Weekly Sermon: 12-28-2025 - First Sunday of Christmas

The Holy Gospel according to Matthew. Glory to you, Lord.

Now after the Magi had left, an angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph in a dream

and said, Get up, take the child and his mother, and flee to Egypt,

and remain there until I tell you.

For Herod is about to search for the child to destroy him.

Then Joseph got up, took the child and his mother by night, and went to Egypt.

And remained there until the death of Herod. This was to fulfill what had been

spoken by the Lord through the prophet, Out of Egypt I have called my son.

When Herod saw that he had been tricked by the Magi, he was infuriated,

and he said and killed all the children in and around Bethlehem who were two years old or under,

according to the time that he had learned from the Magi.

Then what had been spoken through the prophet jeremiah

was fulfilled a voice was heard in

ramah wailing and loud lamentation rachel

reaping for her children she refused to be consoled because they were no more

when herod died an angel of the lord suddenly appeared in the dream to joseph

in egypt and said get up and take the child and his mother and go to the land

of israel for those who were seeking the child's life are dead.

Then Joseph got up, took the child and his mother, and went to the land of Israel.

But when he had heard Archelius, who was ruling Judah in place of his father

Herod, he was afraid to go there.

And after being warned in a dream, he went away to the district of Galilee.

There he had made his home in a town called Nazareth, so that what had been

spoken through the prophets might be fulfilled.

He will be called a Nazarene.

The Gospel of the Lord.

Praise to you, O Christ. You may be seated.

So thank you all for being here this Sunday, and I sincerely hope that your

families and yourself had a great Christmas and that you were able to get at

least a little bit of rest afterwards,

because I know the lead up to Christmas can be insane.

So I hope you got rest, good food, watch some football if you like football,

and everything went great.

But I want to start out this morning by telling you about the Christmas I had

this year, because mine was really great.

James and I had his kids over throughout the week, and even though visits were

spread out over different days, it was such a gift to really have them around

and to catch up and just be present with them.

And Christmas Day itself was especially sweet.

Juno, who was James' youngest child, came over with their boyfriend.

And we like him, right? We like him.

We want him to stick around for a little bit. And we were happy about that.

And we had great food that I didn't have to cook.

And that, in and of itself, is a Christmas miracle on its own. Really, amen.

And we spent the day doing exactly what Christmas days were meant for we watched

Elf we watched how the Grinch stole Christmas because these are sacred traditions

that should never be questioned,

we opened gifts we laughed and even our Jack Russell boo went absolutely lost

her mind when we took down a stocking that she knew was meant for her,

and she went crazy and we she loved it the kids loved it we loved it and it was amazing.

And we ended up during the day playing a spirited game of Catan.

Now, I don't have time to go through everything what Catan is and all the mechanics of the game.

But I can say this. I was getting my butt whooped.

And so I decided during the game that I was going to pivot strategies instead

of trying to win in a normal way.

I decided to become the Church of Catan. And I began offering indulgences and

even royal titles for services rendered to the church.

And my guess is, is there good Lutherans? Because no one took me up on that offer.

And Juno's boyfriend won. I lost. And it was really a great day.

But there was a moment earlier in the day that unsettled me.

James and I, I had to drive out to pick up Juno and her boyfriend.

And if you ever driven on Christmas day, the world is a little bit different.

The roads are quiet.

Traffic seems to dissipate. The lights seem longer.

And there's a stillness that gives you space to actually notice what is going on around you.

We stopped at a quick trip so James can run in and grab us drinks.

And while I was waiting, I noticed a woman sitting in her car near the edge

of the lot. And she had two small children in the back seat.

The windows were fogged just enough to tell me that they had been there for a while.

Didn't see presents. There was no rush in and out of the quick trip.

It just seemed like a family spending Christmas in a car.

And my heart broke, not dramatically, but in a slow way that makes you realize

how uneven Christmas Day can be.

And then we got back on the road and the emptiness of the highways made other

things impossible to miss.

Without the usual traffic in front of us, the homeless encampments along the

edges of the city stood out more clearly. Tents were clustered together.

Belongings were stacked carefully and signs of lives lived in the margins were

all all over the city of dallas on all this was happening on a day where many

of us were inside experiencing joy,

and that drive with me staring out of my car didn't feel isolated it felt like

a window into the other side of christmas one without spirited games of katan

without dogs going crazy over.

Stockings and it's a side that we don't like to talk about out loud because for many people,

christmas carries joy and grief at the same time some are celebrating while

also feeling the sharp absence of someone who should be there in an empty chair

along with a missing voice in traditions that feel different now.

Grief doesn't pause for the holiday. If anything, the holidays can make the grief feel louder.

And for others, Christmas is marked by loneliness. The lights are bright.

The expectations are high, but the silence feels heavier than usual.

And beyond our own walls, there are people for whom Christmas in 2025 meant

movement and uncertainty rather than rest.

Trans people had to pick up their lives, many of them in search of safety.

Migrant families trying to hold together a sense of normalcy for their children

while navigating fear and families have had to make hard choices this season

in the middle of economic pressure such as losing the job or not getting a raise

in the time of great massive inflation,

and none of this lets up just because it's christmas holiday and all these things,

the joy in the middle of grief the celebration alongside loneliness safety for

some fear for others they exist at the same time because both of them are christmas.

And for the bad kind of Christmas, or what we would quote unquote say may be

bad, it doesn't make it on the greeting cards.

It doesn't show up on the Hallmark channel or the highlight reels,

but it's the kind of Christmas that is lived quietly and invisibly by people

caring more than their share.

And when we hold all these things alongside the joy we've been celebrating,

it can feel uncomfortable.

