Christmas

Sermons for the Season of Christmas

A Sermon for the Second Sunday of Christmas (01/01/23):Herod and Joseph

Matthew 2:13-23 The story of the massacre of the innocents punctures the sentimentality of Christmas. There is a possibility that our celebration of Christmas becomes like the pictures on the lids of tins of biscuits or on Christmas cards. We turn it into a warm glowing image of bovine contentment and family bliss. It is …

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A Sermon for Christmas Day (25/12/22): A Birth in One Place, Angels in Another

Luke 2:1-20 On the first Christmas night, the events take place in two different locations. God enters the world as a helpless baby in one place. And God’s glory becomes visible somewhere else. Despite the way in which we arrange the figurines in our crib scenes, or picture this night in our mind’s eye, the …

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A Sermon for the Epiphany (06/01/22): Following the Star and the Scriptures

Matthew 2:1-12 The wise men are some of the oddest characters in the Bible. They are almost out of place. They are from a culture that is alien to the Bible. They are in possession of knowledge, of a kind and a quality that makes them seem, to ordinary folk, like magicians. Their careful study …

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A Sermon for Christmas day (25/12/21): The Birth of Jesus: Where and With Whom

Luke 2:1-7 There is no denying that the circumstances of Jesus’ birth are difficult. Months into her pregnancy, which in itself was as much a source of unkind gossip as it was of joy and anticipation, months into her pregnancy, Mary is required to travel from Nazareth to Bethlehem. On the whim of some different …

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A Sermon for the Second Sunday of Christmas and Epiphany (03/01/21): Unexpected Homage, Unexpected Opposition

 Unexpected Homage, Unexpected Opposition Matthew 2:1-12 The birth of Jesus is announced in Jerusalem by the arrival of a group of foreign magicians! We call them wise men, and in comparison to most of their contemporaries they seemed wise. They studied the stars, and other natural phenomena, in order to discern what was happening or …

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A Sermon for the First Sunday of Christmas (27/12/20): The Meaning of Christmas

  The Meaning of Christmas Galatians 4:4-7 What is the meaning of Christmas? That is the sort of rhetorical question which a preacher is likely to ask at this time of year. Or perhaps it might be posed more sharply, or even bitterly: What is the true meaning of Christmas? The implication of asking the question that way is …

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