Advent 4, 2021

 Link for this week's streamed service is here

This week we light the candle of Love in our Advent wreath. 

With the secularization of Christmas in the public sphere, I wonder if love get's short shrift. We hear talk of peace and joy. All kinds of organizations raise money for charity. We set up dazzling displays of lights. I went to Butchart Garden's this week and the decorations are spectacular. They make children's eyes grow round with wonder and a treat of hot chocolate fills hungry tummies. But does Love dwell in these bedecked attractions? Does Love fill hungry hearts?

Perhaps because I'm a farm girl, or perhaps because these words have been set to music, I'm particularly fond of this poem.

Christmas Eve, and twelve of the clock.

“Now they are all on their knees,”

An elder said as we sat in a flock

By the embers in hearthside ease.

                                      -- from The Oxen by Thomas Hardy

The image of the animals kneeling in the stable to honour the Infant Christ resonates with me. My own, hard-working, eminently practical father made a point of checking the cattle in the barn at midnight on Christmas Eve. A memory I hold close in my heart. 

As a teenager I joined with a group of friends to go carolling through town before the service at my church. It was a magical time. In memory there was always a gentle snow falling. We sang only for the joy of it, seeking out shut-in folk that we knew of, regardless of any church affiliation. It was a very small town.

At those times my heart was bursting with love, for my friends, my family, and for the night. The church service always ended with the scene at the Manger in Bethlehem. How silently, how silently/the wondrous gift is given/ So God imparts to human hearts/ The blessings of His heaven.

Those moments of silence and reverence were mountain peaks in my faith journey. The music, the night, the fellowship and the Baby in a manger filled me with a sense of God's deep, deep love for us. In subsequent years when I've felt discouraged or doubted my faith, those memories draw me back.  Love came down at Christmas, Love all lovely, Love divine;/Love was born at Christmas/Star and angels gave the sign.

At SPPC we hold a candlelight service on Christmas Eve. We sing carols of joy and hope and peace, but the high moment of the worship is Silent Night, Holy Night, when the candles are lit and a tiny flame passes from worshipper to worshipper. This is a moment of reverence, a moment to feel God's love, incarnate in a Baby, a moment to feed hungry souls with the extravagance of our Father's love, a moment to make firm the foundation of our faith.

Amid all the Christmas hoopla of Santa Claus and twinkling lights, of Rudolph and Frosty the Snowman, of wrapping and baking and visiting, set aside a moment to gather at the Manger and worship the Saviour, Infant Holy, Infant lowly.

Ed. Note:  Boxing Day is my self-declared "reading my new books" day. Since the 26th falls on a Sunday, This will be the last post on this blog for 2021. See you in 2022.