It can feel like a weight. It can feel like these stories don't belong together.

But today, Scripture refuses to separate these two sides of Christmas.

Because the story we hear today on the first Sunday of Christmas is not tidy or gentle.

It is a story of fear of political violence and families on the move.

It is a story of a child born into danger and whose family was forced to flee.

Is a story that sounds far more like the world we are living in today on TikTok

reels and news channels than the one we often imagine at Christmas.

Because in this part of the story, all the pieces of the Christmas narrative

we tend to love begin to slip away.

The magi depart, the star fades from view, and the wonder and beauty that drew

us in quietly exits the scene. while we receive instead is immediate danger.

We see an angel appear to Joseph in a dream, but instead of announcing joy,

the angel warns him, saying, take the child and his mother and flee.

And the story shifts into the story of migration and seeking safety.

Jesus doesn't enter the world after the threat has passed, but right into the thick of the danger.

His parents then had to prepare quickly, without any reassurance that everything

was going to be okay, and leave quietly in the middle of the night.

And they were carrying a child unable to protect himself and head towards Egypt,

a foreign land, because the option of staying has become too dangerous.

This place here.

This is where God chooses to be at this moment of history.

And as awful as all these things are for the early stories of the incarnate

God, Matthew chooses not to pull any punches.

Herod, who is afraid of losing his power, respawns with violence. Children are killed.

Mothers are weeping. And scripture does not brush past their pain.

Instead, Matthew reaches deep into Israel's memory and pulls forth words from the prophet Jeremiah.

These were words that were first spoken when God's people had lost their children

before and were driven into exile.

And these words being she refused to be

consoled because they were no more these words are not meant to explain the

violence or make it acceptable they are there to name the grief to say that

this kind of loss has a history that god's people have wept like this before

and that god remembers that pain.

This is to remind the readers that Jesus was not born in the safety.

He was born in a world where rulers were afraid of losing their power,

where families are in a move and children are vulnerable.

And God does not wait for the world to become peaceful or convenient before entering it.

God enters the world exactly how it is.

The answer to suffering. The scripture gives us is not to solution to the problem,

not explaining the problem away, giving an excuse

but by entering right into the problem right into

the suffering with those experiencing that suffering

and the unevenness of

christmas i mentioned earlier the suffering alongside joy and the grief and

the fear that don't pause for the holidays is not ignored by god but taken on

god does not respond to suffering with distance but within car nation god does

not abandon God's people,

but becomes present with them.

This is what Emmanuel means. God is with us, not after the danger passes,

not when things begin to make sense, but right in the middle of all of it.

And that is where God chooses to be today.

Right in the middle of all of it.

And what does this mean for us? It means that our faith isn't about feeling

comforted or finding the right answers to the world problems.

It means that we can show up in real messy and human ways.

We can choose to be present where life is hard. Even when we know have no clue

how to fix the problems in our world.

What we learn from the scripture is that when

people are hurting we can follow the scripture and

just be present with them sometimes the

most radical thing we can do when somebody's hurting is just

be present to listen without offering solutions

to sit with them in their grief and anxiety and loneliness so

that one less soul can feel like they are not alone

we can allow space for those suffering

to lament whether it's

in your family at work at this church or for yourself

allow for the tears to fall and

the questions and doubts to go unsettled we do not have to force celebration

every time there is pain if god meets us in the middle of lament we too can

meet our neighbors and lament we can care for those on the margins reach out to our neighbors.

You can join the ministry at our own church, such as Saturday Breakfast or Dover

Elementary and so many other wonderful mission opportunities St. Luke's offers.

And if you're unable to attend any of these present missions that we do,

consider donating to food banks,

advocate for justice in your local community, and call those in power.

We need to listen to where God is calling us to go and follow that call faithfully.

Even when the act we are called to do is small, by faithfully following that

call, we can enter into somebody else's reality and help soothe the pain and be present for it.

And also, and finally, most importantly, we can remember to be humble about presence.

We cannot fix all the suffering in the world, nor should we expect to.

We cannot make grief disappear and that isn't the point of presence instead

being present is about being willing to enter into life just how it is.

And this is how we can respond to today's passage about god becoming real in

a world of fear and violence and just as jesus parents fled danger to protect

him and just as god chooses to enter into a world of grief we too are called

to enter to the lives of others and love and solidarity,

presence doesn't require a grand gesture sometimes

as small as holding a hand listening and sitting quietly with them though they

may feel small these are how god's presence spreads throughout the world because

in a world where we are urged to hide the pain ignore suffering and exist as if everything is okay.

This scripture tells us that we can live in a world that embraces God's presence,

even in the middle of all of that suffering.

We can have joy and grief and coexist without shame.

We can imagine a world where loneliness is met with a willing ear and a soft

hug, where families who have had to flee and those carrying loss and fear are

welcome and seen by God's people.

And for those who are weary today, those who are experiencing loss,

grieving, or barely holding things together, this group sure asks nothing of

you except to know that you are not alone.

We do not have to wait for all the pieces that come together to act.

We can step into the lives of those suffering around us with compassion and humility.

We can practice presence over perfection and solidarity over judgment.

Our call is to sit with people in sorrow, to share a meal with those who are

hungry, and to offer words of kindness to a stranger, and the trust that these

small acts, if done faithfully,

can multiply into hope far beyond what we can see or measure.

This is what scripture paints for us today. Not a world without hardship,

not a Christmas story without fear, but a world where God's light shines in

the darkness and where we are invited to participate in that light by becoming

God's hands and feet in the world for the lives of others.

This is a Christmas I think is worth celebrating.

Filled with the joy of Christ's birth go in peace to love serve and welcome all.

Thanks be to God and if you're inspired by this week's.