“Bless the Lord who crashes into the rhythms of the familiar, untethered by our expectations.
Bless the Lord whose glory, barely glimpsed, brings us to our knees in fear and longing and joy.
Bless the Lord who bids us come, whose presence draws our hearts to worship.
As creation trembles and erupts into song, may we join in and echo the chorus:
Glory! Glory! Glory to God in the highest!” – Hannah Williamson
Dear HBIC Family,
As the years go by, I find myself joining the loud chorus of the many who wonder out loud about how time seems to be speeding up and racing away. Christmas is this week. For us as followers of Jesus, this has been a season of waiting, hoping, celebrating, and expectation. We count down to the day when we remember that our God of forever came to dwell in time. The King of all radiance came to be a servant of all. We celebrate that the Creator came into creation, moving into our neighborhood adorned in flesh and blood.
Christmas is this week. And for some of us, Christmas has genuinely just snuck up. Sure, we have decorated the house and yard, we have sent and received the cards, and we have given and received the gifts. We may have even gotten into the music, movies, and mayhem of this season. All the while, Christmas is this week – and it still seems like it’s popped up out of nowhere. Yet perhaps, knowing it’s coming does not always prepare us for when Christ does come.
This week, we as a congregation get the blessing of celebrating Christ’s coming as a family. We get the privilege of remembering together that Christ has come and made home in our hearts. And we get the honor of joining with all of creation, in anticipation of our Christ’s second coming to reconcile all things in heaven and on earth. Advent is the reminder of God’s promise to never leave us nor forsake us, to be with us always to the end of days, and to be with us now as Christ, our Immanuel.
We will celebrate Christ’s coming this year on Christmas Eve, with two services in person at 4:30 and 6pm. The 4:30 service will be live streamed on our YouTube page and available for viewing upon completion. We will then celebrate Christ’s coming in our homes and with our families on Christmas Day. Then on Sunday, December 26, we will keep the celebration going. Please note, we will only have one service at 9am. This service will be live-streamed and posted later as well. This will be a very special service as we will be gathering together to give testimonies about God’s faithfulness to us during 2021!
To prepare for this week’s services, I would like to invite you to read and reflect on Luke 2. As you reflect, I would like to ask you to focus on the following questions:
How does Christ coming crash the rhythms of all the people in Luke 2?
How does Christ coming answer the prayers for generations?
What does faithfulness look like in each of these believers in Luke 2?
What does your praise to God look like since Christ has come for you and the world?
This Advent season, the waiting, hoping, celebrating, and expectation of our Christ coming into the world, unites us with believers all over the world and all the saints of old. Yet, if you find yourself surprised, unprepared, and overwhelmed by the sudden dawn of Christmas, perhaps you are also united with the shepherds who were keeping watch over their fields that fateful night. As Hannah Williamson reminds us, Christ comes to crash our familiar rhythms and untether us from our expectations, and to bring us to our knees.
Sisters and brothers, Jesus came into our world to bring God’s love to us all. In Jesus, we have love because our God who is love, gifts us Jesus. In Jesus, we have love that compels us to love one another. In Jesus, we have God’s perfect love that drives out all fears. In Jesus, we have God’s love. Praise God for that. Praise God for the gift of love.
Love in Christ,
Pastor Hank (Luke 2)