Christmas Eve 2025: A Family Christmas

Opening

This morning, my extended family gathered for our family Christmas brunch. We met at my sister’s house, we ate a lot of yummy food, and we exchanged gifts… mostly for the kids. We had a great time. There’s something really wonderful about family coming together to celebrate. Tomorrow, we’ll get up at our house and celebrate with breakfast and gifts and reading the Christmas passage from Luke 2, and then we’ll pack up and head over to Maggie & Nathan’s house to celebrate with them at their place, since they just welcomed our second grandson.

Tonight, we’ve intentionally had the families be a part of what was going on in the service. And together we have the blessing of gathering with not just some of the people from our biological families, but with our fellow brothers and sisters in Christ—our church family. For the most part, we’re not exchanging gifts at this gathering, and we’re not eating a bunch of food, either. But we have come together to celebrate Christmas—to take a step back from the hurry and the chaos, and to spend just a little time with one another in worship and praise to the King of kings, who came as a lowly baby and was placed in an animal feeding trough.

Message

Tonight, let’s look out a little bit from that first Christmas with the manger and the angels and the shepherds. Trevor and his family just shared Matthew 2:1-11 with us. The events of this passage occurred at least a year later, and the Savior’s earthly family was together in a house, just living life. The Bible tells us that the Son of God took on our flesh, becoming like us as humans. I don’t know how often we think about it, but there was a time when Jesus was a toddler. So Joseph and Mary were there with Jesus, going about their evening, when suddenly there was a knock at the door.

Let me just re-read that portion of the passage from Matthew so we have it fresh in our minds:

Matthew 2:9–11 CSB

9 After hearing the king, they went on their way. And there it was—the star they had seen at its rising. It led them until it came and stopped above the place where the child was. 10 When they saw the star, they were overwhelmed with joy. 11 Entering the house, they saw the child with Mary his mother, and falling to their knees, they worshiped him. Then they opened their treasures and presented him with gifts: gold, frankincense, and myrrh.

Before we look deeper into this passage, let’s pray:

PRAY

Now, this visit from the Magi probably didn’t happen on Jesus’s first birthday (although I suppose that is possible). So why do we think of it as a Christmas passage if Jesus wasn’t a baby anymore, and if there’s no indication that it happened on His birthday? It’s because of what happened that day in that little house with that tiny family. I suppose that we could really call this the second Christmas.

The word “Christmas” actually comes from the Old English in about the 11th century. Cristes Maesse, eventually shortened to Cristemasse, and then even further to Christmas, means “Christ’s Mass,” or more specifically a worship service that celebrates the birth of Christ. Back in the 11th century, the midnight (Christmas Eve) Cristes Maesse was the celebration that marked the separation between the time of Advent, which generally was a solemn period of fasting, and the time of feasting that followed… the 12 days of Christmas with all the gifts…which ended on January 6 (Epiphany), a holiday given specifically to recollect the passage from Matthew that we’re considering tonight.

This evening gathering at the unassuming house of this unknown family in an unimportant town in Israel was a celebration of the birth of Christ. The wise men had come specifically for that purpose, and you have to wonder what that must have been like for Joseph and Mary. Their family evening at home became a Christmas. And tonight, we stand in the place of the wise men, having taken the journey of Advent to this holy night of celebration of the birth of Jesus.

So I ask that we think a little deeper about the wise men tonight, and there are three things that I want us to quickly notice from this passage:

1: Christmas is a time for joy.

For the wise men, the joy came first. They followed the star, and when it stopped over the place where Jesus was, they saw it was done moving, and the Scripture says:

Matthew 2:10 CSB

10 When they saw the star, they were overwhelmed with joy.

They were overwhelmed with joy! I know that Christmas can be a really hard time for some folks. There have been times in my life when Christmas has been a really hard time for me. We may have experienced a loss this year, or Christmas might be really difficult financially, or we are carrying pain or heartache from something in our past. I don’t want to downplay or ignore those things, because pain is very real, and we all experience it at one point or another.

But can I just ask you tonight to do what the wise men did? They arrived at the location where Jesus was—the Savior they had been watching and waiting for, the promised King of the Jews, the Messiah given for sinful humanity. And as they turned their eyes upon just the home of Jesus, the things of earth grew strangely dim, and their joy was overwhelming!

