Christmas Eve Candlelight Services, December 24th

5:00 Family-Oriented Story and Songs
7:00 Brass Quartet with Carols
11:00 Midnight service with Bells and Chancel Choir
 
We invite you to join us as we celebrate the birth of Jesus, the Savior, on December 24th. Every service will have candlelight and Christmas carols. We’ll start at 5:00 with a service designed to be accessible for younger children and families. After that we have two services with special music and light shining through the darkness, just as Christ shown into the world at Bethlehem two thousand years ago.
 
Many myths have grown up around the Christmas story. In actuality, Jesus was probably born closer to April than December. (Unless you live in Minnesota, that would be a bummer for the whole reindeer-snow narrative.) We don’t know for sure whether Mary rode a donkey. She might have given birth in the corner of someone’s house instead of a stable. There’s so much stuff we don’t really know…things we have to guess at and fill in details for.
 
This is true every time the world gets re-made. If you look back in Genesis at the creation of everything, we honestly don’t know whether “seven days” means a week or millions of years in cosmic time. We don’t know whether Adam and Eve were singular people or broad names for “humankind”. We don’t know whether Genesis, Chapter 1 describes the right order of things or Genesis, Chapter 2. (Check it out! They’re different!)
 
All of this is ok. Whenever our world is remade, the things we thought we knew get overturned. We’re invited to let go of the idea that our personal knowledge keeps us safe and gives us power. We release the conceit that our beliefs lie at the center of the universe. Instead we’re called to examine the core affirmations of the story, and of our lives.
 
In the case of Genesis, no matter how the world was made technically, a common thread runs through creation: someone cares about you, someone wants goodness and life for you, the Author of the Universe is as close to you as your breath, embedded deeply in the fabric of your life. We are loved. We are not separate from God. No turmoil or change in the world will ever take that away.
 
That’s also the message made new again in the birth of Jesus. As it was in the beginning, so it was that night in Bethlehem, and so it will ever be. Neither life nor death will separate us from the love of God. April or December, donkeys or ubers, seven days or millions of years and on past eternity, through hardships and broken hearts, in presents and lights and song, in huge moments and in small breaths, we are loved. Always.
 
Blessed Christmas to you.
 
--Pastor Dave

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