Sermon Illustrations for Christmas Day (2017)
Illustration
Isaiah 52:7-10
“How beautiful upon the mountains are the feet of the messenger who announces peace, who brings good news, who announces salvation, who says to Zion, ‘Your God reigns.’ ” This is the prophet’s foretelling of the roles that Emmanuel will fill in our world. The infant child born so long ago is seen as a messenger from God, a messenger who shares the good news that God’s realm is at hand, that we are a part of the family of God, and that peace can fill our hearts, our homes, and our world.
This is the promise we remember. This is the promise Jesus kept and keeps. This is why, so long after that proclamation of the prophet, so long after the birth of the infant, we celebrate, remember, and give thanks.
Bonnie B.
Isaiah 52:7-10
We get so much power through so few words. There are certainly enough who bring bad news. We read it in the paper every day and see it on the news. It is hard for some to see good news (good news doesn’t seem to make news!). Hopefully you will find that good news in your church and among Christian friends.
How can we proclaim peace and bring good news except through our Lord? It is not often that we or others shout for joy. It can only come as a gift from God. Without him it is not humanly possible. It is the celebration of his coming to us that makes us sing songs of joy this day. It is Jesus and not just the gifts under the tree that can bring us true joy.
Again, this passage shows us that God’s message is for all the world. We can help spread that by our gifts at the altar this day and throughout the year.
We shouldn’t wait until the end of the world when Jesus returns. We may only see that when we go to be with him forever. We do catch a glimpse of that when Jesus comes to our heart in some way now. Christmas is one time of year when we can feel the joy of his coming to us. It is a sign of God’s love. There can be no greater Christmas gift than Jesus!
Bob O.
Isaiah 52:7-10
Martin Luther offers a penetrating reflection on what the salvation which Christ makes happen by coming to us is all about: “Salvation means freedom from death and all evils and the gift of eternal salvation. Thus we are freed through the gospel from all laws, and we receive salvation. We are eternally set free, and we are placed into the heavenly kingdom” (Luther’s Works, Vol. 17, p. 210).
Modern theologian Karl Barth quoted the first Reformer’s elaboration of what this freedom given by Christ entails regarding how we are dependent on the One whose birth we celebrate: “a right Christian and true member of the churches is he who believeth and that he sitteth upon Christ’s shoulders, that is, that all his sins are hung on Christ’s neck, so that his heart said, I know no other comfort save that all my sins and misdeeds are laid upon his shoulders. Therefore those who lie on Christ’s shoulders... are called and are the Church and proper Christians” (Church Dogmatics, Vol. I/2, p. 216).
About our Lord and his hidden ways, such as his coming to us in a small child, Luther adds: “...the Lord God is always weak and foolish in appearance and countenance, as we see today” (Luther’s Works, Vol. 17, p. 212).
Elsewhere Barth proceeds to describe what it is that Christ brings us on this Christmas: “We can and should say even more emphatically that knowledge in the biblical sense is the process in which the distant ‘object’ dissolves as it were, overcoming both its distance and its objectivity and coming to man as acting Subject, entering into the man who knows and subjecting him to this transformation” (Church Dogmatics, Vol. IV/3, p. 183).
Christmas is about Christ who is distant coming to us to change us.
Mark E.
Hebrews 1:1-4 (5-12)
The Harry Chapin song “Cat’s in the Cradle” is one of my favorites. Though it is a sad song, I think it has a powerful message. The recurring theme throughout the song is the son’s desire to be like his dad. The words echo: “I’m going to be like you, dad. You know I’m going to be like you.” In the song, the dad was always a bit too busy to really spend time with his son. The bitter conclusion is that the boy did grow up just like his dad, and didn’t have time to spend with his aged father.
In Hebrews 1 we find another Dad and his Son. The writer of Hebrews begins this letter by establishing that the new covenant with Jesus is superior to the old covenant with the law. The Son is described in verse three: “He is the reflection of God’s glory and the exact imprint of God’s very being, and he sustains all things by his powerful word.” The two descriptions noted in this passage are important. He is the “reflection” of God’s glory. The word for “reflection” here is a powerful word picture. It can be a picture of reflected brightness from God, the Father. Another way of looking at it is that as a ray of the sun emanates from the sun, so too does the Son radiate from the Father. Both understandings are found in the writings of church fathers. As awesome as that is to contemplate, I like the second one even more. He is the “exact imprint” of God’s very being. The phrase “exact imprint” is one from which we get the English word “character,” and is applied to the engraving or inscribing of images on coins. The Son Jesus is the exact imprint of God the Father. Both descriptions exclaim that Jesus and God are one. They are the same. Throughout the rest of the text for today, the superiority of the Son, Jesus is proclaimed.
