Jerry the Angel Finds the Good News

Sermon for Christmas Day, Dec. 25, 2025
John 1:1-14

This Gospel reading may not be what you were expecting for your Christmas story.  That came last night – the angels and the shepherds and the baby in the manger.  This morning, we get the story from a cosmic perspective: the Word of God made flesh and dwelling among us in glory.

In Anglo-Catholic congregations, there’s a tradition of offering this reading every Sunday.  It’s the “Last Gospel,” and it comes at the very end of the service, even after the final blessing.  You can’t miss the importance of God taking flesh among us if it’s the last thing you hear literally every time you worship.

So, the incarnation is important, but maybe it’s hard to know what we’re supposed to do with it.  How does this amazing mystery affect my life?

Well, it’s Christmas morning. So, rather than diving deep into a theology of the incarnation, how about a story?

 *  *  *

Jerry the Angel wasn’t much of an angel, really.  Every time he was on the edge of success, about to make a real difference for people, that’s when he managed to mess it up.  If you ever wondered how we found ourselves with concrete lawn ornaments and 24-hour news channels, you can blame that on bungled messages from Jerry the Angel.  It’s what angels do, after all – they deliver messages. 

Well, when you’re an angel who’s not so good at delivering messages, they assign you to the heavenly Office of Salvation Research.  Instead of sharing good news of great joy, these angels go out listening to people’s opinions and perceptions about God.  Maybe you didn’t know heaven has its own research department.  But the angels have to stay in touch with how we’re thinking so they can tell us Good News in a way we can understand it.  I mean, what would people think these days if an army of shining, flying soldiers suddenly hovered over them in the night, talking about a Messiah who’s come to save them?  It probably wouldn’t show God’s love nearly as well as a story on the evening news about an anonymous stranger handing out $100 bills.  Like God always says to the angels, you’ve got to tell the story in a way folks can hear it.

Anyway, that was Jerry’s job – to go around talking to people about how they understand salvation.  What do they think the Good News is?  So, Jerry heard a lot of crazy stuff, frankly, especially at Christmas time – like those stories about Santa’s little henchmen, the elves, tiny spies who watch your every move.  In fact, this time of year usually left Jerry a little depressed.  “Just once,” he said, “I’d like to meet someone who really gets what the Good News is all about.”

So, it was late afternoon on Christmas Eve, and Jerry was on patrol.  His first stop was in a nice neighborhood – a huge, lovely home filled with guests for a holiday party.  Jerry walked down the long driveway to the front door and rang the bell.  A woman with a drink in her hand answered the door.

“Hello?” she said, dubiously.  “I’m sorry – do I know you?”

“No, ma’am,” Jerry said.  “I just want a moment of your time for a couple of quick questions.”

“Oh, not a survey!” the woman replied.  I have guests!”

“It will only take a minute, really,” Jerry said.  “In fact, I’ll cut it down to just one question.”

“All right,” the woman said, looking over her shoulder.  “Let’s get this over with.”

“OK,” Jerry said.  “What’s the Good News for you?”

“I’m sorry?” the woman asked.  “The good news about what?”

“It’s Christmas,” Jerry reminded her, “when the Word of God was made flesh and came among you.  It’s the reason you’re having a party, right?  So, what’s the Good News for you?”

“Oh, you’re one of those religious types,” the woman said, nodding her head knowingly.  “Well, then, I’d have to say the Good News for me is … um … let’s see.  I know:  God wants us to treat people nicely.  OK?”

“OK,” Jerry said.  “One vote for politeness.  Thanks for your time” – and the woman shut the door in Jerry’s face.  “So much for ‘nice,’” he thought.

From there, Jerry transported himself to a very poor neighborhood.  He came to a broken-down apartment building and passed through the locked door.  He walked up to the third floor and found a door with a laughing, plastic Santa face hung on it.  “Here’s someone who at least celebrates Christmas,” he thought.  “I’ll give this a try.”  And he knocked.

