Something to Truly Celebrate

Date: 21st December 2025

Text: Luke 2

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Something to Truly Celebrate

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Something to Truly Celebrate

Christmas is intended to be a time of celebration, a time of rejoicing. And yet, sadly, for many people it feels as though there is not much to celebrate at all.

Why Christmas So Often Feels Hard

Celebration is rejoicing; it is thanksgiving for something truly wonderful. But many are actively miserable at Christmas. Some are alone. Some dread the season precisely because the world insists it should be joyful. Others do celebrate, but the celebration is found mainly in food and drink, or more likely the drink. Is this really celebration? Or is it an attempt to forget the monotony and pain of everyday life? Either way, it passes quickly and often leaves us feeling worse than before.

Others look to presents, family, or relationships. These are good gifts and worth celebrating. Yet even here joy is fragile. Relationships fracture. Families disappoint. And even at their best, we know they will not last. These things, like the snowman in the children’s story, is beautiful for a time and then it melts away.

The Hollowness Beneath Our Celebrations

But you are reading this today, and the Bible tells us there is something to celebrate, something deeper and higher than all of these things. Something that causes angels to sing, that makes men, like the wise men, travel across the world to glimpse it. Christians confess that this is true.

To understand what there is to celebrate in the birth of Jesus, we must first understand our situation. There is much suffering and sadness in life. Things are not as they should be. Death feels unnatural. Our hopes and dreams are never quite fulfilled, leaving a hollowness within us.

A World at War With God

We long to climb the hills and stand on the heights, but we keep slipping. Even when we reach what we desire, it does not satisfy as we hoped. For many, life feels simply miserable.

The Bible explains why. Humanity is at war with God. Humanity has rebelled against him, breaking the laws written on our hearts. God says, “You shall love your neighbour as yourself” (Matthew 22:39), yet violence and hatred abound. Scripture tells us plainly, “The mind that is set on the flesh is hostile to God, for it does not submit to God’s law” (Romans 8:7).

This is why there is suffering. It is not meaningless, but a warning shot from God, saying that we are not okay, that there is a war raging. This is also why we feel hollow. We were made for communion with God, and without him we are like birds with no trees in which to nest. As the psalmist says, “My flesh and my heart may fail, but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever” (Psalm 73:26).

Coming to Bethlehem

Now come to Bethlehem, two thousand years ago.

“But when the fullness of time had come, God sent forth his Son, born of woman, born under the law, to redeem those who were under the law” (Galatians 4:4–5). Jesus was sent to provide a way of salvation. God cannot ignore sin, but in Jesus he is both just and the justifier. Through him, sinners can be led safely across the battlefield and welcomed into peace with God.

Peace With God: Why the Angels Sang

This is why the angels sang. “Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace among those with whom he is pleased” (Luke 2:14). Peace with God is what Jesus brings. When you have peace with God, you can have peace about all things, present joy in his favour, present meaning and purpose, and a future hope of eternal life with him.

Immanuel: God With Us

And there is another layer of celebration, a deeper wonder still. This Saviour is God himself. “Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel” (Isaiah 7:14), which means, God with us. God did not send a messenger; he came himself.

The Wonder That Leads to the Cross

Though he was in the form of God, “he emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men” (Philippians 2:6–7). And he went further still: “he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross” (Philippians 2:8).

The one who made the wood was nailed to it. The immortal one, according to his mortal humanity, died. The eternal entered suffering. All so that rebels might be forgiven and brought home.

A Celebration That Never Ends

Is this not something to celebrate? This birth is so high it cannot be surpassed, so deep its joy cannot be exhausted, so wide it will never be outgrown, and so rich it will never fade.

Will you join in the celebration this Christmas?