The Son was not merely like his Father, as was hoped for in the song. He and the Father were of the same ontological stuff. Is there any doubt why he is superior to anything in the old covenant?
Bill T.
Hebrews 1:1-4 (5-12)
The author is writing to an audience of Christians who are familiar with the Hebrew scriptures, whether or not they speak Hebrew. There would be a great many Jews scattered across the Roman empire for whom Greek was their primary language. Their Greek translation of the scriptures would have told them many stories about angels.
There were the three angels who appeared to Abraham and Sarah. There would be the angel who wrestled with Jacob. There was the angel who blocked the road when Balaam tried to pass by on his donkey, causing the donkey to speak! There were the angels surrounding God’s throne in Isaiah’s call to ministry. There were the strange, mysterious, and even frightening angels seen by Ezekiel.
These and many other angels were not always distinct from the Divine Presence in our midst. They were all mighty and powerful. The author describes them in Hebrews 1:7 as mighty winds, and as spirits of flame, a reference to Psalm 104:4.
It is against this backdrop of power and glory that the author insists that God has granted even greater glory to Jesus than to the angels. No angel receives the same praise from God as this eternal Son of David, this infant whose birth we celebrate today. Jesus is the inheritor of all things. Heaven and earth will pass away, we are assured, but nothing compares to the kingdom granted to Jesus. Jesus is Lord.
Frank R.
Hebrews 1:1-4 (5-12)
Simeon Wright was 12, and his cousin Emmett Till was two years older. Each summer Emmett would come from Chicago to the Mississippi Delta to visit with Simeon and his family. They stayed at the Wright home on Dark Fear Road, just outside the cotton-milling hamlet of Money. The Wrights were a family of sharecroppers, and Emmett would help pick the cotton.
One evening, on August 25, 1955, after a day’s labor, Simeon, Emmett, and Simeon’s older brother Maurice (who drove the family’s Ford sedan) went to Bryant’s Grocery & Meat Market in Money.
It is uncertain what occurred next. Emmett went into the store alone and bought some bubble gum from Carolyn Bryant, a 21-year-old white woman. She claimed that the 14-year-old made sexual advances at her and touched her waist. During this episode, Maurice sent Simeon in behind Emmett to make sure he did not do anything wrong, since being from Chicago Emmett would not understand the Jim Crow laws of Mississippi. But as Emmett was leaving the store, it is known that he did whistle at Mrs. Bryant. The boys, knowing this was not good, hurried home in fear.
Carolyn told her husband Roy and his half-brother J.W. Milam. Days passed and Simeon thought all would be forgotten. Then on August 27, Roy and J.W. came into Simeon’s bedroom, where he shared a bed with Emmett. At gunpoint, they kidnapped Emmett. Days later Emmett’s mutilated body was found in the Tallahatchie River, weighted down with a 75-pound cotton gin fan tethered around his neck with barbered wire.
Roy and his half-brother J.W. Milam were found not guilty by an all-white male jury. Not able to be prosecuted for the crime a second time, they gave an interview in which they confessed and shared the details of murdering Emmett. Carolyn also recanted all the testimony she gave in court as being false.
Emmett’s body was so badly mutilated that actual confirmation was not available until five decades later. DNA from Simeon confirmed the body was that of Emmett Till.
In 2015, Simeon Wright gave an interview in which he said: “You don’t seek vengeance now; you just seek justice. That’s what I mean by forgiveness. I’m going to leave vengeance to Almighty God and justice to the government.”
Application: Our reading discusses the need for justice.
Ron L.
John 1:1-14
Even as we celebrate the coming into the human world of an infant sent as a messenger of God, we understand that Jesus transcends time and space. Jesus, the Word, was and is and will be. Jesus, present at creation, present in our past, present now, and yet also present in our future. He is and was and will be the light. He knows and is known completely only in connection to the Creator and the Spirit.
It’s challenging for us to understand the relationship of the trinitarian God we proclaim belief in. How can one God have three distinct roles and manifestations? Perhaps the better question is how can God not?
