Across the Pastor's Desk - 22 December 2006

It is an interesting phenomenon that with Christmas soon at hand so many have already lost the Christmas spirit. Certainly much of that has to do with the culture in which we live. The Christmas shopping season now begins well before Halloween. Christmas carols have been on loudspeakers and in elevators for months. The last minute hurry to get at least something for everyone on the gift list has become overwhelming. Advertisements multiply to interrupt television programs and weigh down newspaper carriers. People are feeling the pressure of company and meals to fix to perfection. As a result it is not actually a surprise to hear people say that they will be so happy when Christmas is over even before it has in fact arrived.

Even churches get caught up in all of this. Many celebrate Christmas long ahead of the day and skip the season itself all together. Large productions are presented in some congregations even to the point of having a barbershop quartet of singing Santas. Clergy can be heard bemoaning the season and its obligations. Misguided church members complain that stores no longer include the word "Christmas" in their advertisements and yet do not keep the feast themselves either in their actions or in their hearts. If churches and their members can become so confused about the celebration and its season is it any wonder that the world at large loses it altogether?

There is no time better than the present to begin to reclaim the message of Christmas for the sake of the whole world. Christmas is not about the economy of the season, the buying and selling, the hurrying and the scurrying. Christmas is about the greatest gift ever received, a gift that is priceless and without duplication. This gift is not just remembered in the celebration of a birthday but rather is a celebration of the Incarnation, something that continues to take place yet in our midst. God becomes one of us. God takes on human form and identifies with us that we might more fully and completely know the power of God’s love and grace.

With Christmas and its twelve days just ahead take time to read and listen to the old, old story of how God’s love for the world is revealed in the most unexpected of ways. Share that story of love and grace with family and friends and others who are in need of its hearing. It promises the gift that is more lasting and life-changing than anything that this world has to offer does. Take time to celebrate Christmas for what it really is and what it really has to give. We will all be better for it.

Pastor's Pen - January 2007

Dear Friends in Christ,

On January 6^th, the Church celebrates the Epiphany of our Lord. After Easter and Pentecost, this is the third oldest festival of the Christian Church. In the East it was called "Theophany", commemorating the Incarnation as God’s self-revelation. In the Graeco-Roman world, the state visit of an emperor or king, especially a personal appearance to the citizens was called an epiphany. The Western Church ties the coming of the Magi from the east to worship the Savior with the Epiphany celebration. The witness of outsiders to the birth of the Savior was a sign that God’s love and grace was being revealed with all of God’s children, not just a select few. God makes God’s presence known for the sake of the whole world and God’s people celebrate.

Some have suggested that the season following the Epiphany should be called a season of little epiphanies. The readings for the Sundays that lead to Lent are readings that witness to the ways by which God has and continues to reveal God’s presence and purpose to the world. Sometimes it is difficult for us as God’s people to see the ways in which God is revealed to us. Just as outsiders risked life and limb to travel and worship the Savior in the story of the wise men, so today it can be "outsiders" to the Church and faith who understand most fully and completely the desires that God’s has for peace for all people. In this season of Sundays after the Epiphany we pray that God’s Spirit would be at work among to open our eyes, our hearts, and our minds to the presence of God in our midst yet today. To help us see that God continues to reveal God’s self for us. In that revelation we are strengthened and encouraged in our ministries to proclaim the good news for all in need.

The important thing for God’s people is to be trained to look for and see the presence of God in even the most mundane of events. Think of the difference that it might make if annual meetings of congregations were not simply facts, figures, and numbers, but rather were the means by which God’s appearances to the world were continuing to be realized. Such meetings would then become a time for looking ahead even more so than looking back. Such meetings would become a time for commitment to the vision that God has for us and for the world rather than a time for either self-congratulation or self-condemnation over the last year.

In the coming weeks of the season of Sundays after the Epiphany, let us pray that the Spirit would help us to see more clearly the ways in which God continues to make God’s presence known in this broken world and at the same time pray that the Spirit might use us despite our weaknesses as well as our strengths to proclaim the good news of Christ to the world.