely to the world today.  But that's really the message of Christmas.
 
The birth of Jesus means that God is always present with us, even when it feels like the world is falling apart around us.  The birth of Jesus is the promise of God's power to give and restore life, even when evil in the world takes it away.  And the birth of Jesus is the gift of God's peace, so that fear isn't the only thing happening in our lives anymore.
 
That's the message we gather to celebrate tonight.  And that message, as unlikely as it seems, is more important and more powerful than any silent night.
 
Amen.