Are you ready for Christmas? Tell me how you have been showing acts of kindness, giving gifts to others! Great. At the manger we add Jesus to the scene as we recall that Jesus was born as a gift to us! You are a gift to us, too! God loves you just the way you are and because we follow Jesus, (who is no longer a baby!) we can share his love with others every day. Merry Christmas!
Are people coming to your home for the holiday? As usual, you need your house to look like, you know, NOT your house as usual? Is your refrigerator stuffed with food items? And how’s the gift wrapping going? Oh, right, do you have last minute shopping to do? While Christmas falls on the same date every year, there always seems to be unexpected disturbances to our Christmas Force testing our best efforts to make the holiday memorable for our family and friends. Whew!
But this is a holy season that is driven by a holy purpose and a divine timeline. It’s “God’s time” — the end of Advent, the moment just before the miracle of Emmanuel’s birth into the world is upon us. Ready or not, here God comes. Into our best and worst of Christmas planning experiences, Sunday’s Gospel reading from Matthew 1:18-25 is all about God moving into our story through the mundane and chaos of our lives. Pastor Kevin continues his camera metaphor as we pick up the telephoto lens in a message titled, “Zooming Towards the Future,” all about Joseph who takes center stage this fourth Sunday of Advent. God’s ways of redemption and reconciliation, relationship and righteousness do not align with our own, no matter how faithful and stalwart and well-intended we may be. God uses whomever God wants to further divine plans and often in ways none of us would readily choose. All this in this story and we have not even made it to the angel’s appearance!
When have you experienced divine guidance? What form did it take? What was it? What kind of guidance do you seek today? This week, we consider Joseph who took a risk and embraced God’s dream for an incredible future. Get ready to zoom into God’s story with you!
The kids share a Christmas poem, JOY- Jesus, Others, and You. Pastor Kevin invites the kids to the manger where new characters are added to the scene as we think of ways to show kindness and love this Christmas.