Feast of the Nativity: December 24, 2025 | The Rev. Nat Johnson
Isaiah 9:2-7 | Titus 2:11-14 | Luke 2:1-20 | Psalm 96
The Rev. Nat Johnson
Christmas is a time of tradition – traditions we keep and traditions we make. When I was growing up, one of our family traditions was watching some version of Charles Dickons’ classic, “A Christmas Carol.” It is a story of profound redemption and transformation. A story of how one man is brought face to face with the stories of his past that shaped who he became, the stories of his present that tugged on his heart strings and opened space for empathy to grow, and the story of his future in which his own mortality shatters his self-perception and false sense of security. The visitations he received from the ghosts of Christmas past, present, and future were intrusive and disruptive, drawing him into a web of time that blurred the lines between the life he had lived and the life that he could still live. At the heart of this story lies the conviction that hope is never lost, that faith in love being born anew is never misplaced.
The prophets of ancient Israel held a similar conviction. Dispersed and traumatized through military conquest and exile, the people of ancient Israel were confronted by stories of their past, their present, and their future. The prophets were masters at reading the signs of the times, of seeing in the nation’s present circumstances the root causes of past actions and inactions, naming in the present a reality that challenged the privileged and comforted the disinherited, and pointing to a future guaranteed by divine promise and faithfulness. This conviction lived on in the hearts and words of our Gospel writers, whose hope was bolstered by the prophetic visions of the past and provided an interpretive framework for understanding what they saw unfold in the person of Jesus and the implications for his life and the witness he bore in his ministry.
We have a tendency, in our culture, to see time as nothing more than a commodity, something we never quite have enough of and that carries on regardless of our myriad attempts to slow it or stop it. Our children grow up too fast. Our age catches up to us. Time is a linear, one-dimensional experience that just marches on and carries us along a straight line toward an endpoint that we may or may not see. But Christmas is one of the reminders we have baked into our religious tradition that pushes against that notion of time. Christmas reminds us that time is an experience that we carry in our bodies, that is characterized more by quality and fullness than quantity and trajectory. Christmas is a time in which we’re confronted by stories of “those days,” by stories of “this night,” and by stories of days for which we wait. Just as it was for Ebenezer Scrooge, the stories of our past, present, and future blur together to create impossible possibilities that have the power to transform and redeem.
Luke tells about “those days” that were experienced under Emperor Augustus. An ancient inscription lauded him the savior of the world and the bringer of peace to end all war. But the peace of Rome was not achieved through legislating tolerance or diplomatically honoring difference. Instead, conquered peoples were compelled to abide by Rome’s peace through forced displacement and assimilation, and through oppressive class systems that left people like Mary and Joseph bound to the whims of imperial command. So, when the emperor demanded a census of the “whole world,” they had little choice but to oblige, no matter Mary’s very pregnant condition. Time must have felt so strange to her – carrying and pondering in her heart the vision of the angel, even as she carried in her body the promised child, who would bring freedom from the very chains of oppression that demanded from her this arduous journey to Bethlehem.
It’s not difficult these days, our days, to imagine the kind of oppressed lives that Mary and Joseph must have had. History has provided so many examples of totalitarian governments, tyrannical dictators, and rebellious militias all claiming the same godlike status attributed to Augustus, all boasting to be a savior for their cause. Even now, we exist in a global community of perpetual division with heralded claims of salvation from across the social and political spectrums. Even now, we watch on endless news cycles as nations brutally impose their will on their subjects and one another, all in the name of “peace.” Even now, we witness the growing disparity between the privileged and the disenfranchised as political, economic, and social systems not only allow but encourage and protect the hoarding of wealth and privilege by the powerful, at the often-violent expense of the poor and the marginalized. And, just as in “those days…” of Augustus, even now these kinds of systems wound all that exist within them, distorting the way we see one another by centering competition, control, and domination in human relationship.
