If you’ve been looking ahead at the calendar for Advent and Christmas this year, you already know that Christmas Eve is on Saturday and Christmas Day is on Sunday.

I’m not sure which is more taxing on the preacher’s body and soul — having Christmas Eve on a Sunday, where you are preaching multiple services over the course of a full day, or getting up after a late slate of Saturday night services and coming back to church after a stiff pot of coffee and assembling / wrapping / opening presents on Christmas morning.  As one of my less sanguine colleagues once put it, it’s like choosing between being poisoned or shot. One way or another, you’re going to end up horizontal afterward.

The Christmas weekend double down is hard on pastoral families, too, which is why many churches have chosen not to hold services on Christmas morning when it falls on a Sunday.  The idea is that it would be good to skip church in order to have more “family time.”  They believe that most families will skip church anyway since they went the night before.  The carols have been sung, Mary and Joseph have already made it to Bethlehem, the angels have already sung to the shepherds, the gifts have been distributed, and, really, why rehash it all again in less than 12 hours?

I can see why preachers might buy into this.  It’s a taxing weekend like no other on the church calendar (I mean, there’s at least a whole day between Good Friday and Easter, right?).  It’s tempting to simply take the day off and spend the morning in your bathrobe rather than your clergy robe.  Christmas, after all, is about family, which is really more important than another worship service, right?

Well, No.

The thing is, Sunday is about reminding us that we are part of a larger family called the church.  Whether it’s the middle of July or Christmas Day, we come to worship together because it’s Sunday — the Lord’s Day — the day when we celebrate the life, death and resurrection of Christ together each week.  Regardless of what happened the night before or whatever other familial obligations or temptations we might consider, Sunday stands as a day set apart for giving our full attention to the Lord.  If Christmas Eve is all about pageantry, welcoming guests and seekers, and pulling out all the stops, Sunday morning is about the faithful gathering for the regular rhythm of worship. Yes, the crowd will be smaller on Christmas Sunday, maybe even depressingly so, but it’s not about the crowd; it’s about Christ.

See you Christmas morning at 11am!

*Idea was originated by Bob Kaylor and rewritten by Carlton Rhoden