by The Rev. Dr. Max Lynn
SCRIPTURE READINGS Psalm 98, Isaiah 9:2-7, Luke 2:1-20, John 1:1-5
Transcribed from the sermon preached on DECEMBER 24, 2025
Psalm 98
A Psalm.
1 O sing to the LORD a new song,
for he has done marvelous things!
His right hand and his holy arm
have gotten him victory.
2 The LORD has made known his victory,
he has revealed his vindication in the sight of the nations.
3 He has remembered his steadfast love and faithfulness
to the house of Israel.
All the ends of the earth have seen
the victory of our God.
4 Make a joyful noise to the LORD, all the earth;
break forth into joyous song and sing praises!
5 Sing praises to the LORD with the lyre,
with the lyre and the sound of melody!
6 With trumpets and the sound of the horn
make a joyful noise before the King, the LORD!
7 Let the sea roar, and all that fills it;
the world and those who dwell in it!
8 Let the floods clap their hands;
let the hills sing for joy together
9 before the LORD, for he comes
to judge the earth.
He will judge the world with righteousness,
and the peoples with equity.
Isaiah 9:2-7
2 The people who walked in darkness
have seen a great light;
those who dwelt in a land of deep darkness,
on them has light shined.
3 Thou hast multiplied the nation,
thou hast increased its joy;
they rejoice before thee
as with joy at the harvest,
as men rejoice when they divide the spoil.
4 For the yoke of his burden,
and the staff for his shoulder,
the rod of his oppressor,
thou hast broken as on the day of Mid’ian.
5 For every boot of the tramping warrior in battle tumult
and every garment rolled in blood
will be burned as fuel for the fire.
6 For to us a child is born,
to us a son is given;
and the government will be upon his shoulder,
and his name will be called
“Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God,
Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.”
7 Of the increase of his government and of peace
there will be no end, upon the throne of David, and over his kingdom,
to establish it, and to uphold it
with justice and with righteousness
from this time forth and for evermore.
The zeal of the LORD of hosts will do this.
Luke 2:1-20
2 In those days a decree went out from Caesar Augustus that all the world should be enrolled.
2 This was the first enrollment, when Quirin’i-us was governor of Syria.
3 And all went to be enrolled, each to his own city.
4 And Joseph also went up from Galilee, from the city of Nazareth, to Judea, to the city of David, which is called Bethlehem, because he was of the house and lineage of David,
5 to be enrolled with Mary, his betrothed, who was with child.
6 And while they were there, the time came for her to be delivered.
7 And she gave birth to her first-born son and wrapped him in swaddling cloths, and laid him in a manger, because there was no place for them in the inn.
8 And in that region there were shepherds out in the field, keeping watch over their flock by night.
9 And an angel of the Lord appeared to them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were filled with fear.
10 And the angel said to them, “Be not afraid; for behold, I bring you good news of a great joy which will come to all the people;
11 for to you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, who is Christ the Lord.
12 And this will be a sign for you: you will find a babe wrapped in swaddling cloths and lying in a manger.”
13 And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host praising God and saying,
14 “Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace among men with whom he is pleased!”
15 When the angels went away from them into heaven, the shepherds said to one another, “Let us go over to Bethlehem and see this thing that has happened, which the Lord has made known to us.”
16 And they went with haste, and found Mary and Joseph, and the babe lying in a manger.
17 And when they saw it they made known the saying which had been told them concerning this child;
18 and all who heard it wondered at what the shepherds told them.
19 But Mary kept all these things, pondering them in her heart.
20 And the shepherds returned, glorifying and praising God for all they had heard and seen, as it had been told them.
John 1:1-5
1 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.
2 He was in the beginning with God;
3 all things were made through him, and without him was not anything made that was made.
4 In him was life, and the life was the light of men.
5 The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.
“Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.”
Happy Birthday to Jesus. He is 2025 years old, or so our calendar tells us. It is interesting to think that for the people in the year one, it wasn’t the year one. I heard someone making fun of this idea that after tens of thousands of years of history, someone decided to start counting again from one. Like if someone in the year 4 asked, what year is it? Someone says it is year 4. What, but I’m 28 years old. How can I be 28 when there has only been four years in history?
The current calendar that most of the world uses is called the Gregorian Calendar because it was instituted by Pope Gregory XIII in October 1582 to replace the Julian calendar. The Julian calendar was just slightly longer than a solar year, so the equinoxes were sliding backward in date. Easter was set by the Spring equinox, which was supposed to be March 21st . But it was getting a bit earlier each year. To set things back in order, when they instituted the new more accurate calendar, they advanced the date by 10 days: Thursday October 5, 1582, was followed by Friday October 15, 1582.
As far as we know, early Christians did not celebrate the birth of Jesus. Easter was the big day. Birth celebrations probably started sometime in the late second century, but December 25 was set as the official birth of Christ by emperor Constantine. This matched the day of the winter solstice in the Northern Hemisphere, the shortest and darkest day of the year, then the sun gets brighter. This was the same date as the festival of Saturnalia for the god Saturn and the birthday of the God Mithra, god of light or the sun. Mithra was popular at the time with Roman soldiers because his cult emphasized military virtues like strength, loyalty and discipline and the male only cult provided a sense of purpose and belonging particularly appealing to men far from home.