A teenaged boy answered the door.  Looking in, Jerry saw very little – not much furniture, nothing on the walls.  He could hear a TV in the corner. “Wha’cha want?” the young man asked.

“Hi there,” Jerry began, trying to sound positive.  “I just want a moment of your time for a couple of quick questions.”

“You gotta be kiddin’,” the young man said.  “Your takin’ a survey?  How’d you get in here, anyway?”

“It’ll only take a second,” Jerry said.  “How about just one question?”

“OK – shoot,” the young man said, looking back over his shoulder at the TV.

“It’s Christmas Eve, right?” Jerry asked.  “The night Jesus was born.  So, what’s the Good News for you?”

The young man looked back at Jerry, his eyes narrowing. “Oh, I know about Good News,” he said, bitterly.  “Good News is what they call it when the preacher says you’ll be happy if you just give God more money.  Good News is what they call it when you come to church and end up takin’ home nothin’ but empty words about how things’ll get better if you just pray harder.  Is that the Good News you had in mind?”

Jerry began to step back from the doorway.  “Thanks a lot for your time,” he said quickly, “and … um … have a merry … well, have a safe night.”

“OK,” Jerry thought, heading down the stairs.  “Folks can smell a lie a mile away.  So, the Good News has got to be real.”

From there, Jerry transported himself to the closest thing we have to a town square or Main Street in the year 2025, the place where the locals gather from miles around:  He went to Costco.  There, even on Christmas Eve, Jerry had his pick of hundreds of folks he might interview – people doing their Christmas shopping at the last minute or stocking up for the family’s visit.

Amid all the intense shoppers going this way and that, Jerry saw a little girl.  She was about 10, and her parents must have left her on her own for a bit while they hunted for her present.  Jerry decided she was the one to talk to.

“Hi, Honey,” he said softly.  “I want to ask you a couple of questions.  Is that OK?”

“Sure,” the little girl said.

“What’s your name?” Jerry asked.

“I’m Gabriella,” the little girl said.  “What’s your name?”

“I’m Jerry, and I wish I had a name as good and strong as yours.  It’s perfect for an angel.”

“Oh, I’m no angel,” Gabriella said.  “Just ask my parents.  So, what did you want to ask me?”

“Well,” Jerry began, “it’s Christmas Eve.  You’re not in church, or at your grandparents’ house, or opening presents with your family.  You’re here at Costco.  This is the night the angels appeared, announcing the Good News that Jesus was born.  Do you know what that Good News is?”

“Oh, that’s easy,” Gabriella said.  “The Good News is right here in my cart.”

Jerry looked down and saw what the little girl had been shopping for: Stocking caps – lots of stocking caps.  There must have been 50 stocking caps in the little girl’s cart.  “Stocking caps?” Jerry asked.  “I don’t get it.  Where’s the Good News in a cart full of stocking caps?”

“Oh, it’s not about the caps exactly,” Gabriella said.  “The Good News comes when I take the caps to church later, and we give them away for people who don’t have a warm place to live.”  She looked down at her treasure and then looked back at Jerry.  She was beaming.  “I saved up my allowance.”

Bingo, Jerry thought.  Finally, he’d found a little messenger.  “So tell me why that’s Good News,” he said.

Gabriella looked at Jerry with a little sympathy, like maybe he wasn’t very smart.  “It’s easy,” she said, again.  “Jesus came into the world long ago, on a cold night like this.  Jesus is still in the world, on a cold night like this.  He’s there in all those people who don’t have a place to live, who can’t find any room at the inn.  He loves me just like God loves me – and he’s shivering out there in the cold.  So I need to help keep him warm, because I love him, too.”  She cocked her head and looked at Jerry.  “It’s not complicated.  Don’t you get it?”

Jerry smiled and remembered why he loved his job after all.  “Yes, I get it,” he said.  “Can I ask you a favor?”

