Sorrow Full of Joy, Joy Tinged with Sorrow

Are you allowed to be sad at Christmas when everyone around insists this is the happiest time of the year? This sermon looks into Luke 2 and tells the Christmas story without anaesthetic: an imperial census and a long-awaited pregnancy, the miracle of birth and a manger full of animal filth, angels and shepherds from the very margins of their society. Instead of choosing between despair and forced cheerfulness, we learn to live in the tension where sorrow and joy are woven together like threads in cloth. Listen, because in the biblical view sorrow always ends one day, and joy never does.