It may seem childish, but I don’t picture the wise men as austere, pious mystics in this moment, because that doesn’t seem to fit with what the Scripture says about their being overwhelmed with joy. Instead, I see them as a group of friends who were arriving at some event that had long dreamed of seeing. Pointing and shoving and hugging and laughing and jumping and running. Their joy was a shared joy. A contagious joy. A family joy.

I pray that each of us can look to Jesus this Christmas and experience that kind of joy, as we allow our gaze to rest upon the One who was born to die, so that we could be saved. This joy should move us the same way it did the wise men: They worshiped.

2: Christmas is a time for worship.

The first half of verse 11 tells us what they did after they were allowed entrance to the house. Their overwhelming joy gave way to humble worship of the Lord.

Matthew 2:11 CSB

11a Entering the house, they saw the child with Mary his mother, and falling to their knees, they worshiped him.

These were men on a mission. They knew this baby was a King. They had already told Herod that, as we heard in verse 2 when the Clarks read it for us. They knew He was the Messiah. And so they did the only right thing to do when coming into His presence: they bowed low in adoration and genuflection. No pretense. No self-image. No shyness. Just worship of the Son of God, come to earth as a child.

Tonight, we have gathered for the same reason. The fellowship with one another, the reading of the Scripture, the songs, the candles… everything should be pointing us to the worship of Christ. And if we’ve taken our eyes off of that purpose, we’ve missed what Christmas is really all about. We should worship Jesus because of both who He is and what He has done.

The Scriptures tell us that Jesus is the Son of God, born of the virgin Mary, human and divine at the same time, so that He could be the Mediator between sinful humanity and holy God. To rescue us from the wrath of God owed to us because of our sin, He would live a perfect life and die a sacrificial death, and overcome the grave by rising again, so that through faith in Him, we can be forgiven and have eternal life with Him. Salvation isn’t something we earn: it’s a gift that we are given if we will only believe in Jesus as Savior and Lord.

Which brings us to our final point tonight:

3: Christmas is a time for gifts.

The wise men didn’t come empty-handed to Bethlehem that night. In keeping with convention, they came to find the One they knew was a King with gifts—offerings—to Him. We tend to think that there were three wise men, but we don’t really know that. We know that they brought three gifts, according to the last part of verse 11:

Matthew 2:11 CSB

11b Then they opened their treasures and presented him with gifts: gold, frankincense, and myrrh.

Scholars differ on what, if anything, these gifts mean. One thing that we know for sure is that they were valuable. However, they may have reflected other meanings as well:

Gold throughout Scripture is representative of royalty. The splendor of Solomon’s kingdom referenced in 1 Kings 10 mentions gold ten times in seven verses. Gold was and offering given to please kings and even to appease kings. Perhaps the wise men gave it to Jesus to give Him royal honor.

Frankincense was used in many places in the Old Testament in offerings of worship made to God, such as gifts or prayers. Maybe this gift was given to Jesus to reflect His deity.

Myrrh was a perfume that people used to mask scents. And as frankincense was associated with the worship of God, myrrh was used to anoint man. Jesus’s title is Christ or Messiah, which are the same word but in different languages, both with a base meaning of “anointed one.” Myrrh was present at three major events in His life and ministry: this celebration of His birth, mixed with wine while He was on the cross in Mark 15:23, and to prepare His body for burial in John 19:38-42. While myrrh could have been given to reflect His humanity, it also could have been a foretaste of His future death.

This family Christmas was a time for gifts. And we actually continue that in a way when we give gifts to one another at Christmas. I think it’s a beautiful thing that Christmas is the holiday where we give each other gifts for someone else’s birthday. God already gave the ultimate gift when He gave us His Son, and to get to honor and remember that fact as we share gifts with each other is a really cool picture to me.

But there is only one gift that we can bring to the Savior. I love how this is captured in the last verse of the Christmas song, “In the Bleak Midwinter” (changed slightly by James Taylor):

What then can I give Him, empty as I am?

If I were a shepherd, I would bring a lamb.

If I were a wise man, I would know my part.

What then can I give to Him?

I must give my heart.

There is no other offering that we can give to Jesus that compares to the surrender of our lives in faith to Him. And in so doing, we become members of the family of God, adopted as His children, heirs with Jesus according to Scripture. I pray that this Christmas, you will hear the message of the Gospel, believe in what Jesus has done for us for your forgiveness and salvation.

Thank you for being here tonight to share in the joy, the worship, and the gift of Christmas. I pray our church family and you and your families have a blessed Christmas Eve and Christmas Day as you reflect on the birth of our Savior.

PRAY