Preaching the Obvious 12.4.2025

Every person coming to Church this Sunday expects that you will be at least sneaking up on Christmas. You may not make it central to your message 21 days out, but you won’t ignore it either. There is a good chance that your building is already, or will soon be, decorated, plans have been set, parties scheduled and people’s minds are fixed on Christmas. 

    Our liturgical brethren will have begun the methodical march to Christmas with the first Sunday in Advent—last Sunday. Others will be considering big programs and promotional opportunities. I hope that you, as a preacher, have already begun to consider your approach and even compose your thoughts, if not your messages. 

    Christmas should not surprise us. In Post Modern U.S. Culture, it is a signal time of year both socially and economically. It is a great opportunity for ministry in general and preaching in particular because during the month of December people in our communities, who never otherwise darken the door of the Church, who have only a passing concern for Church, and barely a conception of what is taught in Scripture will, nonetheless sing songs that describe the birth of Jesus and all of the attendant highlights. 

    For that reason, Christmas preaching is exhilarating and challenging. The exhilaration comes from knowing that individuals who come only from some lingering sense of duty, may, by the intervention of God’s Holy Spirit, move through the season toward becoming genuinely interested in the claims of Christ. The challenge comes from preaching texts so familiar that virtually every auditor has some idea of how they could/should be handled. I describe this phenomenon as Preaching the Obvious.

    I want to consider a couple of risks that come from regularly approaching familiar texts as well as a couple of rewards that come from working diligently to come up with creative and refreshing approaches to this common material. The risks are Boredom and Triviality, and the rewards are Insight and Inclusion. First, we will look at the risks. 

Boredom

    There is nothing worse than a preacher who is so bored with his text and the task of telling the story that his/her boredom is evident. Don’t be that preacher. I will admit that familiarity with these texts can make it more difficult. But when we work through our own ennui and consider the good to be accomplished by faithful, prayerful, humble work we give God the space He needs to move. 

    In very real sense we can think of the Bible as a “Closed Corpus”. It’s already fully written. Our words of proclamation neither add to nor detract from the words of Scripture. We are explaining and clarifying. If we wanted to be petulant and childish any preacher with more than ten years of experience could be bored with virtually any text in the Bible. Our Christmas text(s) are only obvious because the Great Church has chosen to seasonally focus on the birth of Jesus at this time of year. 

    There are 162 games in a baseball season. The World Series always comes at the end. It is the most widely watched part of the whole year. Boredom tends not to be an issue. The game play may be at a different level than a July Thursday afternoon, but it is the same game. These 3 or 4 Sundays are more like the other 48 or 49 than they are different. Either you choose to be focused, excited, invested, and prepared or you don’t. If you get bored with the Christmas stories maybe there is a deeper problem that you need to address. 

Triviality

    The second risk is that we treat the material preached during Christmas as less important, even trivial compared to other texts or topics dealt with during the other seasons of the year. The seed of triviality like boredom is sown in familiarity. We know Luke’s Nativity. We know Matthew’s Nativity. We mix them. We confuse them. We misunderstand them. One thing we should never do is minimize them. There is no cross without the cradle. There is no Jerusalem noon darkness without the light in the stable. 

    We must take these well-worn, oft-told stories seriously as scripture. As well as we know them, they are God’s word to us addressed to our sinful condition. 

Insight

    Boredom with and trivializing of Christmas are problems for the preacher to solve in the Study and central to resolving those struggles is the understanding that what our hearers know, think, understand, and accept about the text is more important than our struggles. So, these two rewards need to be kept fully in mind during our study and preparation. 

    You have the chance to help believers develop greater insight into the life of Jesus, the clarity of scripture, and the real point of Christmas through your preaching. It’s not all about me (us). Those who listen have a stake in the preaching moment. Young Christians need insight into the long road of discipleship. They need to think of themselves like Mary and Jospeh walking an unknown path hand in hand with the Father. Other, more mature Christians need to know that their work—like Simeon or Anna’s is still valid and important to the Church. 

    You will have others that come to Church with unseen spiritual struggles. Some of your words will give the Holy Spirit purchase in their lives. Insight can very rarely be found when it is something we seek. It sneaks up on us when in the quietness of our heart the Word of God brings clarity. 

Inclusion

    Another reward accrues when people come to Church, maybe hurting or hopeless and they find that this story of Jesus can truly be their story. It is not just for holier-than-thou types, or people who grew up in Church. Christmas is a reminder that the story is about Peace for everyone who finds favor before God through faith in Christ. Christmas is a reminder that there is nothing exclusive about the Christian faith. Everyone is a prospective “whosoever” whose believing faith finds favor before God. 

    There is no more inclusive time in the Christian community than the Christmas season. Virtually every congregation expects and prepares for visitors. The real trick is to treat them, not as tourists but as family. Not as outsiders but as insiders who have not yet discovered the favor available to them as children of God. Peace on earth…goodwill to men is a good motto and a better mission. 

Conclusion

    The truths we discuss during the Christmas season are strangely familiar to our flailing culture amid a fallen world. Once upon a time they were well-understood. They were often rejected or romanticized by those who had decided that they had culturally outgrown all but the social dimensions of Christmas—but even the most ardent Scrooge’s knew what it was they were humbugging. Things have somewhat changed. 

    We can no longer assume that people who make their way to the Church house during Christmas season have any pre-understanding about what the Gospel nativity stories mean when they describe annunciation, incarnation, or angelic celebration. In a sense the preacher in 2025 has a blank canvass upon which to paint a picture of Christmas that provides space and time for the Holy Spirit to move in the lives of both believers and unbelievers to either deepen or provoke faith. 

    What a joyful task given us during this significant season! The task itself is no different, but the context—how it has changed. And the time is short. It is an abbreviated season of opportunity that we must seize before it passes and is merged into the typical, mundane concerns of a new year. 

    Preaching the obvious gives each of us the opportunity to explore again some of the founding ideas of the Christian faith. The incarnation. The love of God. The realization of God’s plan of redemption throughout the Old Testament as it finally comes to fruition in Jesus. It is only obvious because we know the end of the story. You will have people come to hear you preach who are wholly unfamiliar with the story, or who are confused about the story, or who only have heard hints about the story. Creatively and courageously preaching the obvious is gives us the chance to let God do something extraordinary with the ordinary.