From the Pastor
With Christmas now past and a new year opening before us, I am reminded of these familiar words of that great saint of the church, Howard Thurman:
When the song of the angels is stilled,
When the star in the sky is gone,
When the kings and princes are home,
When the shepherds are back with their flock,
The work of Christmas begins:
To find the lost, to heal the broken,
To feed the hungry, to release the prisoner,
To rebuild the nations, to bring peace among all people,
To make music in the heart
At the beginning of Advent, I announced that a member of our church family had, due to a series of unfortunate events, become homeless. This person was living from paycheck to paycheck and had no money for first and last month’s rent, security deposit, or furniture for that matter. I mentioned it once. Your response was generous and heart-warming. Thanks to your generosity, this person spent Christmas, warm and safe, in a new apartment. You provided new hope and made possible a new beginning. Yes, you made music in one human heart. Thank you.
And that, I submit, is the work of Christmas. We have celebrated the birth. Now what are we going to do about it? What changes will it make in our thinking and our living? “Peace on Earth” can be a daunting task, but what small, specific acts of caring and generosity can we initiate to bring peace to our homes, our relationships, our community? In the words of a colleague, “The great question for us is this: Is our Christmas still only a story about a baby, or is it more…a deathless story about the Person into whom the baby grew, who can redeem the world from its sins, and who calls us into partnership with his great and mighty purposes?”
We will have a lot on our church plate in January: finalizing a new budget, new staffing possibilities, and ongoing church growth are three issues that quickly come to mind. But through it all I hope we do not forget that the baby of Bethlehem grew up and now calls us to join with him in the ongoing work of Christmas. This remains our number one priority.
Gene
