2021 Christmas Eve Sermon: The Good News of Christmas

Merry Christmas! In this year’s Christmas Eve sermon, I’m looking at the good news the angels bring and why we need this promise of hope that God has come to us. Since it’s Christmas Eve, I’ve included some extra elements in the worship video, so this online service includes Scripture, hymns, and prayer, as well as the sermon.

For more on Sister Theresa Noble’s reflections on Memento Mori, visit https://pursuedbytruth.com. Credits for the music in the video are in the description on YouTube.

During Advent this year, I’ve been reading a devotional book called Memento Mori: An Advent Companion on the Last Things.

It’s by a Roman Catholic nun, and the title Memento Mori is Latin for “remember your death.” There’s a whole artistic tradition around the idea of remembering your death, usually with symbols like skulls or coffins.

The idea is that by spending some time each day thinking about the uncomfortable truth that you’re going to die, you can better appreciate the fragile gift of life and God’s redemption.

Maybe you’ve heard me say before, Ash Wednesday is my favorite church holiday, because in the midst of our busy lives, we pause on that day to hear the reality, the uncomfortable truth, that we are made from dust and one day we will return to dust. We’re forced to pause and confront our own mortality.

When I first heard about this Memento Mori concept, this idea of remembering you will die, it was as a Lenten devotional book by the same author, Sister Theresa Noble, and I actually asked for it as a Christmas present (I know, pastor Christmas gifts can be weird!).

And it made sense for Lent, right? The season of Lent, those 40 days starting with Ash Wednesday, leading up to Good Friday and Easter, that season always has some flavor of leading to death, and then to resurrection and new life.

Well, this year Sister Theresa wrote a Memento Mori Advent devotional. And I thought, why would anyone want to spend Advent—the countdown season to Christmas—thinking about death?

Kind of like how right now, you’re thinking, “This is the gloomiest Christmas Eve sermon ever.” Christmas is supposed to be about peace and joy, right?

There’s enough bad stuff going on in the world that we don’t need to hear about it at Christmas!

It’s really good (so good!) to be back together in-person for a Christmas Eve service, after last year when we just had online videos for Christmas. But even this year, I’m still not sure this is a great idea. I’ve had my booster shot, but my nearly two-year-old is completely unprotected.

The pandemic is still happening. Events are getting cancelled. Hospitals are full. People are suffering and dying.

And in addition to living through a plague (hopefully living through it!), there’s all the regular diseases going around, things like flu and cancer and Alzheimer’s. Something’s going to get each of us eventually. Memento mori—remember your death.

And of course, not just personal health; there’s also natural disasters like December tornadoes and wildfires; there are human tragedies like school shootings and car crashes; there’s political divisions and labor shortages and inflation, and who wants to hear about all this at Christmas?

But of course, that’s exactly the point. If this world were in great shape, why would we need a savior? If this world were the way God intended it, why would God need to come into the world?

A perfect world wouldn’t need its creator to enter into it, wouldn’t need Jesus to come and lay down his life. If we weren’t dying, we wouldn’t need to be given eternal life.

In a broken world full of bad news, we need the angel’s message, the proclamation the angel brought to those shepherds watching their flocks by night: “Do not be afraid; for see—I am bringing you good news of great joy for all the people.”

Good news. Great joy! And what is the good news? A child is born. New life has entered the world. But this is not just any child. This is not just another baby boy born to some displaced peasant couple. This child is the Messiah, the Lord.

This child is the one you’ve been waiting for, the one promised by prophets for centuries. This child is the one the prophet Micah foretold would be born in Bethlehem, the city of David.

The angel’s good news is that God has not given up on the world; instead, God is coming into the world. God is choosing to enter and redeem, choosing to be born in this most unexpected, surprising way, in the animal’s quarters in a little town rather than a palace.

The good news of Christmas is that God has seen all the brokenness and suffering in this world, God has seen all the fighting and selfishness, and instead of letting us go down our own path, instead of wiping it all out and starting again, God says this world is worth saving and redeeming. God says you are worth saving and redeeming. Christmas is an act of love, God’s love made flesh. Do not be afraid.

As the angel had promised to Joseph, this child Mary gives birth to is Emmanuel—God with us. Christmas is about God entering into our world, becoming human, choosing to experience human life with all of its joys and sorrows. The little baby born on that silent night grows up to give his life for us, out of love.

I do think it’s important even at Christmas to remember our death. It’s important to remember the situation we’re in without God, the hopelessness of us trying to find true life, eternal life on our own. Memento mori is important, because it lets us understand the magnitude of God’s gift of love, how incredible this “good news of great joy for all the people” truly is.

A savior has been born. The messiah has come. God has entered the world. Death’s grip on the world is slipping. Heaven is breaking into earth. God’s kingdom is coming into this broken, sinful, rebellious world.

Our invitation, then, is to join the shepherds, to go and see, to marvel at what God is doing. And then to go make known the good news revealed to us.

Our call is to spread the light of Christmas, to share the good news that God has chosen to love, not abandoning the world, but entering it.

Death is still real, but death will not get the last word.

There is still suffering in this world, still pain, still loneliness and poverty and violence. But there is also hope. There is also joy. There is also a promise of peace. The darkness does not last forever.

Tonight, we have good news to proclaim: Christ is born. Merry Christmas!

For more on this theme of the good news of Christmas, here’s this year’s Christmas Day sermon.