I trekked out to Seaside by myself last
night for the Christmas Eve service. We
just couldn’t get Mom going. I guess she
was still recuperating from the family party Saturday night. It was kind of eerie. Not much traffic on the roads going, and
almost completely deserted coming home.
Plus the fog started rolling in.
Very strange and very quiet.
The service went pretty well, considering
our lead singer was suffering from a sore throat, and we had someone working
the computer for the first time. Lots of
visitors, though, and they all seemed to get in the spirit of pitching in. We did a visual verse for the early comers,
and they really liked that. One group of
out-of-towners was taking pictures of it with their cell phones. They fancied themselves “reasonable Bible
scholars” (their own words), so they took it as a real challenge to figure it
out. They did OK. They got a lot of the words but were never
able to put them all together into an actual verse. We stumbled our way through the service, and
everyone raised the level of singing nest they could to help out Jimmy. It also helped that he brought his own pair
of backup singers, Lora and Melissa, and Cory did his usual solid job on
bass.
After the service I was talking to one of
the visitors, a couple who told me they would be here in town until about May,
when the door suddenly burst open and a young teenage guy who had been visiting
in the service with his Mom raced up and gave me a huge hug, saying “Merry
Christmas, Pastor Kelley.” Just as
quickly he turned and ran out. Certainly
startled us all, but those are the moments that make being a pastor
special.
As usually happens on Christmas Eve, the
building cleared out quickly when we were finished. It was kind of strange cleaning up by myself,
and again, quiet. Sure missed Chris
being there. The ride home through the
fog was uneventful, and I listened to Christmas music on the radio. They even played the same clip that we had
used in the service – Linus quoting the Christmas story from the Book of Luke to
Charlie Brown. He ends with my favorite
line, “That’s what Christmas is all about, Charlie Brown.” Indeed.
Matthew 1:18-25 says, “This is how the birth of Jesus Christ came about: His mother Mary was
pledged to be married to Joseph, but before they came together, she was found
to be with child through the Holy Spirit. Because Joseph her husband was a righteous man
and did not want to expose her to public disgrace, he had in mind to divorce
her quietly.
But after he had considered this, an
angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream and said, ‘Joseph son of David, do
not be afraid to take Mary home as your wife, because what is conceived in her
is from the Holy Spirit. She will give birth to a son, and you are to give him
the name Jesus, because he will save his people from their sins.’ All this took place to fulfill what the Lord had said through the prophet: ‘The virgin will be with child and will give birth to a son, and they will call him Immanuel’ -which means, ‘God with us.’
When Joseph woke up, he did what the angel of the Lord had commanded him and took Mary home as his wife. But he had no union with her until she gave birth to a son. And he gave him the name Jesus.
Father, thank you for hugs and fog and family
and Jesus – for Christmas. Amen.
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