The Anticlimax of Christmas Past

Simeon with the Christ Child in the Temple - Rembrandt

Sunday is already coming again. Before we get there, we will celebrate Christmas. This past Sunday we celebrated with our Sunday School children in the morning and then came back in the evening for a wonderful evening of scripture and singing in our annual Candlelight Service.

This coming Sunday feels like one we could miss. The story has been told, the songs have been sung, it feels like enough. We know it now.

Luke doesn't see it that way though. He wants the story to keep going. He wants us to see again, and again, that something amazing is going on here, that God has broken into the world. So he takes us to the temple, for the mundane purification rites normal for a first born son. But here again, now in the voices of Simeon and Anna we hear that this is no ordinary baby.

The story told by the angels to the shepherds, is reinforced by these two elderly watchers. It's good for us to hear that the good news is not only reserved for Christmas, but follows us into the regular patterns of our lives as well.,

God's Glory in the Unexpected

Our tendency is to measure someone's status by the way they do things. Important people (or those who would have you think they are important) drive "important people" cars, live in big, "important people" houses, eat at expensive, "important people" restaurants, go to "important people" events, and like to hang out with other important people. There is almost a code of practice for being an important person.

HENRY OWASSA TANNER, “THE ANNUNCIATION” (1898)

You would think that God might be characterized as an "important person"; God the creator of all things, the ruler of everything. There is no doubt that God deserves the title, but the way God comes to be one of us, the Emmanuel, makes us wonder about that status. God chooses an unknown girl whose reputation is about to be destroyed, from an unknown village in a depressed part of the country to smuggle him into our world. Why would God do that when there were lots of other, more flashy, ways an entrance could have been made?

This Sunday, the fourth Sunday of Advent, we will spend some time thinking about God's less than flashy entrance into humanity and what that means for us.

Preparation

This Sunday is the second week of Advent. Last week we lit the candle of hope. This week the candle of preparation. Preparation makes hope real. When we prepare for something hoped for, the thing becomes more real, closer. Hope without preparation in dreaming.

John the Baptist made the coming of the Messiah real for the people of Israel. He is credited with making straight the road for Jesus who would baptize with the Holy Spirit rather than water. John heralded hope for the people, and for us.

This Sunday we will celebrate the Lord's Supper, a physical reminder of the hope we have as we prepare for the coming of the kingdom.

Our service this week is a combined service with our Presbyterian hosts at 10:00 am