An interest event

SNU is hosting a sermon planning workshop on Monday, 07 Jan 08 with Dr Steve Green as presenter. This should be good! If any are interested in attending, perhaps we could carpool. They also said that if five or more go there will be a group discount. So, if five people from a particular area go and go together, will that get the discount? It's only $29 (and that includes lunch) so it's not that much...but a discount is a discount!

Christ the King

Yesterday was Christ the King day, the festival celebrating the last week of the liturgical calendar. As I was getting ready for church I was listening to the classical radio station because they broadcast much better preachers than the Christian radio stations. I was excited to hear a broadcast on the lectionary readings for the day...and in it I heard one of the best thoughts on this great day, Christ the King--looking back at the whole year, but also looking at the Kingdom of God that Jesus was pointing to in his life and death. I don't know how long it'll be online, so I hope you get to hear it. I was blown away!

Peace,

Michael

Living in the Tension? or Jingle all the way?

We are approaching Advent...and sooner the encompassing cultural “Christmas” season. It seems that the Christmas season is now starting before Thanksgiving. I saw holiday commercials starting on All Saints Day, Walmart put up their Christmas decorations on that day. Christmas music has been playing and started two weeks ago. I know that the Christmas season has taken on a cultural identity outside of the faith (commercialism, etc) and I’m okay with some of that. But I find myself asking the same question I did last year around this time: How do we balance the tension of the already and the not yet of Advent? I find myself wanting to wait to sing and even hear the carols. I want the Advent hymns and content to be given space and place. But, it’s so hard to hear it in a culture that blares those sacred songs everywhere with no meaning. And, once the clock turns past Dec 25, the larger culture takes down the trees and lights and moves on...and a large chunk of the American church follows with it. How do you foster the Advent season in singing “O come o come Immanuel” when others are singing “Joy to the world the Lord is come?”

Could I be bifurcating something that doesn’t need to be separated? Does the liturgical season of Christmas encompass Advent? The Easter season doesn’t encompass Lent, right? But, I guess in a way Christmas would encompass Advent because of the focus of the first two weeks—the second advent. But, Advent has to do with anticipation, hope, waiting, longing...maybe even silence (ha! Try that one in the culture!) in expectation of redemption and the coming of a savior (Savior) to bring us back to where we belong. And it is journeying through this time of waiting and longing that we can sing boisterously Joy to the world the LORD is come! Let earth receive her King! And, I’ve come full circle because the King has come already.

I some how find myself wanting to call this time from Thanksgiving to Christmas the holiday season, because of the cultural content of Santa, reindeer, sugar plums, and candy canes, Frosty, and all the fun songs that go along with it. But I don't want to call it the Christmas season. And I don't want to sing the carols..."because it's not time for them yet."

I don't want to be legalistic about it--I just want Advent to be given space and place in a very crowded and loud season.

Peace,

Michael