“Sure,” Gabriella said.  “Do you want a stocking cap?”

“No,” Jerry said.  “I just want you to go and tell other people your story.” 

“I can do that,” she said, as she pushed her cart toward the check-out lane.  Jerry watched as she walked away, and suddenly he found himself listening to what was playing over the Costco loudspeakers: 

Hark! the herald angels sing
            glory to the newborn King!

Christmas Past, Present, and Future

Sermon for Christmas Eve, Dec. 24, 2025
Luke 2:1-14

Here we are, in this beautiful space on this beautiful night, celebrating the realization of our hope:  the long-awaited coming of Christ the Lord, God made flesh, the One who will save us and bring us light.  For four weeks now, we’ve been marking church time, ever so slowly lighting a candle a week on the Advent wreath and waiting expectantly to see what happens next.

That’s been true for many of us.  But others have been waiting differently – waiting just to make it through a tough time.  From my perspective, closing the book on 2025 can’t come soon enough.  If you’ve lost someone or something recently, or if you’re having trouble making ends meet, or if you long for civility and common decency to be normal once again, then maybe you, too, feel weary, tired of waiting not so much in hope but in fear of what might be the next shoe to drop.

In fact, you’d be forgiven for wondering about the relevance of hope in our world at all.  Hope seems quaint, like rotary phones or TV Guide, a marker of a bygone age.  In fact, you might have come here tonight/today with some resentment or anger in your cup of Christmas cheer.  Peace?  Goodwill?  Hope?  They might sound, at best, like a nice children’s story, or, at worst, from the cynic’s perspective, like the opiate of the masses.

For me, I’ve always waited in hope for Christmas by watching certain movies – It’s a Wonderful Life, Miracle on 34^th Street, Elf, Love Actually.  This year, I haven’t watched any of them.  But, a couple of nights ago, I did feel the urge to see a Christmas movie.  So, on my daughter’s recommendation, I picked The Muppets’ Christmas Carol.

Now, A Christmas Carol is a story I imagine we all know, at least in outline.  Ebenezer Scrooge is the ultimate misanthrope – a truly awful man who describes poor people as “surplus population” and happily underpays his staff.¹  He’s visited by three spirits who show him how his choices have made life so much worse, for himself and for others.  The experience converts him to a life of love.

It’s a great story, and it sits very close to my heart.  In fact, I was in A Christmas Carol at a local theater in Springfield a long time ago, so at one point I had the whole script memorized.  And, of course, we offered our own short version of A Christmas Carol here for a decade or so, with me perhaps typecast as Scrooge.  So, Dickens’ words are in my head – and the Muppets’ version of it actually follows his language closely.

So, it surprised me to be surprised by a line I heard in this movie a couple of nights ago.  It comes at the end of the story, when Scrooge has had his epiphany.  The three spirits have revealed to him Christmas past, present, and future, each scene showing the consequences of choosing against love.  And Scrooge wakes up finally to daylight, realizing it’s morning, and he isn’t dead, and he hasn’t even missed Christmas.  Through the grace of God, hope still awaits him.  So, he arranges with a kid in the street to go buy the prize turkey in the butcher’s window and deliver it to the hungry Cratchit family.  He says, “I am as light as a feather, I am as happy as an angel, I am as merry as a schoolboy.”  And as he comes to see just how good it feels to choose love, Scrooge promises the universe he will “keep [Christmas] all the year.”  That line I remembered – a lovely thought, but seemingly no deeper than what you might find on a Christmas card.  But in the Muppets’ Christmas Carol, true to Dickens’ text, Scrooge fleshes it out a bit and connects his jolly heart more directly with God’s purposes.  He says, “I will live in the past, the present, and the future.”¹

Sit with that a bit.  “I will live in the past, the present, and the future.”  That’s a line I hadn’t remembered.  But I think Scrooge is onto something there because the way he resolves to live is the way God lives – past, present, and future, all available to be lived, in any given moment.

