It seems very strange that the world would hold such an elaborate and enormous birthday party and then totally miss the very Person it is being held in honor of, yet this is what happens every year. However, missing Christmas is not a modern-day phenomenon as you could trace it back to the very first Christmas.

I’m guessing that I don’t really need to establish the fact that Christmas season brings an elevated level of stress to all of us. With all the family and friend gatherings, decorations, shopping, budgets, gift-giving, schedules, and perhaps difficult family dynamics, there’s enough stress to go around for everyone. In fact, I just read that 89% of U.S. adults experience stress during the holidays, and 41% say their stress levels are higher than other times of the year (American Psychological Association Survey).

The following article, Augustine’s Christmas Sermons, was written December 11, 2023 by John Stonestreet and Glenn Sunshine from the Breakpoint Ministry of the Colson Center. It highlights some of the many paradoxes of the incarnation that early church father Augustine proclaimed:

From the earliest days of the Church, Christian theologians have marveled at the paradoxes found in the incarnation. Among the earliest expressions of this marveling comes from St. Augustine, the most influential theologian in Western Christianity.