And so perhaps, in our days, it is not so difficult to imagine experiencing time as much more than passing days on calendars and the constant ticking-by of seconds, minutes, and hours. We can readily see that in the context of violence, strife, and power struggles, time is felt deeply in our guts and our bones as the reality around us presses up against the yearning for something new, something different; something more just, more life-giving, more whole. This is the kind of time that is pregnant with hope, imagination, and expectation. It swells with Mary’s melodious song of divine revolutionary love, of God “casting down the mighty” and “lifting up the lowly.” And it is in the fullness of this time that Mary and Joseph, having reached Bethlehem, welcome a child into the world in an unassuming guestroom, shared by household animals in the middle of an insignificant town. There, in a small town filled with weary travelers like Mary and Joseph, the Son of God became flesh and changed everything about “those days,” because there, on that day, the might and power of God were embodied in the vulnerability of a newborn infant. There was no birth announcement sent to the halls of power and governance; no royal decree or ceremony demanding praise or blind allegiance. Instead, there was only a field covered by the night sky and humble shepherds keeping watch over their flock.
No doubt these shepherds also knew the weight of time in “those days.” They too would have carried in their bones the heaviness of scarcity, the fear of constant uncertainty. Perhaps on this night, they had been watching their flocks while agonizing over the economic and political consequences that would inevitably follow this “world-wide” census. Perhaps they were weighed down with more immediate concerns: how will I feed my family? How can I keep them safe?[i] Whatever they were contemplating in the depths of this night, it was surely interrupted by the brilliance of divine glory, the joyful angel’s announcement, and the chorus of the heavenly host breaking out in song to praise the God of peace. The worries and cares and hardships and suffering of “those days” were interrupted by this day, this night, in which angels proclaim, “Do not be afraid! I bring you good news of great joy for all the people. For today in the city of David, a Savior is born to you.” Here is the one who brings with him a new order, a new way of life characterized by peace, by wholeness, by justice and reconciliation.
“Do not be afraid! I bring you good news of great joy for all people…” All people will experience this new time, inaugurated at the birth of this child, who is the revealer of God’s glory and the bringer of true peace among all people. All people will be freed from the tyranny of injustice because of this infant king who compels allegiance to himself not through mechanisms of fear and intimidation but through dwelling in love among the disenfranchised and the despised.
In “those days,” just as in “these/our days,” power operates and maintains its control by cultivating a culture of fear: fear of political differences; fear of losing our freedoms; fear of senseless murder and mass killings; fear of scarcity; fear of the consequences of global war. And yet, the prophetic imagination bids us to see beyond the shadows, to bask in the light of a new day, a new dawn that bids us to embrace a peace that surpasses understanding and casts out fear. In Christ, a new era is birthed in which the fullness of time continues to light our path and show us the way. And while in these days, our days, that fullness of time can be difficult to recognize, we gather tonight to declare with and to one another, and to the whole world, that what we celebrate is not simply a single birth that happened 2,000 years ago, but the ongoing birth of new time in Christ. This is the time in which God came to dwell among us and in which God continues to come among us, dispelling the shadows of night as Christ is born anew in us, filling our bones with songs of freedom, teaching us melodies of God’s revolutionary love, and leading us along the path of justice and peace.
It can be easy to give into the fears that stories about those days and stories about these days produce. But Christmas reminds us to look also at the stories of promise, stories about the days for which we wait when the fullness of time will culminate in the birth of a new heaven and new earth, when tears will be wiped away and violence cease, when evil will be purged and life transformed. And when we embrace those stories of promise we can more readily hear and embrace the glad tidings of the angels: “Do not be afraid… I bring you good news of great joy. To you is born this day a Savior, who is the Messiah, the Lord.”
And so, this day, let us, with Mary, treasure and ponder this good news of great joy in our hearts, so that we too might be drawn ever deeper into God’s transformational love. Amen.
[i] Justo L. Gonzalez. Luke. Belief: A Theological Commentary on the Bible. (Louisville: KY, 2010).