{"id":62285,"date":"2017-12-11T01:29:00","date_gmt":"2017-12-11T01:29:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.christianitytoday.com\/pastors\/content\/retelling-christmas-stories\/"},"modified":"2017-12-11T01:29:00","modified_gmt":"2017-12-11T01:29:00","slug":"retelling-christmas-stories","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.christianitytoday.com\/pastors\/content\/retelling-christmas-stories\/","title":{"rendered":"Retelling the Christmas Stories"},"content":{"rendered":"

In her book Gilead<\/em>, Marilynne Robinson gives life to a character named Pastor John Ames. In explaining his work, Ames says, "Now it's Sunday again. When you do this sort of work, it seems to be Sunday all the time, or Saturday night. You just finish preparing for one week and it's already the next week." Similarly, the same could be said for the Advent\/Christmas season. The season arrives in a flash, so how do we preach that same seasonal story in a fresh way? The Preacher in Ecclesiastes wrote that "there is nothing new under the sun." That would have meant even more to him if he had to preach the Christmas story for the umpteenth year to the same congregation.<\/p>\n\t\t

Finding coal or diamonds<\/h2>\n\t\t

In 22 years of Advents at the same church, I feel like I've tried about everything under the sun. I've done series called "The Sounds of Christmas," "'Tis the Season …," "Christmas at the Movies," "Call His Name …," and more. I've done a series of monologues. I've preached about the theological side of Christmas, the prophecies of Christmas, and the characters in the Christmas story. I've even tried to repackage some things I've done from 36 years of preaching at Christmastime. Every summer or fall, I grab my pick, descend into the mine of Christmas texts, and start digging for a handful of diamonds. More than once I've come out of the mine, mopped my brow, wiped the dirt off my hands, and have said, "There are no more diamonds. The mine's played out." I went down for diamonds; I came out with a few lumps of coal. It's a challenge.<\/p>\n\t\t

Christmas stories<\/h2>\n\t\t

Ready or not, Christmas comes, and God has called us preachers to tell the old, old story yet again. In 2013, the Spirit gave me the idea to do a series called "Christmas Stories." Christmas is a time for telling stories. We all have some Christmas stories. The Bible also has Christmas stories. In my sermon series, I used two texts seldom preached on at Christmas. I used one text we try to avoid at Christmas and finished the series with the familiar Christmas story told in a rhyming Dr. Seussical way. Here's the layout of the series:<\/p>\n\t\t