The First Sunday After Christmas
Sunday, December 28, 2025
The Very Rev. David Wilcox
Here we are, just after Christmas.
The wrapping paper is mostly gone, the cookies are getting a little stale, and if you are anything like me, you have eaten more than you planned and are still finding glitter in places it has no business being. The world is already rushing ahead. Stores are gearing up for Valentine’s Day, decorations are coming down, and many of us are getting ready to return to work or school.
But the Church, in her wisdom, says, “Not so fast. Stay here a little longer.”
And this year, that invitation feels like a gift.
Because it has been a full season. A good season, but a full one. There is a real sense of relief in this moment. We made it. We navigated the schedules and the travel, the meals and the gatherings, the expectations and the emotions. We survived the joy and the chaos, the laughter and the exhaustion. Christmas was holy and meaningful, and it was also a lot. And now, finally, we can breathe.
The Church meets us right here, in that exhale, and says: before you move on, notice what has happened. Before you put Christmas away for another year, pause and let the mystery sink in.
Because Christmas is not just something we pull off once a year. It is not simply an event to manage and survive. It is something that changes us, often quietly and more deeply than we realize. God has come close. God has chosen not to remain distant. God has made his dwelling with us. As John tells us, the Word became flesh and lived among us. And that is not something that stops when the season ends.
That light did not arrive with noise or spectacle. It came gently. Patiently. God did not force the darkness away. God entered into it and stayed. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it. Not that the darkness disappears, but that it does not get the final word.
That tells us something important about how God works, and how God continues to work in us.
The light of Christ does not rush us. It does not demand instant understanding or immediate change. It takes up residence. It grows, like light at dawn, steadily and surely. God meets us not at our most put-together moments, but in the middle of ordinary life, with all its weariness and complication. Even here, especially here, God says, “This is where I will be.”
That is good news for tired people. Good news for those who are relieved the holidays are over. Good news for those who loved every minute and those who struggled their way through. The light does not depend on our energy or our mood. It simply shines. And it shines for us.
When we stay with that truth, joy begins to return. Not as pressure. Not as something we have to produce. But as gift. The joy of Christmas is not the rush of Christmas morning. It is the steady gladness of knowing that we belong. That we are known by name. That nothing can separate us from the love that has drawn near in Jesus Christ.
St. Paul speaks of that joy as belonging. He tells us that we are no longer kept at a distance, no longer living under fear or trying to earn our place. In Christ, we have been made children, and God has placed his own Spirit within us, teaching our hearts to cry out in trust. That is not sentimental language. It is a statement of freedom.
And when we begin to trust that, it changes how we live. When you know you are welcomed, you do not have to prove yourself quite so much. When you know you are loved, you do not have to hold everything so tightly. When you trust that God has come close and is not going anywhere, you can live with more freedom, more patience, and a little more joy than you thought possible.
That is where the light begins to shine outward.
Not in dramatic or attention-grabbing ways. But in small, faithful ones. In kindness that expects nothing in return. In patience that makes room. In generosity that flows from gratitude rather than guilt. In hope that holds steady, even when the world feels heavy.
The prophet imagines God’s people as something visible and radiant, like a crown held in God’s own hands. Not hidden. Not diminished. But valued, delighted in, and named. That radiance does not come from perfection. It comes from being held by grace.
The light Christ brings does not ask us to fix everything. It asks us to be faithful. To show up. To let what God has planted in us bear fruit in its own time. Light does not argue with darkness. It does not panic. It simply shines, and in shining, it changes what is around it.
So maybe carrying the light looks like returning to ordinary life with a little more gentleness. With ourselves. With one another. Maybe it looks like setting aside the pressure to impress and choosing instead to live from the place of being claimed. Maybe it looks like noticing where God is already at work and joining in with gratitude and trust.
These days after Christmas give us permission to do that. To rest. To reflect. To let the light settle into parts of our lives that have been rushed past or ignored. To allow God’s presence to warm places that have grown tired or discouraged.
And as that happens, something simple and good takes place. The light begins to move. It shows up in our words, our choices, our presence. It reaches into a world that is anxious and worn out, a world that has hurried past Christmas without quite knowing what it missed.
So as we stand here, just after Christmas, with the mess mostly cleaned up and the pace beginning to slow, the invitation is simple.
Stay here a little longer.
Receive the light again.
Let it dwell in you.
And then carry it with you.
Carry it into your ordinary days. Carry it into your homes and workplaces, into conversations and decisions, into moments of patience and moments when patience is hard to find. Bear the light not because you are especially strong or especially holy, but because it has been given to you, so that others may see it and come to know the One who is its source.
You do not have to make it brighter. You do not have to protect it or prove it. You are simply asked to let it shine through you, pointing beyond yourself to Christ.
So go back into the world with a little more gentleness. With a little more hope. With a little more joy than you had before. Let the light you have received shape how you live, how you love, and how you see one another, so that in small and faithful ways, Christ may be made known.
Because Christmas is not over. The light is still shining. And by God’s grace, it shines in us and through us, for the life of the world.
