One of our favorite Christmas traditions every year is to sing Silent Night together at our church Christmas Eve and see the room filled with hundreds of candles. Christmas Eve is a special night for us! If you have been here with us before, we've often shown a film depicting the birth of Christ... made by someone else, somewhere else.
This year, we decided to do something different. We decided this year to have the nativity story be performed and filmed by our own people. We probably won't win any Emmy awards with it, but it is ours, it is our people, and in a year like this, it's good for us to see familiar faces. I'm very excited to have been able to share it together with you. Take a look at it HERE and let me know what you think.
We celebrate Christmas every year on December 25th. It's kind of a weird time of year to do so. At least where we live, its during a time of year that is cold, damp and dark. Most of the trees in the forest seem lifeless, without any signs of fresh buds, new flowers or blades of grass. This 2020 was a year that most likely felt particularly cold, particularly dark; particularly lonely. Things like social distancing, political distancing, and overall social unrest leave many of us isolated and afraid. But we don't have to stay that way!
Just like many of us are finding reason to hope as we look towards a new year and a new emotional start for many things in 2021, we have reason to hope spiritually as well! Because while for many, the situation may seem bleak, and the loneliness may seem crushing... our future has not been written in stone! The story is not over… For in this dark forest, we find signs of life! As is foreshadowed in the Christmas narrative about a presumed son of a carpenter... and revealed in the Gospels as the Chosen One who calls himself the Son of Man; we will find on Easter Sunday's early morning light; the tomb is empty!! The grave couldn't hold him!! Jesus is the Son of God! Jesus is ALIVE!
By defeating death itself, Jesus put back together the relationship sin had broken between God and man. In His restoration plan, Jesus makes all things new! Isn't that Good News! This is the most wonderful story ever told!!
17 After they had seen the Child, they spread the message they had received about Him. 18 And all who heard it were amazed at what the shepherds said to them. Luke 2:17-18
May you never cease to be amazed by this marvelous story. May you enter the New Year with the Hope of Christ written on your hearts. May you go and share this Good News with everyone who will listen! Go tell it on the mountain; Jesus Christ is born!
- Pastor Milo
__________________________________________
0 comments:
Post a Comment