SERVE WITH US ON CHRISTMAS EVE!
CHRISTMAS EVE SERVICE TIMES
10:30 AM / 2 PM / 4 PM / 6 PM
ADVENT
Advent is a season of the church calendar that directly precedes Christmas. It’s characterized as a season of expectant waiting and preparation for the celebration of the birth of Jesus. The term advent actually comes from a Latin word for “coming.” So, we eagerly await the coming of our Lord on Christmas. While the term advent may be new to some of you; you are probably familiar with the 4 traditional themes of advent: hope, peace, joy and love. I hope you’ll join us this advent season as we engage in online devotionals about our Advent series, “Come, Let Us Adore Him!” We will be taking a look at worship in the Christmas story and how we can enter more fully into a spirit of worship during this amazing time of year. Our hope is that these devotionals will inspire you, draw you deeper into worship, and give you a reason to share the hope that we have in the coming of our Savior Jesus Christ.
Have you ever thought what those 9 months of pregnancy must have been like for Mary? I imagine they must have been excruciating… people whispering behind her back, the looks, maybe even being shunned. Yet she responded to God’s call in an act of worship. Advent is a season of waiting. It’s a season of worship. All around us things are rushing past, but during this season we intentionally pause for a moment and think of the coming King. Mary had a long time to think about the coming King. I wonder what she pondered during those 9 months. I bet everything exceeded her expectations. We too are called to respond to God in this season of waiting by worshipping him. By saying, “Yes, Lord! I am your servant” and leaning into the places and situations God has called us into. During these weeks leading up to Christmas I encourage you to lean into the waiting, the silence, the calm before the storm and prepare your hearts and minds to worship God. This season brings with it many things, but let’s bring a spirit of worship to the forefront of all that we do this year. May we be a little bit more like Mary and respond to God with a worshipful heart.
Waiting is hard... very hard. Advent is a season of waiting. We await the coming of the birth of Jesus. This may seem like an odd thing to relive year after year. After all, hasn’t Jesus already come. Yes, Jesus is with us always, but in this season of advent we lean into the rhythms of life; and life is full of seasons of waiting. We also await the second coming of Jesus. So as we enter into advent we not only wait in anticipation of the coming of Christmas but we also await the returning of the King above all Kings. Simeon waited a long time. He was an old man. But Simeon had been given a promise. A promise that said he would see the Messiah before he died. So he waited. And waited.... and waited. Finally, the Lord answered His promise. Simeon responded in worship. Think about that for a second. Simeon has waited for a long long time. I wonder what he was thinking the day before? Was he upset? Was he disenfranchised? Had he given up? We’ll never know, but we’ve all been there. We’ve all had seasons of waiting. It can be discouraging. It can be hard. It can seem like the period of waiting is never going to end. Yet I take heart in the story of Simeon. The Lord is true to His promises. He always comes through. He never lets us down. This season maybe you are waiting for something. Maybe you’ve been waiting a long time. I encourage you to enter into a season of hope and worship. Keep hope alive! You can know and rely on the promises of God and the fact that He will always come through. Your miracle is around the corner. Christmas is coming! The light is almost here! But in this season of waiting let us worship the Lord together and know that even in our waiting He is here with us.
What does it mean to worship? A quick google search defines worship as: the feeling or expression of reverence and adoration. In broader and more simple terms worship means to ascribe worth to something. To give it value. What are the things we worship? When the baby King arrived, the angels responded in a massive outburst of joy in front of the shepherds, Magi came with their huge caravan from far away to bow down before him, and for 2,000 years people have celebrated his first coming at the same time that they waited for his return. You see, Christmas is about so much more than a fun day, good parties, and a few new things, it’s about a King who came to show us the way home, fill us with his Spirit, and welcome us back into his family. So, the hope is that we use all of the Christmas merriment to remind us of him, to remind us that we’re going home to be with him, face-to-face. We won’t carry our Christmas bags, or our cool new stuff with us, we’ll carry the memories of how we participated in his adventures, how we watched for him, and how he revealed what he was up to in our lives and the lives of the neighbors we served along the way.
We’ve arrived… the waiting is over. We’ve come upon Christmas Eve. The end of advent is drawing to a close and the 12 days of Christmas are ahead. We celebrate the most marvelous gift we’ve ever been given, God in flesh, born into this world. We’ve spent the last several weeks waiting in anticipation for this event and, hopefully, over the last few weeks, a new perspective on worship has emerged. As we’ve engaged with the advent story we’ve engaged in worship. And as our journey comes to an end and we celebrate the birth of Jesus. We also remember that worship isn’t for perfect people. We bring who we are and where we are to worship. We don’t have to have our “lives together” in order to worship the King; we just need to show up. Worship reminds us that we have a God who loves us and calls us into relationship with him. It’s all too easy to beat ourselves up and kick the can down the road until we feel worthier to enter the throne room, but this is not what God wants of us. He wants us now… just as we are. He calls us to come and worship in the stable. This Christmas we remember the baby who came to us via a small village in the countryside and a town that didn’t even have a room for him. He wasn’t what everyone expected him to be… he was so much better!