For Christmas Eve, pastors are welcome to utilize this homily for church members on hospice, adding and subtracting what they desire. A sermon hymn is added if the pastor wishes to sing to the dear saint.
Festival: Christmas Eve
Text: 1 John 4:7-16
Sermon Hymn: LSB #366 It Came upon the Midnight Clear
Grace and peace to you from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.
On this Christmas Eve, we hear words that sound gentle, almost simple: “Let us love one another, for love is of God” [v. 7a]. Yet love isn’t simple when the body is tired, when pain intrudes, and when life feels as though it’s slipping away. The command to love can weigh heavily when strength is gone and patience is thin. It can awaken old regrets, moments when love faltered, words left unsaid, and kindness withheld. In the quiet of this Christmas Eve, such memories can rise uninvited. They remind us that even our best love has been incomplete and fragile, shaped by fear and limited by our weakness.
But St. John doesn’t leave us there. He draws our eyes away from ourselves and toward God’s own heart. “In this the love of God was manifested toward us, that God has sent His only-begotten Son into the world, that we might live through Him” [v. 9]. Christmas isn’t about our ability to love but about God’s decision to love us first. Love didn’t remain an abstract idea in Heaven. It took on flesh. It cried in a manger. It entered the cold, the dark, and the fragile realities of human life. God didn’t wait for us to become lovable or strong. He sent His Son precisely because we were weak, mortal, and cannot save ourselves—indeed, in spite of us being so unlovable.
St. John presses this truth even deeper: “In this is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins” [v. 10]. Here, love is defined not by emotion, but by sacrifice. The child born in Bethlehem came with the cross already on the horizon. His tiny hands would one day be pierced. His gentle breath would one day give out. He entered our death so that death would not have the final word over us. For you, [name], this means your sins—every failure of love, every moment of fear, and every regret that weighs on your heart—have already been answered. Love has spoken its final word in Christ: “Father, forgive them.”
St. John then says something astonishing: “God is love, and he who abides in love abides in God, and God in him” [v. 16]. Not “Love is God,” but “God is love,” as in: love is who God is and what He does. To abide in Him is to dwell, to remain, and to be held in His love. This means you’re not asked to climb toward God or to prove anything to Him, for God has come down to dwell with you. He abides with you in this very room, in this moment, in this fragile body. The love that lay in a manger now surrounds you, not as mere memory, but as a living presence. Even as your strength fades and even as words become few, God’s love never withdraws. It abides—it remains—in you, now and forever.
May the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, guard your heart and mind in Christ Jesus our Lord. Amen.
The Lutheran Column 