Sermon on December 24, 2025
“Christmas Eve“
By: The Very Rev. Pamela Dolan
The first time my picture was ever in the paper, I was four years old. The paper was the Vacaville Reporter, and the picture was of me in a bathing suit, sitting crisscross applesauce on the floor of the public library, utterly engrossed in a book. It was the middle of summer, and we’d probably just come from the pool, or maybe I’d been running through sprinklers to cool off. But at some point, I’m sure, I’d begged my mom to take me to the library so I could get more books. Reading was a joy and comfort and a favorite escape.
Later I realized that it wasn’t just stories that I loved, but words themselves. I still feel that way. Language is a marvel, and people who are skillful with it are magicians, workers of wonder. Some words seize my imagination simply because of the way they sound, others because of how perfectly they capture an experience or feeling.
There are certain words that I will always associate with specific people or events. Once on a whim I asked my mother-in-law what her favorite word was and she replied, “Velvet.” That word was a delightful surprise, coming from this practical, no-nonsense Midwestern housewife and mother of six. I felt closer to her after learning that she loved the word “velvet,” and, although she died many years ago, the word still brings back memories of her.
In the Christmas story from the Gospel of Luke, Mary hears the most astonishing words from the most unexpected source—tidings of comfort and joy, and of world-changing importance, from a bunch of rough-and-tumble shepherds. And then, Luke tells us, Mary “treasured all these words and pondered them in her heart.”
I wonder. Have you ever heard words that meant so much to you that you treasured them, and pondered them in your heart? Maybe they were words of praise and encouragement from a teacher or boss, someone who noticed something about you that was not yet obvious to others. Or maybe they were words that challenged you, causing you to rethink deeply held beliefs about the world and your place in it. Or maybe it was the first word your child spoke, or the last conversation you had with a parent, in that voice that you will never hear again this side of heaven.
In the prologue to the Gospel of John, we are told that “The Word became flesh and dwelt among us, full of grace and truth.” We Christians believe that the Word John describes here is Jesus, and that this is the closest that particular Gospel comes to a Nativity story. How wide a gulf there seems between a child, lying in a manger, wrapped in swaddling clothes, and an eternal Word that was with God and was God, from the beginning of time.
Words, after all, are mental constructs, something without physical form, that yet last for generations. Infancy, on the other hand, is fleeting, and babies are nothing if not intensely bodily beings. Caring for a baby is demanding, physical work, in part because babies don’t understand reason, negotiation, or delayed gratification. Even their emotional needs must be met physically, with soothing touch, rocking, feeding, and so on.
And also, it is precisely because of that very “bodiliness” that there were times as a new mother when I could have swooned over how delicious and delightful my babies were. Those tiny feet! The dimples and folds of flesh! The smell of their little heads! If anyone had described one of my babies as a Word, I would have thought they were nuts. My children were the most flesh-and-blood, embodied little creatures I could ever imagine inhabiting this beautiful, messy, physical world of ours.
If there is a contradiction, or at least a paradox, in understanding Jesus as both an actual physical infant and also the eternal Word, I want us to be cautious about tidying it up too easily, even on Christmas Eve when—let’s be honest—we are all mostly here for the Baby Jesus. It is tempting, for instance, to identify the infant Jesus with the human side of his nature and the Word with the divine side.
That kind of dualism is problematic, though, and has led to the Church doing damage by either discounting the importance of our physical bodies or pathologizing them, teaching for too long that bodies are inherently sinful and corrupt, which they are not. It also, weirdly, can make words seem less powerful, as if they are ethereal concepts only, without real-world consequences.
Christmas, the feast of the Incarnation, inherently rejects such dualism. Christmas is a celebration of the “both/and”—of a helpless infant who is also the Prince of Peace, of an eternal Word that also became flesh and lived among particular people in a particular time and place. This is the mystery of Christmas, and it gets very close to the mystery at the heart of human existence. We are all both/and: Both physical creatures and images of the ineffable divine, both utterly broken and wonderfully gifted, and all of it infinitely beloved by God.
Contrary to that old saying about sticks and stones, words can hurt us. In our world today, too many words have been weaponized. Grant applicants have been instructed not to speak of diversity, equity, and inclusion, as if those words represented something harmful. Many people worry that using the wrong word can result in being “canceled.”
Worse yet, many words have become emptied of meaning or turned upside down. When people argue on the national stage that empathy is a sin, I wonder if we can possibly mean the same thing by that word. Meanwhile, many have become frustrated by how leaders offer “thoughts and prayers” instead of meaningful action. Even the word “Christian” has, in many circles, become synonymous with prejudice, xenophobia, and nationalism. And then there are all the words that people use to diminish the dignity of other human beings, as if we are not all children of the same God, a God who has told us that the truth will set us free, a God who delights in our diversity and who has love enough to go around.
But if words can hurt, they can also heal, inspire, and connect us more deeply to one another. Words like “I love you” and “I’m proud of you.” Words like “you belong” and “where does it hurt” and “how can I help.” These are the words we treasure, and ponder in our hearts.
These are also the words that we are charged to bring into the world, and to make real. We’re not any more unlikely messengers than the rough-and-tumble shepherds, after all. At Christmas we are reminded that the Word became flesh, and dwelt among us, and that that Word was also a newborn baby, just like all of us were once. We are invited to align ourselves with that eternal Word, and to do our best to make the words of liberation and justice and healing that we speak in this building become enfleshed, embodied, in our lives and in the world. We are called to speak words that, like Jesus, are filled with God’s grace and truth, and to bring tidings of comfort and joy in our words and in our actions.
My prayer for you this Christmas, beloveds, is that you will find words that glimmer, that bring a little more joy and goodness into your life. They might be words that you find in Scripture. They might be words you hear from family member, or words that you read in letter from a friend. They might even be words that you have heard a thousand times before that take on new meaning this night and in the days to come. The Body of Christ, the bread of heaven. The Blood of Christ, the cup of salvation. Joy to the world. Peace on earth. And most of all, “Do not be afraid. For we are bringing good news of great joy for all people. And unto us is born a savior, who is Christ the Lord.” Merry Christmas. Amen.
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