Dearly Beloved,
We hope to see you at 7:00 pm this evening for our candlelight communion Christmas Eve service. And if life takes you elsewhere on this night before Christmas, may blessing, light, and joy be yours.
A reminder that this coming Sunday (December 29), we will be worshiping at First Christian Church (2000 N Lincoln Avenue). Refreshments are before worship, so arrive a little early for conversation. Worship is at 10:00 am.
What a joy our worship was yesterday -- watching pregnant Mary make her weary way up the aisle to a chair in the stable. The humor of McDonald's bag dinners for the Holy Parents. Our collective "Oh!" as a baby appeared, seemingly from nowhere -- all big round eyes, shaking his rattle in delight, and his perfectly timed coos. A mama kitty wrangling her kitten, angels making a joyful noise, a star and wise person, animals and shepherd and the sound of our voices lifted to the heavens. Thank you again to everyone who made our service yesterday so very beautiful and meaningful!
This season is a time for stories that we tell again and again. And the center of those stories are the messages we have been hearing all Advent:
You are a blessing.
You cannot go alone.
Do the good that is yours to do.
Hope is worth the risk.
And tomorrow, on Christmas Eve, we will hear the message that Love knows your name.
See, the thing is that Emmanuel, God with us, came not just for all people -- some nameless faceless mass -- but for each person, each of you, each of us. God's love is profoundly collective and communal -- moving us towards justice and peace for ALL the earth. And it is at the same time uniquely personal. God knows and loves you specifically and particularly. Just as you are.
In closing, I'm including a Christmas poem.
Holding you each on love and peace,
Thandiwe
Hope Restored: A Grandmother's Thoughts by Rev. Ana K. Gobledale
Baby smells waft into my nostrils.
A pattering heart pulsates in my embrace.
Tearlets moisten my eyes.
Powerful hope swirls through my core.
This is my body.
This is my blood.
God’s own child rests in my arms.
By what name shall this child be called?
Hope. Promise. Future. Love. Heaven-on-earth. Divine-presence.
My familiar fatalism pauses.
Visions of humanity’s demise fade.
Memories of gasmasks in our basement in the 1960’s move aside.
Images of imminent global meltdown and viral extinction recede.
Hope infiltrates
Like smoke seeping in beneath the door
Encircling, wrapping, embracing.
Does wonder mean naiveté?
Does hope create a cloak of denial?
As I read the morning news, the sorrow of humanity seems to sweep away my new born hope.
No, I stand corrected.
Hope and despair, joy and sorrow, intermingle,
Multiple strands in the plaited reality of my faith.
I shall be with you, always in this helix of life.
This shall be a sign… a baby, life, hope.
God’s own child, Emmanuel.
