Sermon for Christmas I: All the Days around Us

Christmas I: All the Days around Us

Isaiah 61:10-62:3; Galatians 3:23-25, 4:4-7 John 1:1-18

The Reverend Paul D. Allick, Church of the Advent, December 28, 2025

When I hear today’s passage from the Gospel of John, I am

reassured. This is John’s way of explaining the Nativity of

our Lord, “The Word became flesh and dwelt among us.” All

of the wisdom, love and logic of God comes to us in human

form using human language. And through the Incarnation our

relatability with God enters a profound level.

This reassures me that if we stick with Jesus, if we really

listen to him, if we persistently put his Gospel at the center of

our lives, in the end our existence is going to make sense.

There is a logic and design to the universe; there is a logic

and design to our lives.

I am reassured that my life does and will make sense. All of

the stuff, what I judged to be good or bad, is going to add up

into a logical progression. Yes, some of the bad was just

plain evil and some of the good was just nonsense but not

most of it. The majority of my experiences add up to me

being me. Even my mistakes have made me a more whole

person.

The Logic of God has come to us in the person of Jesus

Christ. If, in this earthly pilgrimage, we put our hearts in his

hands, our lives in all of their joys and confusion will bring

light to us.

I hear this idea in a poem by the 18th century Irish poet,

Thomas Moore. It is called, Oft, in the stilly night. Here are

some lines:

Oft, in the stilly night,

Ere Slumber’s chain has bound me,

Fond Memory bring the light

Of other days around me;

The smiles, the tears,

Of boyhood’s years,

The words of love then spoken;

The eyes that shone,

Now dimm’d and gone,

The cheerful hearts now broken!

Thus, in the stilly night,

Ere Slumber’s chain has bound me,

Sad Memory brings the light

Of other days around me.

When I remember all

The friends so link’d together.

I’ve seen around me fall,

Like leaves in wintry weather;

I feel like one, Who treads alone ...

Thus, in the stilly night,

Ere Slumber’s chain has bound me.

Sad Memory brings the light

Of other days around me.

In the silence of a still night, our fond and sad memories

bring the light of other days around us. In the whole of our

lives – the smiles, the tears, the words of love, loved one’s

lost – meaning is revealed.

We are not conscious of it most days, but our lives are

adding up to a whole. When we take time to reflect on those

other days around us, the illumination will come. Then we

are unbound to serve God and each other in a spirit of

gratitude. It is in this enlightenment that we meet God in the

flesh; He is one of us with his own fond and sad memories.

Think of it. Our dear Lord had a childhood. He had family,

neighbors, and friends whom he loved and fought with. He

watched loved ones be born and die. He got sick. He

experienced joy, sorrow, humor, and suffering. Our Lord laid

awake in the still night and thought of other days around him.

This is why we rejoice! We rejoice, as Isaiah rejoices, that

God has clothed us with the garments of salvation and the

robes of right relationship with God and each other. We are

now the crown of beauty and a royal diadem in the hand of

God.

We rejoice at what St. Paul teaches the disciples in Galatia.

Now we are justified by faith and not the harsh discipline of

the Law. God has been born of a woman under the Law to

free us. God has adopted us. Now we are able to approach

the Almighty and cry out, “Abba! Father!”

And all of this was accomplished through God joining our

human experience, our smiles, tears, and words of love.

We tend to look for God in high and lofty places beyond

ourselves. We feel inadequate. We do not think to look for

him where he is now: in the very center of our messy lives

and the lives of others.

The totality of our lives is one thing but today we celebrate

something even more awesome. We celebrate the totality of

life itself. The eternal Word, who existed before anything else

existed, enters our reality.

He comes to us in a shocking way. This newborn child in a

manger is the eternal logos. St. John tells us “All things

came into being through him...What has come into being in

him was life, and the life was the light of all the people”.

Nothing can bring us deeper into the meaning of our own

lives than the meaning of all life itself. Jesus Christ enters

into all of our fond and sad memories. In him they all come

together and shed light on all the days around us.