Dear Blooming Glen Friends,  

“I’ve learned that you can tell a lot about a person by the way he handles these three things: a rainy day, lost luggage, and tangled Christmas tree lights.”
~ Maya Angelou, (1928-2014) Pulitzer Prize winning poet. 

The challenge of Christmas Joy is that we tend to treat it as a seasonal affective disorder.  We can only have Christmas joy once a year, mostly on the 25th of December, and then it is time to get over it and get back to work (or to college football bowl games … ). 

Rarely, if ever, have I heard a sermon from Luke 1 in August.  Rarely, if ever, have I heard a sermon on the resurrection at the end of December.  In reality, the redeeming story of the birth of Jesus and the atoning story of the resurrection of Jesus are good for us to explore 365/366 days a year.  The downside of a liturgical calendar, where we remember advent, easter, and pentecost in fixed seasons, is that we tend to crowd out the rest of the story during certain times of the year. 

Christmas is to be celebrated December 24-January 6. Advent is to be celebrated November 24-December 25. Christmas Eve is the moment when our waiting joy turns into realized joy. As we approach the day of remembering the birth of Jesus and the following twelve days of celebration, I pray we do so full of holiday, seasonal joy.  And I hope we celebrate these days by remembering the entirety of the redemption story.  Christmas is, so that salvation can be freely offered. Christmas is, so that the church can be God’s missionary agency in the world.  Christmas is, so that you and I can remember that our first calling isn’t to a political philosophy, or ideological platform.  Our first calling is to Jesus, who asks of us only one thing – to love one another. 

The journey of joy requires a heart stout enough to listen to God’s call in the midst of the unintended consequences of family traditions (Luke 1.57-80), oppressive public policy (Luke 2.1-5), emergency births (Luke 2.6-7), and the hard hum-drum work of the everyday (Luke 2.8-21).  Such a stout heart does not usher forth from our goodwill.  The stout heart is a well-exercised heart – that listens in joy. 

May your heart be strong in the middle of the unexpected! May your Christmas joy be a year-round celebration! 

Pastor Jeff
jeff@bgmc.net 

PS - I’ll meet up to listen with whomever at the Broad Street Grind on Friday, December 22, on Friday, December 29, and Friday, January 5, 3:30 to 4:45 pm.  We’ll take a couple of weeks off from Monday breakfast at the A&N Diner on December 25 and January 1.  We’ll meet up again for breakfast at the A&N on Monday, January 8, 7:30 to 8:45 am, before Debbie and I take off for California (January 9-26).