Year A: Christmas I | Luke 2:1-20
St. Andrew’s Episcopal Church
December 24, 2025
the Rev. Jonathan Hanneman
To watch the full service, please visit this page (available for three weeks after the date of streaming).
“Do not be afraid, for see, I am bringing you good news of great joy for all the people!” – Luke 2:10[1]
Christmas and Easter are the solstices of the Church Calendar, essentially two views of the same star from different points in a single orbit. It’s easy for us to miss that unity in part because of the different expectations we have leading up to each. We see Advent as an exciting time to nest and fix up the house for a baby’s arrival while Lent we treat more like dressing ourselves for a funeral. But by always skipping ahead to the next big thing, we end up ignoring the reality of the story we’re actually living. Always turning our attention to more exciting stuff, we end up anticipating something other than what these celebrations truly offer. In the end, we often miss the excitement and the surprise when they do arrive.
And both Christmas and Easter are a surprise.
Advent itself has nothing to do with babies. The point of the season is to prepare the world around us for the arrival of our Great and Terrible King, one who’ll crush the insurrection raging across our land and mete out justice on those who manage to survive the chaos. Approaching Lent properly, we spend 40 days readying our inner selves, not for war or trial but for death. We strip away layer after layer of the things that have burdened us throughout life in hope that, upon absenting our body, our breath might peacefully return to God.
It isn’t hard to see why we distract ourselves. When we start to pay attention to the correct sort of preparation each season demands, what we as a society and as individuals anticipate may leave us anxious and fearful. How can I be sure I’ve done enough to prove my loyalty to this King? How can I possibly be ready to set aside everything I’ve known—everything I’ve loved—for the unbroken silence of a dark and endless unknown?
But that’s where the surprise comes in. We cower before the throne of an enraged king only to discover an infant—one that needs our nurturing as much as we long for its innocence. We close our eyes in the grave yet, as our eyelids shut, awaken to an entirely new kind of Life stretching out before us. And that’s where we discover Christmas and Easter to be two viewpoints overlooking the same core reality.
It turns out neither Christmas nor Easter is about the preparation. Nor are these holidays concerned with any one of us as individuals. I can spend weeks worrying about how I’ll fare under this new regime or wondering whether or not I’m ready to step away from the joy and pain of this self-existence. But in gazing at myself, I’ve been looking the wrong direction. Both Christmas and Easter are Gospel, meaning the holidays themselves are Good News about God. And in them we realize that God is not a vengeful dictator; nor is God the gleeful executioner we keep expecting them to be.
What we celebrate tonight is that God is good and decent and compassionate and kind. God isn’t out to get us but longs to walk among us, to nurture us as we grow into the same generosity and Life-upon-life that is God’s own nature. In Easter we experience this goodness in Resurrection—a hope beyond any sensible hope, a surprise impossible to see coming in the face of Death. At Christmas we startle upon this simplicity—our King is as vindictive and vulnerable as an infant napping in the midst of migrants and unhoused day laborers and even beasts of burden.
The star we orbit as Christians is neither cruel nor selfish. It doesn’t long to burn us or devour us with its flame. That’s because God is not made in our image, nor does God reflect human nature back upon us; rather, God offers human nature the power to change, to turn from our inner darkness and begin to illuminate the society around us from within ourselves. Like our own sun, God brings the world its light and warmth and all the discovery of a new day and the joy of the cycle of seasons. So tonight we set any fear aside and raise our voices to celebrate, for the message echoes for us, as well:
“Do not be afraid, for see, I am bringing you good news of great joy for all the people!”
God has come; God is with us; and God is Good.
[1] All Bible quotations are from the NRSVue unless otherwise noted.