Christmas Eve: What Is the Gift?

After the carols and prayers and lighting of the Advent candles, a uniformed UPS guy ran down the aisle with a special delivery for the pastor, who was just settling down among a flock of children. With much ado the package was opened, and the children were delighted to identify the pieces of a nativity set, telling the Christmas story. "We need to tell each other the story," the Pastor said. "We need to tell each other every year, so we remember: The baby Jesus’ name is "God-With-Us." 

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

A Christmas Memory--by Paeaileone Kelemeni

Image
  A memorable Christmas memory is when my second brother, Simione was born. We were born and raised in American Samoa a territory of the United States of America. This is where my humble beginnings started prior to moving to Hawai’i. Simione was born on Christmas Eve in 1986 at the Lyndon Baines Johnson Tropical Medical Center. A baby who had a head full of black hair and bright brown eyes was brought home on the 26th of December. When he was brought home, he came with Mom, Ilaise, bio- logical father, Lopaki and gifts for my brother, Taniela, sister Jean and myself. My family was given three more gifts in the years to follow, brothers Vikilani, Pingi Jr., and stepdad, Pingi Tavake, Sr. (Dad who’s been there through the years), three sisters in-law, 14 nieces, nephews. Simione coming home with gifts from the hospital meant so much to me. This is the beginning of knowing about Christmas gifts aside from religious beliefs and activities. God has gifted me with so much, my husband Ngalumo
Read more

Holy Family: Reflections on Sermon "Joseph’s Plans"

Image
Pastor Peter’s sermon this morning the fourth Sunday of Advent related the family drama of this human part of the Christian story, an engaged couple with their own plans suddenly turned upside down by the plans of the Divine. "Bring up the boy as your own," the Angel told Joseph. "Marry the girl." And so, despite his upset, dismay and doubt, Joseph did marry the girl, which set them on the path to a nice settled life. No. Hardly. On the path of a delivery, if such a passive word as delivery could describe the fear, pain and risk of childbirth in a stable, disrupted by appearance of shepherds with wild tales, foreigners, government agents, and a warning to get out of Dodge because they were about to be arrested, sending them on a fast trip into exile across the border with a newborn. Homeless, fleeing violence. Hardly their own sweet dreams by the fire about their life together. Not their plans. And yet and yet, where does this story leave me today? One, with a conce
Read more

What Does Christmas Mean to Me, You Ask?---by Mark Dockter, Lay Leader

Image
Emmanuel! You are in our midst. You are with us, coming down to the uttermost consequences made from the beginning with man, and in spite of the fact that it was violated and broken so many times...You are with us! Emmanuel! In a way that really surpasses everything that man could have thought of You. You are with us as a man. You are wonderful, truly wonderful, O God, Creator and Lord of the universe. God with the Fathwr Almighty! The Logos! The only Son! God of power! You are with us as a man, as a newborn baby ok for the human race, absolutely weak, wrapped in swaddling clothes and placed in a manger. Is it not that precisely because you became man in this way, without a roof to shelter you, that you became nearest to man? The Word has become flesh. That is the meaning of Christmas: Jesus is Emmanuel, “God with Us.” Jesus is the personal approach from the Unseen. We did not dare dream God was like Christ. But He is! Look at the character and life of Jesus and know what G
Read more