Introduction – Christmas Morning
This could easily be a pajama service.
Not because it’s informal or irreverent, but because Christmas Day worship carries a different kind of energy. People arrive a little slower this morning. The bones are wearier. The coffee is stronger. The joy is real, but it’s quieter. Less sparkly, more settled.
Some come still holding the glow of last night. Others arrive already feeling the weight of what comes next. For many, just getting out the door feels like an act of faith. And the truth is, no one is here today to be impressed. The people who have gathered are here because something in them needed to show up. To sit, to listen, to breathe, to be reminded.
John’s Gospel understands this kind of morning.
There are no angels singing, no shepherds running through fields. Instead, John gives us poetry meant for people who are awake early, thinking deeply, carrying more than they let on. This is a text for a congregation that doesn’t need to be convinced that the world is dark, but desperately needs to hear that the light is still shining.
“In the beginning was the Word…”
Before the to-do lists return.
Before the grief resurfaces.
Before the world rushes back in.
God has already moved toward us.
Narrative Context
“In the beginning…” John intentionally echoes Genesis. He wants us to hear Christmas not as an isolated event, but as God’s long, patient work finally coming into focus. This is not a story about God arriving unexpectedly, but about God being faithful. Faithful to creation, faithful to promises, faithful even when the world does not recognize what is standing right in front of it.
The key movement of this passage is not from darkness to instant victory, but from distance to dwelling.
“And the Word became flesh and lived among us.”
The Word does not shout from heaven or fix things from afar. The Word moves in. Takes up residence. Makes a dwelling in the middle of human life as it actually is: tired, complicated, unfinished.
John is careful not to romanticize what happens next.
“He was in the world… yet the world did not know him.”
“He came to what was his own, and his own people did not accept him.”
Christmas does not erase resistance. It does not guarantee recognition. Light shows up, and some still turn away. That honesty matters on a morning like this. No one here needs a version of Christmas that pretends everything is suddenly okay.
What John offers instead is assurance. The light shines, and the darkness does not get the final word.
Receiving the Light
The light John describes is not aggressive. It does not force itself into every shadowed corner. It shines steadily, faithfully.
“The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overtake it.”
Darkness is still named as darkness. But it is no longer ultimate.
And then John offers this quiet, tender promise:
“To all who received him… he gave power to become children of God.”
Not conquerors. Not heroes.
Not those who understood everything.
Not those who had it all together.
But those who simply received. Children. Dependent, beloved, held.
Children trust. Children depend. Children show up with empty hands. On Christmas morning, that may be the most honest posture anyone can manage.
Preaching Possibilities
Easy like Christmas Morning
This text gives permission to preach Christmas without urgency or spectacle. It meets a congregation that is tired in body and spirit, a people who have already poured much of themselves into the season and are now moving more slowly. The good news of John’s Gospel is that God does not wait for us to be energized, joyful, or put together. The Word becomes flesh and comes close precisely when we are weary. Christmas Day does not demand excitement; it invites presence.
John’s image of light is especially fitting for this morning. The light that shines in the darkness does not rush or overwhelm. It does not erase grief or bypass uncertainty. Darkness is named honestly, and yet it does not win. The image is not of a spotlight, but of dawn: quiet, gradual, easy to miss if we expect fireworks. For those carrying heaviness, the promise is not that everything suddenly feels bright, but that the light is already at work.
Finally, John reframes what we mean by glory. “We have seen his glory,” he writes, but that glory looks like flesh. Vulnerability. Nearness. Grace and truth held together in the presence of God-with-us. God’s glory is not revealed in escaping the mess of the world, but in entering it and staying. And the result of that nearness is not triumph, but relationship.
This is a sermon that does not need to hurry toward resolution. Let it rest. Let it breathe. Let it tell the truth gently.
The Word has become flesh.
God has moved in.
The light still shines.
And for a weary world waking up slowly, that is Good News.
Micah Krey 
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