Humans, with our limitations of time and space, can be woman, daughter, sister, mother, aunt, grandmother, professional. We can be man, son, brother, father, uncle, grandfather, professional. We can be so many roles and manifestations in our world; how could we expect God to be limited? Jesus is and was and will be. Thankfully, it is so.
Bonnie B.
John 1:1-14
At the Christmas festival we are confronted with the question of how Christ can be God and man at the same time. Several nice analogies come from Luther. He compares the union of the two natures to a glowing iron, saying it is like sugar in water (Luther’s Works, Vol. 37, p. 229; Luther’s Works, Vol. 23, pp. 148-149). Preaching on this text, Luther envisages Christ saying these words to us: “In a word, you did not make yourselves, my friends; but I turned you, who by nature were friends of the devil, from enemies into friends” (What Luther Says, p. 529). In another sermon he reminds us what this friendship, what Christ does to us: “I might also say that the eternal will makes the unwilling willing” (Complete Sermons, Vol. 1/1, p. 196).
Mark E.
John 1:1-14
Christmastime is another beginning. We aren’t ready to look ahead to what our Savior will endure when he is through with the carpentry business. We don’t want that to ruin our joy for the day. It does remind us that every beginning has an ending. We still have to go back to work when our holiday time has ended. Our hope is that the joy of the season will stay with us. The Word is always with us if we listen to it.
Jesus is not just a later thought of our God. He was ONE with him from the beginning. We worship ONE God and not three gods! When we believe in him we become his children -- not just born as humans with earthly parents, but born again of God. It sounds like that can be even before our baptism. Our baptism is a sign that we accept that adoption (or our parents accept it for us). God knows which of us are his children and always have been. Our only choice is to accept that birth or refuse to be adopted by God. He has another place for those people who refuse. If we have been adopted by our earthly parents, we can also refuse that honor. Christmas should remind us of that. We pray that our joy is for God’s gift to us and not just our gifts for each other.
God did not give us a boring world -- it is filled with so many things that we can spend the rest of our lives learning about. The astronaut and astrologist can spend a lifetime examining all the things that God made. It can be fascinating, as long as we remember who created it all and put him first in our minds and hearts. Even a scientist may put his family and his love for them ahead of his scientific adventures. Christ’s coming is a time when we can reset our priorities and put God first in our life. Our church can help us do that by reminding us every Sunday of God’s love for his children!
Bob O.
“How beautiful upon the mountains are the feet of the messenger who announces peace, who brings good news, who announces salvation, who says to Zion, ‘Your God reigns.’ ” This is the prophet’s foretelling of the roles that Emmanuel will fill in our world. The infant child born so long ago is seen as a messenger from God, a messenger who shares the good news that God’s realm is at hand, that we are a part of the family of God, and that peace can fill our hearts, our homes, and our world.
This is the promise we remember. This is the promise Jesus kept and keeps. This is why, so long after that proclamation of the prophet, so long after the birth of the infant, we celebrate, remember, and give thanks.
Bonnie B.
Isaiah 52:7-10
We get so much power through so few words. There are certainly enough who bring bad news. We read it in the paper every day and see it on the news. It is hard for some to see good news (good news doesn’t seem to make news!). Hopefully you will find that good news in your church and among Christian friends.
How can we proclaim peace and bring good news except through our Lord? It is not often that we or others shout for joy. It can only come as a gift from God. Without him it is not humanly possible. It is the celebration of his coming to us that makes us sing songs of joy this day. It is Jesus and not just the gifts under the tree that can bring us true joy.
Again, this passage shows us that God’s message is for all the world. We can help spread that by our gifts at the altar this day and throughout the year.
We shouldn’t wait until the end of the world when Jesus returns. We may only see that when we go to be with him forever. We do catch a glimpse of that when Jesus comes to our heart in some way now. Christmas is one time of year when we can feel the joy of his coming to us. It is a sign of God’s love. There can be no greater Christmas gift than Jesus!
Bob O.
Isaiah 52:7-10
Martin Luther offers a penetrating reflection on what the salvation which Christ makes happen by coming to us is all about: “Salvation means freedom from death and all evils and the gift of eternal salvation. Thus we are freed through the gospel from all laws, and we receive salvation. We are eternally set free, and we are placed into the heavenly kingdom” (Luther’s Works, Vol. 17, p. 210).
