Christmas Eve: “The Day After Christmas”

Sermon — December 24, 2025
The Rev. Greg Johnston
Lectionary Readings

Behold, I bring you good tidings of a great joy, which will be to all the people;
for unto you is born this day in the city of David, a Savior, who is Christ the Lord. (Luke 2:10, 11) 

We all know the story of Christmas, in its ancient and its modern forms. We know about St. Mary and St. Joseph and St. Nicholas; the donkey and the journey and the sleigh. The shepherds in the fields keeping watch over their flocks by night, and the children in the pageant dressed up like cows. The angels singing in the heavens as the babe lies in the manger; and the angel sitting atop the Christmas tree as the presents lie beneath its boughs.

We all know the story of Christmas, in its ancient and its modern forms.

But what’s the story of the day after Christmas?

Is it empty boxes and disappointment? Crumpled paper and indigestion?

Is it the exhaustion of having made it through another family holiday, or the satisfaction of having pulled it off; the loneliness of having nowhere to be on Christmas Day, or the gentle warmth of spending time with family or friends?

Is the day after Christmas a let-down or a milestone or just a day to relax?

(Or is it, sometimes, all these things at once?)

The first Christmas was full of even more celebration and excitement than any Christmas has ever been since. Those shepherds saw something we will never see: “an angel of the Lord appeared to them, and the glory of the Lord shone round about them, and they were sore afraid.” And the angel gave to them, for the first time, “good tidings of great joy that will be for all the people.” The angel told them, for the first time, that “unto you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, who is Christ the Lord.” And they went and saw with their own eyes something we will never see: “Mary and Joseph, and the babe, lying in a manger.”

And all our cherished Christmas traditions: all our pageants and our carols, our tree-toppers and our Nativity scenes, are nothing but our best effort to replicate just a glimpse of the full picture that they saw; and their excitement and their wonder went far beyond anything any of us feel, no matter how excited we are for Christmas to come. And the shepherds told Mary and Joseph what the angel had said, and then they returned to the fields, “glorifying and praising God…” and the next day, they got up, and they brought the sheep out to graze. Because whatever had happened in the night, on the day after Christmas, life was much the same. The Messiah may have come, but the shepherds still had bills to pay.

For Mary and Joseph, of course, everything had changed. They, too, had heard this remarkable good news, and Luke tells us that Mary “treasured up all these things, pondering them in her heart.” And she had plenty of time for that. She pondered them all day, I’m sure, and deep into the night, when the moon was bright, and the stars were out, and no one was awake but the new parents of the world, and their holy infants, tender and mild and wide awake at three a.m.

Because the child born to them was, in fact, a child. He didn’t begin to sleep through the night at birth. He didn’t help out in the kitchen as a toddler by multiplying fishes and loaves. He gave no outward sign that he was in fact “a Savior, who is Christ the Lord.”

For Mary and Joseph, the day after Christmas was wildly different from the day before, but not because of what the angel said. Their lives weren’t transformed because the child born to them that day in the city of David was a Savior, who is Christ the Lord; their lives were transformed because the child born to them that day in the city of David was a child.

So the day after Christmas may well have felt like a let-down for anyone who had eagerly been awaiting the Savior’s birth. After the last echo of the angelic choir had died out, and the last light of the glory of the Lord had faded away, the world hadn’t changed. Augustus was still emperor, and Quirinius was still governor, and the long-awaited Messiah who would bring endless peace to the throne of David would be in diapers for years.

“But Mary treasured all these things and pondered them in her heart.” (Luke 2:20) And the day after Christmas wasn’t a let-down for her. The day after Christmas was the beginning of something new.

The world can always use some good news, but these days, it feels like we’re especially in need of tidings of comfort and joy. Isaiah’s vision of the arrival of Christ seems especially poignant to me this year: a kingdom of endless peace, governed in justice and righteousness, where “all the boots of the tramping warriors and all the garments rolled in blood shall be burned as fuel for the fire.” (Isaiah 9:7, 5) “The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light”—Amen!

And faced with the darker realities of the world, the sweetness of Christmas can often seem too small. One child, born to one family, long ago. A handful of shepherds who see an amazing sight. On the day after Christmas, not much in the world had changed; and two thousand years later, the world envisioned by Isaiah is still a work in progress.

But it’s only once in a while that God sends a choir of angels to sing in the sky. Usually things happen more quietly than that. God gives us glad tidings of great joy, and hopes that we’ll ponder them. God shows us visions of justice and peace, and hopes that we’ll treasure them. God comes down among us and shows us a better way.

On the day after Christmas, we’ll go back to ordinary life. We’ll clean up the crumpled wrapping paper, and throw out the empty Advent calendars, and eventually, in the weeks to come, even the diehards will put the decorations away.

But we don’t have to put these “glad tidings of great joy” back in the basement with them. We can treasure these words in our hearts. And we can bring them with us everywhere, and let them slowly change the world. We can carry the light of Christ with us and share with people who sit in darkness. We can let the love of God work through us, loving one another with compassion and with grace. We can face our imperfect world with hope, and not despair, knowing that God is working all around us: “For a child has been born for us, a son given to us; authority rests upon his shoulders; and he is named Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.” (Isaiah 9:6)