The Eastern Church and North Africa had tagged the date of Christmas at January 6. But for us in the West, Christmas is the 25th and January 6 is Epiphany, the manifestation of Christ to the gentiles, the day we celebrate the Magi who have an epiphany to follow the light and discover the Christ child. In between are the twelve days of Christmas, where our true love gives us, among other things, 8 maids a milking, 7 swans a swimming, 6 geese a laying and …. Five Golden Rings.
There has been a suggestion that Jesus’ birthday was likely not in the cold winter but sometime in Spring or Fall when shepherds would be tending their flocks by night. But since the Gospels are more theological than historical, we are not sure about that either.
Another odd thing is that we don’t not think that Jesus was born in year 1.
Scholars argue about it but there is no consensus. Matthew places Jesus’ birth during Herod’s reign, and Herod died in 4 BC. Some scholars point to the Roman Census under Governor Quirinius which they think was around 8 BC. So, Christ may have been born in the year 4 BC, before Christ.
At any rate, I still think it was a good idea to stick the birthday of Jesus, the son of God and Lord of light on the winter solstice, or the day of rebirth of the sun toward the new year. For in the darkness of a dreary, volent and oppressive world, we celebrate the birth of both sun light and moral light, the birth or rising of moral beauty and God’s radiant grace through the birth of a baby to a humble couple on the edge of the world.
Isaiah 9
[2] The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light; those who dwelt in a land of deep darkness, on them has light shined.
This year as I was thinking about what to say tonight, I thought of the daily inundation of chaos, vitriol, idolatry of arrogant, ugly, narcissistic leadership, bribes and pardons for shadowy figures, innocent people of integrity sent to prison in foreign lands or sued on trumped up charges, others being starved on purpose, wars and violence; a sense of confusion and hopelessness, a breakdown of community, trust and goodwill. And of course we always have our own messes in our families and relationships, shame, humiliation, loss, betrayal, grief, all the stuff that darkens our soul, and I thought, It would be a great time to remind ourselves that it is just here in the darkest moment, in this land of darkness that light is reborn, it is right here where the son of God is born, the one who forgives and inspires us to trust that goodness and light will be born and born again, that God has brought down those proud in the imagination of their hearts and lifted up the lowly and filled them with good things.
Troubles and troubling times are not new, and selfish, greedy, vitriolic kings and leaders are not new. They come and they go. Caesar Augustus and Governor Quirinius are long gone. Matthew says Mary and Joseph and Jesus had to flee for their lives as refugees to avoid Herod, but now Herod is gone, long gone. But the light of Christ stands forever. 2025 years later, here we are singing for joy celebrating his birthday. But it is deeper than that.
We find slightly different birth narratives in Matthew and Luke. In Luke, Mary and Joseph live in Nazareth but then travel to Bethlehem for the census. In Matthew, Nazareth and the census and the search for an Inn are not mentioned, and Mary and Joseph have a house in Bethlehem. Mark, the earliest Gospel doesn’t mention Jesus’ birth. Now the Gospel of John when talking of the origin of Jesus goes back far and deep.
He takes Jesus back all the way to the first spark of the creative force of the universe. The original Word, the original Wisdom, the light, the original moral beauty and power that gives light and life to all people.
As Christians we are to take the long view of time, the really long view, the eternal view.
John 1
[1] In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.
[2] He was in the beginning with God;
[3] all things were made through him, and without him was not anything made that was made.
[4] In him was life, and the life was the light of all people.
[5] The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.
John has Jesus’ birthday before there were years at all, before time, before there was an Israel or a Christianity or even humanity. John has the light of Christ moving in and through everything. So that, we hear Christ reflected in the Psalmist,
Psalm 98
[7] Let the sea roar, and all that fills it; the world and those who dwell in it!
[8] Let the floods clap their hands; let the hills sing for joy together
[9] before the LORD, for he comes to judge the earth.
He will judge the world with righteousness, and the peoples with equity.
Now it is important that the divine becomes human. Stanley Hauerwas says that Christian Humanists are humanist not because of some abstract idea but because the Divine entered Mary’s womb.
And yet we are drawn into a part of the story of the people of God that goes way back and way deep, deep in history, deep into our souls, way out and way down to the deepest darkness and calls the light and Christ to be born from within us, to shine from us – as if we know whose we are, where we come from, and to where we are going. We are called to live eternity now, to shine that hope and moral beauty. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it. I leave you with Paul’s prayer from Ephesians 3
Ephesian 3
[14] For this reason I bow my knees before the Father,
[15] from whom every family in heaven and on earth is named,
[16] that according to the riches of his glory he may grant you to be strengthened with might through his Spirit in the inner being,
[17] and that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith; that you, being rooted and grounded in love,
[18] may have power to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth,
[19] and to know the love of Christ which surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled with all the fulness of God.
[20] Now to the one who by the power at work within us is able to do far more abundantly than all that we ask or think,
[21] to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus to all generations, for ever and ever. Amen.