Now let me tell you a second story, as quickly as I can.  It’s not that the story is quick – in fact, it’s the longest of them all – but this thumbnail version can be quick.  It’s the story of God.

It begins with God on top of the world – more precisely, creating all the worlds, all the universe, including this beautiful Earth, “our island home” (BCP 370).  God brings forth life over all of it, the peaceable kingdom of mutual dependence and blessed interconnection – the wolf living with the lamb and the leopard lying down with the kid (Isaiah 11:6).  And God creates humans, too, the coup de gras of creation, beings made in God’s own image and likeness, including the mirrored divine attributes of love and freedom.  God aches for the humans to choose the loving side of their nature, but these nearly divine beings choose individual interest over interconnection.  In time, they turn against each other, too, behaving so badly that God sees no choice but to start over.  Well, the flood ends up being messy and not exactly just, so God decides not to solve the problem that way a second time.  Instead, God anoints a couple of heroes, Abraham and Sarah, to journey into a divine covenant, for themselves and their descendants.  Why?  To bless the two of them and their families, sure, but also to bless everybody else, to show everybody just how good life is when you live it in God’s image and likeness.  The people of the covenant thrive and fail and thrive and fail.  God sustains them, and delivers them, and instructs them, and blesses them, even with other people’s lands.  But the people forget their covenant and choose against living in God’s image, over and over again.  Finally, God says, “Enough – enough of kings and their armies, enough of experts and their law.  I’ll send my beloved to show them what love’s supposed to look like.”

So, we find ourselves at that first Christmas, with the power that created the universe taking the appalling step of becoming a human baby, an absolute nobody and, thereby, everybody – the ultimate image and likeness of God.  People didn’t know what to do with that, especially once this incarnate Word of God started talking and teaching and training one poor Schmoe after another how to follow in his steps.  Against all odds, the movement caught on, so much so that the people in charge decided it was better to kill the power of Love than to lose their own power.  But the Word of God would not be silenced.  Christ rose from death and defeated it, sharing the Spirit of Love so his friends could spread the word, and then returning home as CEO of the universe.

And now?  What do we do with that now?  Well, now, we wait.  But it matters what we’re waiting for.  Are we waiting for God to do something more, for the sequel to the story, where God conquers sin and death completely?  You could see it that way.  Or, if you’ll entertain the possibility of a larger story with a God-sized scope of time, maybe that victory is already complete.  After all, if the baby in the manger, the Word made flesh, is truly the sovereign of the universe, that would imply there’s no serious resistance left.  Here on earth, we’re in a 2,000-year-long mopping-up action, just waiting to see the fullness of God’s victory revealed – both in our own choices, day by day, and eventually in Christ pulling back the curtain completely on creation that’s been made new.

As Scrooge said, “I will honor Christmas in my heart, and try to keep it all the year.  I will live in the past, in the present, and in the future. …”¹  That’s how we honor Christ, too.  We live in the past when we celebrate Eucharist, taking our seats at the Last Supper, as Jesus gives himself to give us eternal life.  We live in the present when we inhabit our role as the Body of Christ today, being Jesus’ head and heart and hands to bring the power of Love to bear in this mopping-up action of Christian life.  And we live in the future when we remember what’s yet to be fully revealed but what we’ve been affirming since the 300s as a done deal:  Christ “ascended into heaven and is seated at the right hand of the Father … and his kingdom will have no end” (BCP 358-359).

In the midst of the hardness of this world and the hardness of our hearts, we can hope because God’s already got this.  What remains now – as we play the long game to face down all pretenders to Jesus’ throne – what remains now is to live hope by embodying love, joining Scrooge in his Great Commission for this present age.  So, take it as your Christmas commission, too, because it means much more than greeting-card verse.  Draw God’s past and God’s future together in the holy now by living Christmas every day.  Let your life be the light that shines in the darkness – the light that the darkness did not, and will not, and even now cannot overcome.

