The Challenge of
Christmas Preaching
Reintroducing People, and Ourselves, to Christ...
By Father Joseph Scolaro
By Father Joseph Scolaro
Christmas can be an incredibly challenging time to preach. Many priests will find themselves in Churches packed with more than double their usual attendees, who are largely only occasional visitors. The question then becomes – how can we help those who have fallen away reignite their relationship with Christ and the Church? Christmas is such a powerful moment, and the beauty of the Nativity story should be more than enough, and yet it’s a story that so often falls on deaf ears. It’s so familiar that even we as preachers have become almost numb to it and no longer feel that sense of wonder. Perhaps here then is a starting point: our experience of Christmas has become a small snapshot of our experience of Christ; He has become so familiar that He’s lost His power in our lives.
This is undeniable as we look out at our corner of the world. We see a Christian culture that struggles mightily to forget Christ. How many turn to Yoga and eastern meditation, rather than our own tradition of prayer? How many turn to psychic mediums for comfort when they lose a loved one, rather than the faith? How many turn to the latest self-help crazy or horoscopes or popular spirituality, rather than God and the Church? How many claim to be spiritual, because “institutional religion” just isn’t for them? Rather than return to the foundations of what has made us who we are, so many look elsewhere.
The challenge then, is to reintroduce our people, to reintroduce ourselves, to Christ. We have to ask: How did the drama of the Incarnation change the world? What was life like for someone in a world without Christ, and how did He transform it for the better? Rather than get caught up in the preconceptions, the false impressions, or even the complex system of rules and regulations, we have to realize how much Christ has given us that we take for granted. Because so many in our world live with the idea that as long as they’re decent people they’ll go to heaven, while it’s only Christ who gives us the clear assurance that those who live united with Him will have eternal life. So many in our world believe in the importance of love, but it’s only Christ who teaches the greatest form of love on the cross. We try to keep salvation and love without Christ, and yet we’re surprised when people no longer feel like their lives make sense, when people no longer love selflessly because they’ve never been taught how or why they should. The goodness of a Christian culture disappears when Christ is no longer at the center.
So as we look around (very often in our own families) and see so much depression and isolation, so much anxiety and confusion, so much emptiness and longing, we see what life was like, and is like, without Christ. We see that Christ promises us joy in this life and the next, but only if we go all in with Him, only if we put our faith and trust in Him. The beauty of Christmas, as we think of the image of the Nativity scene, is that even in the darkness of winter, even in the poverty of the stable, Christ brings light. The mother, father, and child, huddled together, had nothing but a deep and profound love, but that was all they needed. The promise of Christmas is that same joy. If we welcome Christ into our lives, we will have, not the flashy joy of gifts and lights and food and pleasure, but the abiding joy of those things that last eternally. We will find joy even in life’s darkest moments, because we have that infinite source of light in the infant Lord.
This is undeniable as we look out at our corner of the world. We see a Christian culture that struggles mightily to forget Christ. How many turn to Yoga and eastern meditation, rather than our own tradition of prayer? How many turn to psychic mediums for comfort when they lose a loved one, rather than the faith? How many turn to the latest self-help crazy or horoscopes or popular spirituality, rather than God and the Church? How many claim to be spiritual, because “institutional religion” just isn’t for them? Rather than return to the foundations of what has made us who we are, so many look elsewhere.
The challenge then, is to reintroduce our people, to reintroduce ourselves, to Christ. We have to ask: How did the drama of the Incarnation change the world? What was life like for someone in a world without Christ, and how did He transform it for the better? Rather than get caught up in the preconceptions, the false impressions, or even the complex system of rules and regulations, we have to realize how much Christ has given us that we take for granted. Because so many in our world live with the idea that as long as they’re decent people they’ll go to heaven, while it’s only Christ who gives us the clear assurance that those who live united with Him will have eternal life. So many in our world believe in the importance of love, but it’s only Christ who teaches the greatest form of love on the cross. We try to keep salvation and love without Christ, and yet we’re surprised when people no longer feel like their lives make sense, when people no longer love selflessly because they’ve never been taught how or why they should. The goodness of a Christian culture disappears when Christ is no longer at the center.
So as we look around (very often in our own families) and see so much depression and isolation, so much anxiety and confusion, so much emptiness and longing, we see what life was like, and is like, without Christ. We see that Christ promises us joy in this life and the next, but only if we go all in with Him, only if we put our faith and trust in Him. The beauty of Christmas, as we think of the image of the Nativity scene, is that even in the darkness of winter, even in the poverty of the stable, Christ brings light. The mother, father, and child, huddled together, had nothing but a deep and profound love, but that was all they needed. The promise of Christmas is that same joy. If we welcome Christ into our lives, we will have, not the flashy joy of gifts and lights and food and pleasure, but the abiding joy of those things that last eternally. We will find joy even in life’s darkest moments, because we have that infinite source of light in the infant Lord.
