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Christmas for All Who Need It: Sermon · Beyond the Sermon

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  You're listening to Beyond the Sermon, the podcast of First
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  Methodist Church in Collingswood, NJ.
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  On our podcast, the goal is not just to share the sermons we've
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  preached, but to go beyond the sermon and talk about what we're
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  learning and what God is doing in US and in our community.
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  For Advent 2025 we are in a series called Brought to the
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  Light, Advent for all who need it.
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  This series is looking at the themes of Advent and how Jesus
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  comes to us all. You can find more information
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  about our church at fumccollingswood.org.
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  Thanks for listening, Christmas. It's a time full of traditions,
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  all right. Some of those traditions are,
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  are shared by many within our society, right?
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  Like the decorating of Christmas trees, the giving of gifts to
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  friends and family. Anybody get a Christmas gift
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  over the last week? I, I, I hope most of you did
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  putting up lights outside right, to decorate our homes, but there
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  are other traditions that that are more distinctive for their
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  place within the church, right? The, the season of Advent and
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  its wreath, the, the singing of Christmas carols like we're
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  doing this morning or, or maybe a Christmas Eve worship service.
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  And then there are the traditions that we have that
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  exist within our own families, right?
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  However large or small that may be, right?
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  There's some traditions we have as a family that are just the
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  six of us, but others that we share with others within our
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  family. And so for us, we have certain
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  holly China that we use from Thanksgiving up through
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  Christmas, right? We, we give each of our kids one
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  of their Christmas presents on Christmas Eve after we get home
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  from worship, right? We found that opening one
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  present on Christmas Eve helped our little ones actually be able
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  to fall asleep on Christmas Eve when they were supposed to.
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  And then the the boys always wake up with their stockings at
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  the foot of their bed, right? And they're allowed to open
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  those whenever they wake up in the morning.
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  The rest of the present that waits until everyone's up and
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  ready. But traditions matter, right?
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  And they matter because they both help us to celebrate the
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  holiday. And then over time, they become
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  how we celebrate that holiday. And sometimes those traditions
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  change or evolve, right? Because the circumstances of
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  life change or because our needs or our family's needs evolve.
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  Some of our traditions, like an Advent calendar, even help us to
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  anticipate the coming of Christmas, right?
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  Well, there are other traditions that help us extend that
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  celebration, although I find that here in America we tend to
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  be better at anticipating Christmas and and other holidays
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  than we are at actually celebrating them and extending
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  them or lingering within those. Those holidays.
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  We tend to see Christmas, especially, I think, as a day,
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  an event that happens when when I think it would be more helpful
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  to actually see it as a season right within the church.
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  It's traditionally been called Christmas Tide, right?
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  December 21st, 25th being the first day of a season that
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  stretched all the way until January 6th when Epiphany was
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  celebrated. That's why this Sunday after
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  Christmas is always a chance to gather and sing some of our
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  favorite Christmas carols. Because Christmas isn't over
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  yet. And I'd argue that that one of
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  the ways we keep Christ in Christmas, as the saying goes,
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  is by learning. By leaning into the season of
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  Christmas, extending our celebration of what God has done
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  in coming for us from the one day on December 25th through the
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  whole season of Christmas tide. Because the reality is we need
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  Christmas. Not just Christmas, but we need
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  the whole liturgical calendar, right?
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  Which begins each year with Advent.
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  Or there are our calendars begin in January, but the church's
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  calendar begins with Advent and it climaxes with with Easter and
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  Pentecost. But we need these rhythms in our
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  lives because we need the annual reminder that the story that God
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  is telling is bigger than the story of our own lives, although
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  that in no way implies that our lives are insignificant, right?
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  But we need to be reminded over and over and over again that as
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  Paul says in Galatians 4, Galatians 4, he says it this way
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  beginning in verse 4. But when the right time came,
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  God sent his son, born of a woman, subject to the law.
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  God sent him to buy freedom for us who were slaves to the law,
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  so that he could adopt us as his very own children.
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  And because we are His children, God has sent the Spirit of His
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  Son into our hearts, prompting us to call out ABBA Father, now
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  you are no longer a slave, but God's own child.
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  And since you are His child, God has made you His heir.
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  This is the story that is to shape our lives, right?
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  The incarnation. It wasn't just an it wasn't just
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  an innovation to overcome a, a plot twist that God somehow
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  didn't see coming. The incarnation, it was the
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  culmination of all that God was doing from the very beginning,
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  from the moment creation started, God's plan was always
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  to come. It was always to come and walk
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  with His people. We see it in the Garden.
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  We see it in the Garden City at the end of the Book of
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  Revelation. But because humanity enslaved
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  ourselves to sin, God had to set us free so that he could adopt
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  us as his children bring us into the family of God.
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  And God gives us his very Spirit, the Holy Spirit, the the
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  Spirit of Truth, the Comforter, to dwell not just with us, but
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  within us, to form us into children who look like Him.
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  Adopted, yes, but also reborn by his Spirit.
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  So we need Christmas because we need to remember that our
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  salvation and our redemption, they're, they're not just Easter
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  messages, right? They're not just the, the
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  stories we tell or the messages we proclaim during Holy Week to
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  fix that unexpected problem that God had to deal with.
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  It's the story that God has been telling from the very beginning,
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  the story we are called not just to retell over and over again,
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  but the story that we're called to inhabit, to live in, and to
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  live out of. And so I want to encourage you
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  this morning on this fourth day of Christmas, you don't descend
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  anybody for calling birds, but I want to encourage you to keep
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  the party going, right? To continue to celebrate the the
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  season of Christmas, to build in some traditions that don't take
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  place just on the 24th and the 25th, maybe the 26th.
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  When our boys were younger, we had a chain of stockings that we
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  would hang up. There are about four inches
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  tall. They weren't stockings for
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  Christmas morning. They were for the rest of the
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  days of Christmas. Each one would contain a little
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  slip of paper that would tell us what that day's celebration of
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  Christmas was going to look like It it might have been a
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  Christmas movie with a cup of cocoa or decorating gingerbread
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  houses or or maybe another small gift.
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  The point was we continued to live in the celebration of
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  Christmas. As the boys have gotten older,
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  we've gotten away from that a little bit.
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  But Megan and I were just talking last night about how we
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  want to keep living into that, even though it might look
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  different at 171513 and 11 than it did at 753 and 1.
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  But I want to invite you, call you to extend your Christmas
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  celebration, not just to anticipate it on the front end,
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  but to lean into it, to live into it, because it's good news
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  that's worth celebrating. And that good news is that at
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  just the right time, God came to us so that he could make us his
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  children. Would you pray with me, God?
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  We are so grateful that you came to us and for us, that you came
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  to set us free so that you could make us your children.
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  We thank you, God, that that Christmas is not just a day to
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  be celebrated, it's a season to be lived in.
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  Well, God, it doesn't even just end with those 12 days of
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  Christmas. It's a story that we're called
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  to live in day by day, that from the very beginning you desired
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  to dwell with us so that we could be your people and you
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  could be our God. And one day you're going to come
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  and make that the reality that you always intended for it to
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  be, and you're going to wipe away sin and death forever.
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  God, we long for that day. But until we get there, until
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  you come again and all of your glory, would you help us?
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  Would you help us to live out of the bigger story that you're
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  writing across history? Would you help us to find our
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  place within that story? Because you, you've created us
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  and you've redeemed us and our lives matter.
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  Our lives contribute to that story that you were writing even
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  now. So would you help us to live in
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  the season of Christmas and to learn from you what it means to
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  go to someone because you love them?
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  We pray all this Jesus, in your name, Amen.