1.      Dickens, Charles. A Christmas Carol. Available at: https://www.gutenberg.org/files/46/46-h/46-h.htm. Accessed Dec. 23, 2025.

 

Maybe It's Not Just a Sunrise

Sermon (narrative essay, actually) for Sunday, Dec. 14, 2025
Matthew 11:2-15

Maybe it was just a sunrise.

Thursday morning, as I was walking with the dog, I looked up.  That doesn’t seem noteworthy, but sometimes looking up matters.  It was nearing sunrise, and Pete and I were heading back toward the house, walking west.  Now, last time I checked, the sun rises in the east.  But as we walked west, I noticed the edges of the wispy clouds on the horizon beginning to gleam in pinks and purples.  I stopped and looked south.  And north.  And east, finally.  And all around, at about the same level of brightness, the wisps of clouds at the horizon were being painted in pinks and purples.

After a few minutes of watching the colors brighten, I went into the house for breakfast.  When I looked out the window, no surprise, the eastern skyline was brightening gloriously; and the clouds around the rest of the sky’s dome were growing whiter, beginning to lose their pink and purple.  It was as if the artist’s gaze had shifted:  Having played with color all around the horizon, the artist got busy with the canvas’ focal point.  As my cereal got soggy, I kept watching; and the shifting colors crept through the clouds for what seemed like twice as long as any sunrise I’d ever seen.  In divine slow motion, the artist seemed to say, “You like this?  Hang on … wait just a little more.  It gets even better, if you keep watching.”

Maybe it was just a sunrise.  But on this particular morning – in this season of my own life and our collective life, too, when expectations of goodness and love perhaps have never seemed lower – on this particular morning, it felt like more than a sunrise.  It felt like a wonder – an assurance – an embrace.

*  *   *   *

Two thousand years ago, a wandering preacher and his band of misfits had stopped in a village.  It had been a busy few weeks.  Heading from town to town, they’d found what you’d expect: people doing the best they can, living grindingly normal lives – same as it ever was.  Some were doing well, settled in responsibility and respect, comfort and control.  Others weren’t so lucky.  Two thousand years ago, the sick and the broken and the poor and the alone were out there for all to see, not shunted away but out in front of God and everybody.

So, this wandering preacher and his band of misfits focused on them – not the folks who had it all together, the ones who might have offered a meal and a place to stay, but the folks with no expectations of aid or comfort, and nothing to give anyone.  

Now, among these folks with nothing more to lose, crazy things kept happening.  A guy everybody knew was blind suddenly could see.  A woman everybody knew was sick, and therefore excluded, suddenly felt great and was out with everybody else on market day.  A kid whom everybody knew had died wasn’t dead after all.  These things made no sense.  Nobody was complaining, mind you, but they also couldn’t explain it.

Miles away, a guy in a jail cell couldn’t explain it either.  His name was John; and Herod, the Romans’ local lackey, was letting John rot in prison because he kept calling Herod a hypocrite for breaking religious rules when they grew inconvenient.  John was the cousin of this wandering preacher, Jesus from Nazareth; and Jesus had been part of John’s own band of misfits out in the desert, where John spoke hard truth to people in power about how they should love God and love neighbor rather than lining their pockets and pushing people around.  Now, stuck in his dank cell, John was losing hope.  He’d seen himself as the next great prophet, like Elijah, taking down corrupt kings and bringing hope that God’s true king was coming to set the world to rights.  So much for that, John thought. 

But still, John had heard these stories about his cousin and the amazing things that kept happening wherever he went.  Back when Jesus had joined John’s band, John had had a vision and told anyone who’d listen that Jesus was the one they were waiting for.  Maybe that was true after all.  Maybe God was at work here after all.  Maybe this prison cell was just an ugly stopover on the journey toward life under God’s true king.  So, John sent a couple of his old friends to find Jesus so they could check things out and ask Jesus what all this meant.

