The angel’s message to the shepherds was the good news of great joy to them, and it is also the good news of great joy to us: “Unto you is born a Savior, Who is Christ the Lord!” (Luke 2:11) Born for us so long ago, Jesus also died and rose for us and so saves us from the death we deserve on account of our sin. He is a gift we can celebrate all year long, but one we especially celebrate during the Christmas season.
Despite familiarity with the song “The Twelve Days of Christmas”, people may forget that many Christians wait to observe Christmas until Christmas Eve and then actually observe it for more than one or two days! During the twelve days of the Christmas season this year, Pilgrim is offering four services.
Coming after Advent, Christmas is the second season of the first half of the Church Year, the half of the Church Year that focuses more on the specific events of Jesus’s first coming to to save us from our sins, in contrast to the second half of the Church Year, when we, as it were, wait for Jesus’s final coming. (The Church Year’s third season, Epiphany, finishes off January.)
Though a more-recent addition to the Church calendar than Easter and Pentecost, Christmas as a season still dates back to the fourth century. Admittedly, the Church does not know the exact date of Jesus’s birth, and its observance of the birth of the Sun of Righteousness on December 25th may or may not relate to a pagan celebration of the sun on that same date in connection with the winter solstice. If true, such a “conversion” of a pagan holiday still should not bother Christians, and the increase in light at this time of year fits well with our commemorating the birth of He Who is the Light of the World (John 8:12).
For the entire season of Christmas, the colored cloths (paraments) that adorn the furniture in the church (the chancel furnishings) are white, a color more-frequently associated with festivals of Christ. White symbolizes joy, celebration, gladness, light, purity, and innocence—all of which meanings are appropriate for Christmas.
Given below are the liturgical and calendar dates for our observances of the Christmas season, in most cases along with descriptions and citations of their appointed Gospel Readings (according to Lutheran Service Book’s 3 year Series A).
- Christmas Eve (12/24 at 6:00 p.m.): Candlelight Service of Readings and Hymns
(The Service includes the Sunday School children) - Christmas Day (12/25 at 10:00 a.m.): Jesus is the Word made flesh
(John 1:1-18) - First Sunday after Christmas (12/29): The infant Jesus journeys to Egypt and back
(Matthew 2:13-23) - Second Sunday after Christmas (01/05): The boy Jesus goes to the Temple
(Luke 2:40-52)
Christmas Day and both Sundays of this Christmas season (as well as all of the Sundays of the 2013-2014 Church Year) Pilgrim is offering the Divine Service with the Sacrament of the Altar. In those services, we are following the liturgy of Lutheran Service Book’s Divine Service, Setting One (essentially the same liturgy that the congregation used for years as Lutheran Worship’s Divine Service II, First Setting).
You may read and hear sermons preached at Pilgrim during Christmas and any other season of the Church Year here.
We found the base image for the graphic at the top of this page here.
