Merry Christmas

One of my favorite part of Christmas is the children's Christmas pageant, I love watching our children become familiar with the story of the birth of Jesus and to begin to take their parts in leading the worship of the Church.

This year's pageant was particularly wonderful (and not only because I wrote it :)) Click here for the youtube video and see if you agree.

Merry Christmas

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas - or not

A group of us tried to go Christmas caroling yesterday afternoon. I emphasize that we tried, but it was raining and cold and a miserable day and we were not really able to get into the Christmas spirit and no one was really going to want to stand with the door open and listen to us.

It's amazing how the weather is so connected to Christmas for us. If it has been snowing instead of raining I think we would have all had a lot more energy and it would have felt a lot more like Christmas to everyone.

I have occaisionally wondered what the Church year is like for people in the southern hemisphere. For me snow and cold and "the bleak mid-winter" is an inseperable part of Christmas and the spring and re-birth of the earth is an insperable part of Easter.

I wonder what it would be like for Christmas to be in the middle of summer - and celebrated with barbeques and beach trips and for Easter to be in the fall when everything is dying - rather than beginning to grow?

A Season of Preparation

That's what we call Advent. It occured to me how many things we prepare for and how many different ways there are to prepare.

My parents went to the Carribian the Monday after Thanksgiving. They were preparing for their trip by making lists and packing suitcases and making sure that someone was taking in the mail and shovelling the snow and getting some of the Christmas decorations up so that when they came back they weren't so rushed. That's one way to prepare.

I went to the grocery store on Friday - they were predicting up to 10 inches of snow - there were lots of people there stocking up on the things that they would want to have in the house if they couldn't get out right away - that's another way to prepare.

I'm in the midst of preparing for Christmas, I'm writing cards and wrapping and mailing presents and writing sermons - that's another way to prepare.

But to prepare for the coming of Christ, that means to stop and reflect and look at what in our lives has taken too much of our time and energy and what has taken a backseat that needs to be brought forward - to look at our lives with the eyes of God and to try to see as God sees so that we can be prepared to enter into the presence of God. As the collect for the second Sunday of Advent says "that we without shame or fear may rejoice to behold his appearing"