First Sunday After Christmas

Message: “Healing Grace”

Scripture: Isaiah 40:27-31, Romans 8:31-39

Church, we are still in that Christmas glow. The lights might be coming down soon, the songs might be fewer, and the house might still have a little paper and ribbon hiding in the corner, but something holy already happened. God came close. The Word became flesh and lived among us. God did not send a message from far away. God showed up. God stepped into human life with a human voice, a human body, a human name.

And now here we are, right on the edge of a new year. This Sunday always feels mixed, doesn’t it. Some gratitude, some exhaustion. Joy, but also a quiet heaviness. Relief about what is over, and a little fear about what is coming. Some of you are excited for a fresh start. Some of you are just trying to make it through the week. And some of you are carrying something that you honestly do not know how to put into words.

So let me start with a simple question. Where has your voice gone quiet this year.

Not just your voice with people, but your voice with God. Where did prayer get harder. Where did hope feel thin. Where did you stop knowing what to say.

If that question hits close to home, you are not alone. And you are not failing. Scripture gives us language for that place. Romans 8 says creation groans. And it says we groan too. Not because we are weak Christians, but because we are honest human beings living in a world that is still waiting to be made new.

Today I want to talk about healing grace, especially for this turning point between Christmas and the new year. Not healing as a quick fix. Not healing as pretending everything is fine. But healing as grace that restores communication. Healing as grace that makes the conversation possible again.

Here is the sentence I want us to hold onto. If grace is God’s communication, then healing is the restoration of conversation between God and us.

So, let’s talk about grace first.

Romans 5:8 says, “While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” That is not only a line about forgiveness. It is also a line about who starts the relationship. God does. God moves first. God speaks first. God loves first.

Grace is not God responding to our performance. Grace is God refusing to let the relationship die. Grace is God taking the first step toward us when we do not have the strength, the clarity, or the courage to take a step toward God.

That is what Christmas is, right. “The Word became flesh and lived among us.” God does not stay a distant idea. God comes as a Word you can actually hear, a presence you can trust, a life you can follow. Christmas is grace in the form of communication. God is not silent. God is not absent. God is not done with you.

But then life happens. The year happens. Pain happens. And a lot of times the first thing pain touches is our ability to speak.

Maybe it is physical pain. Maybe it is grief. Maybe it is anxiety. Maybe it is disappointment. Maybe it is shame. Maybe it is conflict. And suddenly prayer feels like trying to talk underwater. Words do not come. Or the words that come feel tiny and useless.

And this is where Romans 8 becomes such a gift. Paul does not shame us for that place. He names it. He says, “We do not know how to pray as we ought.” Not, “You should know.” Not, “Try harder.” He says, “We do not know.”

And then he says something even more gentle. “The Spirit helps us in our weakness.” The Spirit is not standing over you with a clipboard. The Spirit comes alongside you. The Spirit helps.

How. “The Spirit intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words.”

That line is a doorway into healing grace.

Because it means when you cannot speak to God, God has not stopped speaking to you. And when you cannot reach for God, God is already reaching for you. And when all you can offer is a sigh, the Spirit is not offended by your sigh. The Spirit carries it. The Spirit translates it. The Spirit turns what feels like emptiness into prayer.

So, what is healing.

Most of the time when we say healing, we mean the pain goes away. The diagnosis changes. The relationship becomes easy again. The bills get paid. The grief disappears. The depression lifts. The anxiety stops. And we do pray for that. We ask God for that. We anoint and we cry and we plead. We believe God can heal bodies and minds and families and communities. We do not need to shrink our prayers.

But Romans 8 is telling us healing is deeper than a changed circumstance. Healing is the restoration of communion. Healing is what happens when the relationship is held, even when the pain remains.

Sometimes the greatest wound is not the ache in your body. It is the feeling that you are alone in it. Sometimes the deepest injury is not what happened to you. It is that you have no safe place to tell the truth. Sometimes the most dangerous illness is not physical, it is spiritual isolation, that slow belief that you are unreachable, unworthy, unseen.

