Ember Days and a Spiritual Checkup

Beloved of God,
 
A few housekeeping things you will want to take note of:

1. Currently, there have been no additional COVID positive tests in our congregation. Praise God that we have been defended from further sickness!
2. A final decision about what Sunday morning service will look like will be made by the council Friday evening.
3. Our Christmas Eve service will have a cap on how many of us can attend in compliance with state law regarding COVID safe practices for houses of worship. Please take a moment to fill out this survey to help us plan a service that meets those expectations as we gather for worship next Thursday.
   

 
I bought a copy of The Old Farmer’s Almanac. I couldn’t even begin to explain exactly why. I was just looking at wall calendars online, and the next thing I knew I had spent 5 bucks on a digital edition of a farmers almanac. I don’t even garden! There’s something of a running joke around the office that every once in while I’ll do or say something that makes more sense if I was born in 1896 rather than 1986. Perhaps it was that impulse. Who can say?
But I spent time with it and really have enjoyed it. There are seasonal weather predictions and fun little anecdotes. I really got enamored of the monthly calendar page. The calendar page in an almanac keeps track of things I’ve never heard of. For instance, there are three Ember Days this week.
I’d never heard of Ember Days, but on a little bit of investigation, it turns out they are a very old, mostly forgotten practice of prayer and fasting at the change of seasons. Their purpose has a few facets:

1. To praise God for the gift of a new season, and whatever goodness it may bring.
2. To give yourself three days for a spiritual checkup.
3. To pray for folks who are starting something new in this season, especially if it's a new ministry.

 
            I have to tell you, I kind of like this idea. I think we might all do well to mark some time for a spiritual checkup. Have we been keeping up with the practice of our discipleship? Has our sense of God’s presence and calling grown, or diminished since the fall? Where have we been complacent? Where have found God’s love and provision? Now might be a good time for all of us to think about all the ways God has been faithful to us through the past season, and prayerfully recommit to following Jesus through the winter. After all, discipleship is a daily endeavor. All of the synoptic gospels contain Jesus’ call to take up the cross and follow Him in discipleship. But Luke remembers a detail that Mark and Matthew don’t: we take up the cross daily. Perhaps these Ember Days are an opportunity to pause, pray, and reflect on what that daily engagement in our discipleship should look like through this winter.
 
Please join me in praying for:

• An end to this pandemic.
• In praise for defense and recovery from the pandemic in our congregation.
• Doctors, nurses, paramedics, PA’s and others working to keep us all well during this time.
• Those spending Christmas alone, or with an empty space at the table.
• Teachers and students as they work to finish up an unprecedented semester of challenge and study.
• Our leaders at the federal, state, and local level
• In praise for the new life being welcomed into the world by several of our families during this season.
• For Christians and churches around the world celebrating Christmas during this season of uncertainty.
• Faithfulness, day by day, season to season, in our discipleship.
• One another (please email [email protected] if you’d like to be added to our prayer list).

 
You are the salt of the earth; you are the light of the world,
 
Marshall

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