“A Mirror of Our World”
Christmas Eve
December 24, 2025
Luke 2:1-20
In 2016, Rev. Mitri Raheb delivered a Christmas Eve message to his congregation at Christmas Lutheran Church in Bethlehem[1]. Palestinians in Israel were already experiencing great difficulties at that time under the occupation of the Israel government, but nothing compared to the genocide happening now. In his sermon, Rev. Raheb shared that “the Christmas story is a mirror of our story.”
Luke sets the stage for us. Under Roman occupation, Palestine experienced deep discrimination. They were over-taxed in order for the tyrants in charge to have more. This is the reason for the registration—a census to identify how many people in the known world Rome could tax. They didn’t want anyone escaping the full weight of their power. It was a move to control movement and income. To make sure those at the bottom never had the power to rise up.
We will later hear of the Magi—those from other countries who came to experience the good news for themselves. Interrogated and lied to, they find a different way home. And then, in desperation, King Herod orders all the children in Bethlehem and surrounding areas murdered, so threatened was he of being usurped. Of being ousted. Of being without his power.
Jesus and his family will escape to Egypt, refugees in search of safety from their own government. A government who would have him killed simply because of his existence. The Christmas story is a mirror of our story.
Rev. Raheb was asked where he sees gospel and good news in this story. Where is hope? Here is what he said:
The gospel is this: When the fullness of time came, the time for the Word to be incarnated, God did not choose Rome or Athens for Christ to be born at; He chose occupied Bethlehem. He chose to be one of those oppressed; He chose to be one of those terrorized. When the fullness of time came, God so loved this world with all its ugliness and did not shy away from it. God chose to encounter this world with all its might and terror. He chose to challenge Herod with the face of an innocent child. God did not leave this world to its misery and pain but embraced it with both hands and pulled it to his heart. And so in the midst of the Roman occupation and oppression, the people of Palestine heard the good news of “Do not be afraid, for unto you is born a savior, Christ the Lord.” And in the darkest hours of the long night, the shepherds saw great light and heard the angels giving God the glory. This is the crux of the Christmas story.
It is a story of love. A story of vulnerability. A story of risk—for the sake of the world. It is the action of someone who is willing to do for us what we are unable to do for ourselves—who “did not regard equality with God as something to be exploited, but emptied himself, taking the form of a slave, being born in human likeness.” Paul goes on to explain, “And being found in human form, he humbled himself and became obedient to the point of death—even death on a cross.”
I know we long to be held in the coziness of a silent night, filled with warm cider by a crackling fire, gazing at the Christmas lights on the tree. The kids are ready to go home, open presents, and soar through the night on a sugar high. Many of us are preparing to spend some time with family and all that it brings with it. We will hope, at least for a night, to be able to ignore the evil in this world and focus just on the light. And we need that. We are faced with darkness, it seems, all day, every day. Every morning, the news shares a new corruption; a new darkness.
But friends, the Christmas story is a mirror of our world. The good news has entered our lives in the midst of darkness. Born to a poor couple in a tiny town in the middle of a nowhere country occupied by the greatest empire in the world. And that good news defies empire. He shines the light on corruption. He pushes against the darkness and calls us forth to follow—one light at a time.
And the good news of Jesus Christ, son of God and son of Mary, born in a stable with the most humble of beginnings, does not end on a cross. The good news is only just beginning, taking root in dark places throughout the world. It will not be diminished. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness cannot and will not overcome it! Thanks be to God.
Now, one of the ways in which we proclaim solidarity with Palestine is to light a red candle. We stand with all those who live in deep darkness today and every day until the light fully overtakes the shadows and the day of the Lord is here.
Pastor Tobi White
Our Saviour’s Lutheran Church
Lincoln, NE
