Christmas Eve 2025

The Christmas Eve message reads Matthew 1:21-23 together: Jesus will save his people from their sins, and he will be called Immanuel, God with us. Pastor Pat says that of all the names God could be known by, this one sits at the center of the season and of our faith. God is not a distant God, and he is not an “I hope you figure it out” God. He comes close.

Pat admits that his family’s Christmas movie list runs from Home Alone and Elf to Lord of the Rings, and that he grew up on National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation. Under all the chaos, Clark Griswold is a dad who just wants his family together. There is something powerful about being near each other.

The four weeks of Advent did not end with the manger. Jesus starts the story there, finishes it on the cross, continues it in the resurrection and invites us to prepare for his return. The manger says, “I’m with you.” The cross says, “I want you to be with me.”

Pat walks through Romans 5. We have peace with God through Jesus, and that peace happens up close. Many people come to church feeling uneasy, sure God doesn’t want them near. Pat tells them God is not primarily upset with them. We tend to distance ourselves when we’re upset, but God saw a problem and drew near. Joy follows, a joy we can have even in trials. The first announcement of Jesus went to a pregnant teenager and to shepherds, people without power, so the message is for everyone who has felt far away.

Hope, Paul says, grows through endurance and character, in the middle of real life. Pat tells a personal story. After his dad died, his mom wasn’t ready to sleep in her bedroom, so she slept in the living room. Without talking about it, Pat and his brother brought their blankets and pillows and slept there with her for close to a year, through Christmases and birthdays. None of them had an answer for the loss, but they were in it together. Wherever we feel most alone, he says, God is reminding us we are not alone.

Love anchors it all. When the songs stop and the decorations go back in the box, the love of Jesus remains. Pat invites people to begin a relationship with Jesus, and the night ends with candlelight, a reminder that his light lives in us and is meant to be shared.