Healing grace meets us right there. Not by demanding perfect words, but by giving us back the possibility of saying, “God,” again. The possibility of being heard. The possibility of being held. The possibility of relationship again.

And honestly, when you read the Gospels, you see this over and over. So many healing stories begin with Jesus talking to someone. Jesus asks questions. Jesus listens. Jesus calls people by name. Jesus lets a person say what they need. Often, before any cure, there is dignity. Before any miracle, there is recognition. Before any change, there is connection.

In other words, healing often begins as conversation.

Now, bring that back to this week, to this end of year moment.

At the end of the year, we all do some kind of review, even if we do not mean to. We think about what we wanted in January. We notice what we did not finish. We remember what we lost. We remember what we survived. And sometimes we feel guilt about what we could not do, or grief about what we could not fix.

Some of you come into this Sunday with a quiet sense of gratitude and victory. Thank God for that.

And some of you come into this Sunday with a tired kind of sadness. Not always dramatic. Sometimes it is just this feeling like you have been carrying too much for too long. Sometimes it is the feeling that you do not even have the words to explain what this year has done to you.

So let me say it plainly. If this year has taken your words, you are not beyond grace. You are exactly where grace loves to begin.

Because grace is God coming toward you, not waiting for you. Grace is God speaking first, not waiting for you to find the perfect sentence.

And that is why Romans 8 does not end with a command. It ends with a promise. “Nothing will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.”

Not your weakness. Not your confusion. Not your silence. Not your unfinished work. Not your failures. Not your fear about the new year. Not your grief. Not your depression. Not your doubt. Not even death.

If you are looking for a blessing to carry into the new year, it is right there. Nothing can separate you.

So what do we do with this as we step into the new year.

We can make resolutions. That can be fine. We can set goals. That can be wise. We can decide to eat better, sleep more, spend less, pray more. Those things are not bad.

But I want to offer a gentler invitation, something you can actually carry.

What if you entered the new year not with a promise to improve yourself, but with a willingness to reopen the conversation.

What if your spiritual goal for the year was simply this. Stay in relationship.

That might look like a prayer you can really pray. Not a long one. Not a fancy one. Just something honest.

God, I am here.

God, I am tired.

God, help me.

God, thank you.

God, I do not know what to say.

God, please do not let me go.

And on the days when you cannot even pray that, you do not have to fake it. You can sit in silence and let your silence be honest. You can sigh. You can weep. And you can trust Romans 8. The Spirit is already praying in you, for you, through you.

This is healing grace. Not that you never suffer. Not that you never groan. But that your groaning is not outside the life of God. Your groaning is taken up into God’s own love.

Now one more thing, because this is not only personal. It is communal.

If healing is the restoration of conversation, then the church is called to become a place where broken speech can breathe again.

A place where people do not have to perform strength.

A place where someone can say, “I do not know how to pray,” and we do not rush to fix them. We do not rush to explain. We do not rush to fill the silence. We listen. We stay. We pray with them. We carry them.

Sometimes the most healing thing you can say is not an answer. It is, “I am here.” Sometimes the most faithful prayer is not a confident speech. It is quiet companionship.

That is what the Spirit does for us. The Spirit comes alongside. The Spirit intercedes. The Spirit holds the conversation open.

So if we want to carry Christmas joy into the new year, here is what that joy really is. It is not just cheer. It is not just nostalgia. Christmas joy is this. God has moved toward us. God has spoken. God has come close. God has not abandoned the world. God has not abandoned you.

And if we want to enter the new year with longing, let it be this longing. Not the longing to be impressive. Not the longing to have control. Not the longing to never hurt.

Let it be the longing for grace. The longing to remain connected. The longing for a living conversation with God, even when life is hard.

Because that is what will carry you. That is what will hold you. That is what will heal you, sometimes slowly, sometimes quietly, sometimes in ways you do not notice until later.

So let me bless you with this.

As you step into the new year, may you remember that grace speaks first.

May you trust that the Spirit prays when you cannot.

May you believe that nothing can separate you from love.

May your life become, little by little, a reopened conversation with God.

And may this church be a place where the broken words of the world find safety, and where healing grace can begin.

In the name of the Creator, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.