Modern theologian Karl Barth quoted the first Reformer’s elaboration of what this freedom given by Christ entails regarding how we are dependent on the One whose birth we celebrate: “a right Christian and true member of the churches is he who believeth and that he sitteth upon Christ’s shoulders, that is, that all his sins are hung on Christ’s neck, so that his heart said, I know no other comfort save that all my sins and misdeeds are laid upon his shoulders. Therefore those who lie on Christ’s shoulders... are called and are the Church and proper Christians” (Church Dogmatics, Vol. I/2, p. 216).
About our Lord and his hidden ways, such as his coming to us in a small child, Luther adds: “...the Lord God is always weak and foolish in appearance and countenance, as we see today” (Luther’s Works, Vol. 17, p. 212).
Elsewhere Barth proceeds to describe what it is that Christ brings us on this Christmas: “We can and should say even more emphatically that knowledge in the biblical sense is the process in which the distant ‘object’ dissolves as it were, overcoming both its distance and its objectivity and coming to man as acting Subject, entering into the man who knows and subjecting him to this transformation” (Church Dogmatics, Vol. IV/3, p. 183).
Christmas is about Christ who is distant coming to us to change us.
Mark E.
Hebrews 1:1-4 (5-12)
The Harry Chapin song “Cat’s in the Cradle” is one of my favorites. Though it is a sad song, I think it has a powerful message. The recurring theme throughout the song is the son’s desire to be like his dad. The words echo: “I’m going to be like you, dad. You know I’m going to be like you.” In the song, the dad was always a bit too busy to really spend time with his son. The bitter conclusion is that the boy did grow up just like his dad, and didn’t have time to spend with his aged father.
In Hebrews 1 we find another Dad and his Son. The writer of Hebrews begins this letter by establishing that the new covenant with Jesus is superior to the old covenant with the law. The Son is described in verse three: “He is the reflection of God’s glory and the exact imprint of God’s very being, and he sustains all things by his powerful word.” The two descriptions noted in this passage are important. He is the “reflection” of God’s glory. The word for “reflection” here is a powerful word picture. It can be a picture of reflected brightness from God, the Father. Another way of looking at it is that as a ray of the sun emanates from the sun, so too does the Son radiate from the Father. Both understandings are found in the writings of church fathers. As awesome as that is to contemplate, I like the second one even more. He is the “exact imprint” of God’s very being. The phrase “exact imprint” is one from which we get the English word “character,” and is applied to the engraving or inscribing of images on coins. The Son Jesus is the exact imprint of God the Father. Both descriptions exclaim that Jesus and God are one. They are the same. Throughout the rest of the text for today, the superiority of the Son, Jesus is proclaimed.
The Son was not merely like his Father, as was hoped for in the song. He and the Father were of the same ontological stuff. Is there any doubt why he is superior to anything in the old covenant?
Bill T.
Hebrews 1:1-4 (5-12)
The author is writing to an audience of Christians who are familiar with the Hebrew scriptures, whether or not they speak Hebrew. There would be a great many Jews scattered across the Roman empire for whom Greek was their primary language. Their Greek translation of the scriptures would have told them many stories about angels.
There were the three angels who appeared to Abraham and Sarah. There would be the angel who wrestled with Jacob. There was the angel who blocked the road when Balaam tried to pass by on his donkey, causing the donkey to speak! There were the angels surrounding God’s throne in Isaiah’s call to ministry. There were the strange, mysterious, and even frightening angels seen by Ezekiel.
These and many other angels were not always distinct from the Divine Presence in our midst. They were all mighty and powerful. The author describes them in Hebrews 1:7 as mighty winds, and as spirits of flame, a reference to Psalm 104:4.
It is against this backdrop of power and glory that the author insists that God has granted even greater glory to Jesus than to the angels. No angel receives the same praise from God as this eternal Son of David, this infant whose birth we celebrate today. Jesus is the inheritor of all things. Heaven and earth will pass away, we are assured, but nothing compares to the kingdom granted to Jesus. Jesus is Lord.
Frank R.
Hebrews 1:1-4 (5-12)
Simeon Wright was 12, and his cousin Emmett Till was two years older. Each summer Emmett would come from Chicago to the Mississippi Delta to visit with Simeon and his family. They stayed at the Wright home on Dark Fear Road, just outside the cotton-milling hamlet of Money. The Wrights were a family of sharecroppers, and Emmett would help pick the cotton.
One evening, on August 25, 1955, after a day’s labor, Simeon, Emmett, and Simeon’s older brother Maurice (who drove the family’s Ford sedan) went to Bryant’s Grocery & Meat Market in Money.