They got there just after Jesus had healed four people, and the local crowd was buzzing.  Like always, the folks in control weren’t too pleased, but the nobodies started daring to think maybe change was finally coming.  After all, they’d always been taught that, someday, God would send the king who would kick out their oppressors just like the Maccabees had done 200 years earlier, and restore Israel’s golden age, and put a new King David on a new Jewish throne.  Had David done anything greater than the things this Jesus was doing?  And the prophets back in the day had said the greatest prophet, Elijah, would return from heaven just before the king would come – that Elijah would prepare the way for his victory.  So, was Jesus Elijah?  Or, even better, was Jesus the king?

The friends of John the prisoner found Jesus in the marketplace.  They knew him from the old days, so they could trust he’d give it to them straight.  “Look,” they asked, “what does all this mean?  You’re making folks think they’ve got reason to hope.  You’re making John think God might break him out of prison.  You’re making the crowds think God’s going to drop the hammer on the Romans.  John wants to know what’s going on:  Are you the one who is to come, or are we to wait for another?  And if you’re the one, which one are you – Elijah or the messiah himself?”

Jesus smiled. “You’re asking the right questions,” he said, “but the story won’t play out the way you think.  Look, you want an answer for John?  Go back and tell him what’s happening.  Blind people can see.  Deaf people can hear.  Poor people can see a way out of debt.  Dead people aren’t staying that way.  Sound familiar?” Jesus asked.  “You might check out what the prophets said was going to happen before the messiah comes.”

As John’s friends ran off to share the good news, Jesus turned and saw the crowd gathered around him.  They had the obvious question on their minds, and someone dared to yell it out:  “If the blind see, and the deaf hear, and the dead are raised, what’s John doing in prison?  Can’t you fix that, too?”

Jesus sighed and looked at his questioner the way a parent looks at an angry child.  “This isn’t going to work the way you want it to,” he said.  “What’s coming won’t follow your script.  God is with you, but not as a general or a magician.  You want certainty.  You want control.  You want miracles everyday,” Jesus said.  “Instead, what I’ve got are everyday miracles.”

“But what about John the Baptizer?” someone else called out.

Jesus shook his head.  “Look, when you fight for a kingdom of love, the violent will take it by force – same as it ever was.  Love’s not something God can impose.  Love is something you have to choose – you and them, too, the ones holding John in prison.  Remember your scriptures,” Jesus continued.  “What happened to the prophet Elijah?  He told the truth, too, and the king tried to kill him.  So, Elijah ran away, hiding out on Mount Sinai, expecting God to send him an army.  Instead, God sent him … God, walking with him in person at the edge of the cliff, embracing Elijah with the sound of sheer silence.  And in that power, Elijah returned to face down the corrupt king, and defeat the prophets of Baal, and find himself taken straight to heaven.  But I think Elijah’s back,” Jesus said. “I think he’s been preparing the messiah’s way.  Right now, he’s stuck in a prison cell with worse yet to come, but the story won’t stop there.  Remember:  The blind now see.  The deaf now hear.  The poor now look forward in hope.  The dead now live.  Maybe it’s just a crazy preacher in that prison cell,” Jesus said.  “But maybe Elijah’s back.  And maybe the messiah looks and sounds a lot different than you’d expect.”

*  *   *   *

Over these next two weeks of Advent, we’re still going to be walking in the dark.  The wind will still be cold against our faces.  Voices will still pipe up with realistic angst:  “Can’t you see how rough this path really is?  You’re on your own, you know; only the strong survive.”  

On those cold, dark days – look up.  Look to the edges of the clouds where light’s not supposed to start breaking through.  Look for the pinks and purples of sunrise coming from the least likely directions.

Maybe it is just a sunrise.  But maybe it’s more than you’d expect.