What God has done, He can and will do again.

Beloved of God,

    This is the last Sunday of Advent before we get to Christmas. If you are going to be in town on Christmas Eve, I hope you will plan to join us for our Christmas Eve service at 6:30 pm on December 24th. If any of you can bear to help supply some cookies or finger friendly sweets for us to share, that would be especially wonderful. You are welcome to  sign up to bring goodies here. Please plan on worshipping with us that evening, and then lingering for some fellowship afterwards.
    Our Scripture reading this week is from Micah 5:2-5a, and you will notice at the end of verse five a tone shift away from our typical reading. As a matter of fact, starting this reading at Micah 5:1 puts this passage in a very different light. You will notice that this is a word of rescue imagined in the way that most folks are able to imagine: military conquest and royal rule.
    At the heart of this passage is a declaration that what God has done before, God can and will do again. Bethlehem had already given Israel one ruler: David, their primary model for righteous power. But here Micah tells them that one will come from Bethlehem whose origins are from of old, and by implication, whose power will outstrip even David. The Messiah folds Himself into a story his people already know in hopes that when He comes they will recognize him. God loves His people so much that when the eternal Word of God arrives in human history, He does so having wrapped himself in Israel’s hopes and expectations. From even the moment of Jesus’ arrival among us, he came seeking His people, his flock, who He loves. Christmas teaches us that God loves us enough to meet us where we are, and to make Himself findable in the places we are already looking. Let’s make sure we are, in fact, looking for Him.

Please join me this week in praying for: 

• An end to this pandemic.
  
• Doctors, nurses, PA’s, paramedics and others working to keep us all well.
• Those who respond to emergencies on our highways, in our wildlands, in our communities, and even our homes.
• Those among us who are travelling or will be soon.
• Those among us who are walking through these holidays while facing great, even painful, changes.
• The poor, the homeless; folks of modest means who can’t find a room. 
• People of little faith, no faith, or stalled faith who will be spending time at church and reading Scripture for the first time in a long time. Pray that Christ be present to them in a meaningful way this Christmas.
  
• For our global faith family, especially those celebrating Christmas in places where doing so makes them a target for ridicule, persecution, or violence.
  
• Each other (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