As our ten year journey as pastor and people comes full circle, may these words fill our hearts and minds:
When the song of the angels is stilled.
When the star in the sky is gone.
When the kings and princes are home.
When the shepherds are back with their flock.
The work of Christmas begins:
To find the lost,
To heal the broken,
To feed the hungry,
To release the prisoners
To rebuild the nations.
To bring peace among others,
To make music in the heart.
- Howard Thurman
May we all be about doing the work of Christmas all our days!
Giving thanks for our years together and ever grateful for those “streams of mercy,” carrying us through this life and into the life to come.
Elizabeth
Every year I read something new that deepens my understanding of the Savior’s birth we are celebrating today. Maggie Alsup’s “Love’s Defiant Song,” from the current edition of The Presbyterian Outlook touched my heart as I celebrate this special day this year.
She speaks of one of her favorite Christmas carols – “I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day, “ and shares that it was originally penned by American poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow in 1863. He wrote this poem with the narrator hearing Christmas bells during the Civil War, giving words to the feeling of what it was to hear the bells ringing out amid war and hate.
“And in despair, I bowed my head;
There is no peace on earth, I said;
For hate is strong,
And mocks the song
Of peace on earth good-will to men.”
She goes on to say, “In our lives these days, we have despair. We experience hatred. We have war. These make it hard for us to find the peace that God offer to us. We get weighed down with the grief and heartbreak of it all. It is as if the world around us these days is mocking the peace and joy this season offers.”
She recalls the words of another poet, Madeleine L’Engle, “Love still takes the risk of birth - God chooses to be born into this mess. God chooses to take on human flesh and enter into the chaos of the heartache of our world – choosing to be with us in it all. God enters into the chaos and sits with us.”
This is “Love’s Defiant Song” - this coming to be “God with us” in Jesus Christ – not a Christmas “present,” but the gift of Christmas presence – Immanuel, God with us, forever more! The message of Christmas is that in the chaos and mess of our lives; in the joys and burdens; in the grief and pain and tragedy, God is with us. God comes close, to love us more fully and to make all of life holy and filled with the presence of “God-with -us” forevermore.
Alsup goes on to say that it’s more than this. “God comes and sits with me. And God comes and challenges me to do something. To not be passive in my waiting. That I have to get up and do. That I must do my best, whatever that looks like, to work against the powers of the world, for love takes risks. That is what God did when God took on the form of a child and lived among us all those years ago.”
She closes with these words: “I am reminded that even in this chaos, ‘love still takes the risk of birth” … and my heart sings! I find joy and comfort in this love and the glimmers of this love around me. I find myself defiant as I sing my favorite Christmas carol. I throw back my head and proclaim this day:
“Then pealed the bells more loud and deep;
God is not dead, nor doth He sleep;
The Wrong shall fail,
The Right prevail,
With peace on earth, good-will to men.”
I’m thankful for the gift of “Love’s Defiant Song” and Maggie Alsup’s writing this Christmas day! May we learn to sing “Love’s Defiant Song and sing it all our days!
Be blessed this Christmas day and ever more!
Elizabeth
Yesterday was the third Sunday of Advent, and we lit the pink Candle of Joy on the Advent Wreath. This year grandparents and their grandchildren are doing the lighting. Yesterday’s grandmother whispered phrases to her two young grandchildren and they spoke out loud and clear. Such a blessing to hear those familiar words come from the children!
On this Sunday we always revisit Mary’s “song of rejoicing,” singing of a time when the powerful will be brought down and the lowly lifted up, the hungry filled and the rich sent away empty; the time when God will bring about changes that set things right in all of life.
It seems the gap between the haves and the have nots and the things that separate us from each other and from God’s best for our lives grows wider during Advent and Christmas than any other time of year. Perhaps it’s because for a season we get a glimpse of the way things could be, and for a time our actions are those of the people we should be.
A young woman from another community has been coming to worship with us from time to time in recent months. She always listens carefully and shares what she’s heard and speaks of how helpful being with us is in this season of her life.
“Mary’s Song” was new to her, it seems, and as she thought about it all she wrote a note to our church family – a beautiful Christmas gift to be shared.
“You and your church have opened my eyes and my heart back to what is joyful and meaningful in life, and helped me to remember to seek his will, and remember that it is my pleasure to serve him. God bless.”
She wrote this poem: “Merry Christmas, Santa”
Santa when you come this year, I need no presents under the tree;
For the day is all about a babe born in a manger wee;
That was the only place they found, a place for him to belong;
I wonder if he ever knew the words to Mary’s song.
They wrapped him in swaddling clothes, our Savior lying there;
Soon to bring the message of salvation everywhere.
Did he wiggle? Did he squirm? Cause that’s what babies do.
Or did he know his purpose? To die for me and you?
So Santa, Merry Christmas, the elves and Mrs. Claus,
for my present is wrapped up in my heart, given by God to us all.
What a blessing for all concerned! We’re grateful our paths crossed on life’s journey, and pray God’s very best for her in this new season of her life.
Elizabeth