It is uncertain what occurred next. Emmett went into the store alone and bought some bubble gum from Carolyn Bryant, a 21-year-old white woman. She claimed that the 14-year-old made sexual advances at her and touched her waist. During this episode, Maurice sent Simeon in behind Emmett to make sure he did not do anything wrong, since being from Chicago Emmett would not understand the Jim Crow laws of Mississippi. But as Emmett was leaving the store, it is known that he did whistle at Mrs. Bryant. The boys, knowing this was not good, hurried home in fear.
Carolyn told her husband Roy and his half-brother J.W. Milam. Days passed and Simeon thought all would be forgotten. Then on August 27, Roy and J.W. came into Simeon’s bedroom, where he shared a bed with Emmett. At gunpoint, they kidnapped Emmett. Days later Emmett’s mutilated body was found in the Tallahatchie River, weighted down with a 75-pound cotton gin fan tethered around his neck with barbered wire.
Roy and his half-brother J.W. Milam were found not guilty by an all-white male jury. Not able to be prosecuted for the crime a second time, they gave an interview in which they confessed and shared the details of murdering Emmett. Carolyn also recanted all the testimony she gave in court as being false.
Emmett’s body was so badly mutilated that actual confirmation was not available until five decades later. DNA from Simeon confirmed the body was that of Emmett Till.
In 2015, Simeon Wright gave an interview in which he said: “You don’t seek vengeance now; you just seek justice. That’s what I mean by forgiveness. I’m going to leave vengeance to Almighty God and justice to the government.”
Application: Our reading discusses the need for justice.
Ron L.
John 1:1-14
Even as we celebrate the coming into the human world of an infant sent as a messenger of God, we understand that Jesus transcends time and space. Jesus, the Word, was and is and will be. Jesus, present at creation, present in our past, present now, and yet also present in our future. He is and was and will be the light. He knows and is known completely only in connection to the Creator and the Spirit.
It’s challenging for us to understand the relationship of the trinitarian God we proclaim belief in. How can one God have three distinct roles and manifestations? Perhaps the better question is how can God not?
Humans, with our limitations of time and space, can be woman, daughter, sister, mother, aunt, grandmother, professional. We can be man, son, brother, father, uncle, grandfather, professional. We can be so many roles and manifestations in our world; how could we expect God to be limited? Jesus is and was and will be. Thankfully, it is so.
Bonnie B.
John 1:1-14
At the Christmas festival we are confronted with the question of how Christ can be God and man at the same time. Several nice analogies come from Luther. He compares the union of the two natures to a glowing iron, saying it is like sugar in water (Luther’s Works, Vol. 37, p. 229; Luther’s Works, Vol. 23, pp. 148-149). Preaching on this text, Luther envisages Christ saying these words to us: “In a word, you did not make yourselves, my friends; but I turned you, who by nature were friends of the devil, from enemies into friends” (What Luther Says, p. 529). In another sermon he reminds us what this friendship, what Christ does to us: “I might also say that the eternal will makes the unwilling willing” (Complete Sermons, Vol. 1/1, p. 196).
Mark E.
John 1:1-14
Christmastime is another beginning. We aren’t ready to look ahead to what our Savior will endure when he is through with the carpentry business. We don’t want that to ruin our joy for the day. It does remind us that every beginning has an ending. We still have to go back to work when our holiday time has ended. Our hope is that the joy of the season will stay with us. The Word is always with us if we listen to it.
Jesus is not just a later thought of our God. He was ONE with him from the beginning. We worship ONE God and not three gods! When we believe in him we become his children -- not just born as humans with earthly parents, but born again of God. It sounds like that can be even before our baptism. Our baptism is a sign that we accept that adoption (or our parents accept it for us). God knows which of us are his children and always have been. Our only choice is to accept that birth or refuse to be adopted by God. He has another place for those people who refuse. If we have been adopted by our earthly parents, we can also refuse that honor. Christmas should remind us of that. We pray that our joy is for God’s gift to us and not just our gifts for each other.
God did not give us a boring world -- it is filled with so many things that we can spend the rest of our lives learning about. The astronaut and astrologist can spend a lifetime examining all the things that God made. It can be fascinating, as long as we remember who created it all and put him first in our minds and hearts. Even a scientist may put his family and his love for them ahead of his scientific adventures. Christ’s coming is a time when we can reset our priorities and put God first in our life. Our church can help us do that by reminding us every Sunday of God’s love for his children!
Bob O.
