Dear Blooming Glen Friends,

Advent is coming … soon. The New Year’s Day on the Christian Church calendar is not January 1.  It is December 3, when we begin a four-week season of preparation for the glorious twelve-day celebration of Christ’s birth (December 25-January 5) and concluded by six-week season of contemplation on the wonderfully surprising revelation of Jesus as he enters the world (Epiphany, January 6 – Shrove Tuesday, February 13).  In a matter of days, we begin a cycle of eleven Sundays designed to seize the joy of the Virgin’s birth. 

Advent, Christmastide, and Epiphany are not seasons of gloomy anticipation – this is a time of a growing momentum into joy.  Beginning with hanging decorations that tell the Jesus story of new life and ending with Pancakes (a feast that even the poor can enjoy), this is season to let go.  This is a time to let of our dour beliefs that somehow God is going to get us if we don’t watch out.  Advent tells a joyful saga of God speaking through His messengers that history is going to bend toward healing, hope, justice, and jubilee.  The twelve days of the Christmastide remind that God’s people are now a global phenomenon.  Everyone, not just the twelve tribes of Israel, is welcome at the table of the King’s great feast.  Epiphany invites us toward self-reflection and confession, not as penitents who are distraught over our bitter sins, but as joyful partakers of the amazing grace of God given to us through Jesus. 

In short, if you are a Grinch at Christmas, it isn’t God’s fault.  These next weeks are set aside for us to discover joy in the gospel story, joy in the fellowship of the household of faith, and joy in the ever-continuing feast of forgiveness. 

Christians come to this time of year aware that there are three advents – three comings of Christ:  The coming of redemption, which is the story we begin to discover over the four Sundays prior to December 25.  The second advent is the coming in glory, the joyful recognition that we now live in the last days before Jesus comes again to fully usher in God’s jubilant Reign.  And there is the third advent, the coming of holiness, that we discover as we worship in Word and the Table.  As Trisha Harrison Warren writes in her little book entitled, “Advent,” It is a deeply paradoxical season, at once past, present, and future.  Ancient yet urgent. 

This Sunday, we end one more church year, and we begin to prepare for another cycle of the gospel proclaimed in Word and symbolized in Bread and Cup, in the waters of baptism, and in the water, towel and basin of servant footwashing.  None of these acts are intended to be sour and acerbic.  They are meant, Sunday in and Sunday out, to feed our souls with the joy that we are redeemed, forgiven, and reconciled. 

As the Reign of Christ is remembered this Sunday, and the season of Advent begins next Sunday, my prayer, for myself, and for each of you, is that we will face this season with the contented smile of one who has surrendered to God’s joy. 

Thanks for being the church,
Pastor Jeff
jeff@bgmc.net 

PS – No coffee date this Friday, November 24, unless you are going to be in Cooperstown, NY, at the Baseball Hall of Fame.  But I’ll be at the A&N Diner on Monday, December 27, 7:30 am.  And, I’ll be at the Broad Street Grind on Friday, December 1 at 3:30 pm. Happy Thanksgiving!

Dear Blooming Glen Friends, 

Believe it or not, there are only six weeks left in 2023.  It’s been a pivotal year at Blooming Glen as the congregation continues to look at the future with growing strength.  It remains such a great privilege to serve with you in the transitions you are going through. 

As the year-end holiday season of Thanksgiving, Advent, and Christmas approach, it seems a healthy practice to take a moment and ask, “What brings you joy?”  What are the ways in which God is at work in you to transcend the world as it is with the promise of the world God intends for us to ultimately inhabit?  Joy isn’t just a spirit of happiness brought about by your team’s regular season record (take this axiom from a Dodgers fan – your team can win 100 games, and you are still disappointed at the end of the season).  Joy runs deep.  It is a gift from God.  It is the fruit of the Holy Spirit – the harvest that occurs because we walk in the Spirit daily in life.  Joy’s source isn’t our ability to be happy – it is the Gospel message alive in us; it is the resilience of a life lived in reliance on the scriptures; and it is fellowship of God’s people surrounding us.  

Joy isn’t a denial that there is pain and suffering in the world.  Joy is the realization that even in the middle of terrible pain, God is at work in our souls. God is at work, taking us out of passive and obnoxious complacency, and leading us into an active caring, courageous, and honest pursuit of God’s amazing grace in our lives. 

I know it seems counter-intuitive to suggest the possibility of joy when there is active warfare in Gaza, Ukraine, and Yemen. It seems counter-intuitive when there is conflict and violence in Mexico, the Democratic Republic of Congo, the Central African Republic, Sudan and the South Sudan, Somalia, Libya, Türkiye, Nagorno-Karabakh, Myanmar, plus India and Pakistan.  It is counter-intuitive to suggest the possibility of joy when a seventy-year-old crisis on the Korean peninsula continues, when China and Taiwan are close to war, when the USA and Iran continue to confront each other, when Haiti, Venezuela, Afghanistan, Syria, Lebanon, and Iraq are all unstable. As I write this, well over ½ of the world’s population is at immediate risk of war, famine, deprivation, and civil strife.  

It may be easier to turn away and stop looking.  To give up and wait passively for the Second Coming. 

But, sisters and brothers, there is no joy in passivity.  The way to joy is to labor for peace.  To get on our knees daily and plead with God for global reconciliation.  To give out of God’s generosity to us, so that others have food, clean water, medicines, and a civil infrastructure to deliver these resources.  To write letters, lobby congressional representatives, and petition our government to work to end violence around the world. To train ourselves and the next generations in the ways of Gospel-based peacemaking. 

This holiday season, I pray that I will stop wringing my hands about how awful the world is, and start working with my hands and feet, and heart, and head, for the world as God intends it to be – one where we who follow Jesus make sure that everyone has enough. 

The future is God’s gift to us as the platform for joy to blossom.  In these final six weeks of 2023, looking ahead to what’s next, may we continue to live with God’s promise of joy. 

Thanks for being the church,
Pastor Jeff
jeff@bgmc.net 

PS – I’m at the Broad Street Grind this Friday, November 17, 3:30-4:45 pm.  I’m at the A&N Diner Monday, November 20, 7:30-8:45 am.  These are times for listening to whatever is on your mind.  On Friday, November 24, Lord willing, I’ll be strolling the halls of the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, NY, enjoying a brief Thanksgiving celebration with Debbie and her brother, Bob, who will be coming from his home in Kansas City for a brief visit.