Christmas Sermons

I frequently utilize the (GASP) Lectionary for Christmas (and other important seasons as well). Not slavishly or anything. But it's helpful. I've also done a series including sermons on Mary, Joseph, Anna, etc. One of my favorite series included "What Does Christmas make you do?" (Mt 2:1-2; "Mary Did You Know?" (Lk 1:26-38); "It Wasn't His Child (Mt 1:18-25); "What Child is This? (John 1:1-14).

Never fear repetition or boredom or anything in preaching texts relative to the Christmas season. We need to be reminded of His coming, the why, and the "so what" of it all. Too often we forget that Christ was born to save us from our sins.

Don't do what I've heard some pastors do - they've decided to chuck Christmas sermons altogether. One has even jettisoned Easter sermons. Just stays with whatever hobby horse...er, topic they're covering at the time :laugh: This is without excuse. To not hear about the coming of our Lord at Christmas, His substitutionary death at Good Friday, and His glorious resurrection on Easter is pastoral insubordination.

 

Yep. Reminds me of what Paige Patterson said of preaching. "All preaching is not boring, but many preachers sure are!"

 

I'm looking at starting a series through the book of Luke starting tomorrow. By Christmas, be around the birth of Christ, then by Easter, be at the resurrection of Christ.

Thought it would be interesting to follow the life of Christ from Christmas to Easter and beyond.

 

I have never done this, but plan to. Here again I believe the Lectionary could offer help to one who doesn't know how to plot this.

 

People use that same excuse for the entire Word of God. I have had many people over the years tell me they attend church for their children, or just send them, but claim to have "heard it all" themselves.

The challenge for me has never been finding something new, that happens naturally every time I open the word, but some things that are not new to me still need to be repeated. The old stories still have to be retold, for some have never heard. But God always shows me something new as well.

Every year at Christmas I pray and ask God to show me something new in the Christmas story, and every year he does.

Just off the top of my head I remember one year when God impressed on me the many people who "missed it" when Jesus was born. The shepherds who stayed with the flock (they had to leave some behind), the innkeeper, the multitudes in Bethlehem. They all came so close, but never knew the miracle in their midst.

One year God impressed upon me the fact that the other rooms in the inn were all occupied by others who had also come to Bethlehem to be counted. All kinsmen of Mary and Joseph. It was not strangers that had no room for them, but their own family.

One year I focused on Joseph and the scorn he must have endured. "You are still going to marry that girl now that she is pregnant?" Those who knew him must have thought him a fool.

One year I remember focusing on Simon and Anna at the temple and how long they individually and the nation of Israel as a whole had waited for their Messiah. And then how many missed it.

There have been years I focused on Mary, years when I focused on Jesus himself. Mary and Joseph's parents and what they must have thought. The scorn Mary must have endured.

You know one meeting I would have loved to listen to? When Mary the Mother of Jesus met the Samaritan woman from the well. Can you imagine the Samaritan woman trying to explain why the village held her in distain and she came to draw water midday, and Mary, the mother of Jesus himself and the pillar of the early church said, "yea, I remember when they treated me that way."

God always has something new to teach me, but I am only 42 so perhaps he will run out someday. I doubt it.