COOS Festival of Lessons & Carols
December 27, 2020
(can be printed out)
Sunday, December 27, 2020
Friday, December 25, 2020
Deliberately welcome Christ. Christmas Day 2020 The Rev. David M. Stoddart
Christmas Day
Christmas is a feast of the senses: decorated trees, outdoor lights, wrapped presents, chocolate, ham sliders, cookies, pies, chocolate, wreaths, candles, the sound of carols, the smell of pine and spruce, chocolate, connecting with loved ones in person and online, gathering together right now. It is indeed a good and joyful thing to celebrate Christmas in such an embodied way because we are celebrating the embodiment of God. The Holy One who speaks the universe into existence and declares it good enters into that universe and is enfleshed in Jesus.
And let me be clear: there is no logical way to understand or explain that incredible mystery. We can say the words, but in the end we can only kneel in love and awe before the wondrous reality of it. Spirit and matter are joined together. The One who makes the world is now part of the world and fills the world. As the Franciscan writer Richard Rohr puts it, we live in a Christ-soaked universe. Every physical object can be a means of grace; every physical action can be a sacrament. God is one with us and with this world She creates and rejoices in.
So, yes, we should eat, drink, and be merry. We should hug the people we love, and as the Psalmist says, we should taste and see that the Lord is good (Psalm 35:8). But there is one other thing we can do to make our joy and God’s joy complete. Just as God has been embodied in Jesus Christ, so Jesus Christ longs to be embodied in us. The saving work of the Incarnation is not complete until Christ is incarnated, enfleshed, in me and in you.
That is the work of the Holy Spirit who, as our second reading today affirms, has been poured out upon us richly through Jesus Christ our Savior. But there is something we can do to cooperate with that Spirit and open up the channels of divine love and grace within us. And that something is what I am going to urge all of us to do today. At some point today when you are not opening presents or eating or watching TV or talking to your family, I ask you to find a quiet space for just a few minutes. Go into your room and shut the door, as Jesus tells us in the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 6:6). And then deliberately welcome Christ into your life. You can use whatever words you want — only Jesus is going to hear them — but welcome him personally and spend a few moments giving thanks that his Spirit lives in you.
My own prayer will be something like this: “Thank you, Lord Jesus, for living within me. I want my heart to love like yours, I want my spirit to be your Spirit. Thank you that I am filled with your life which you give to me as a gift. Thank you for the people around me who reflect your love. Thank you for opportunities to love you by loving others. Thank you for forgiving me when I fail. Thank you that you will be with me and I will be with you forever. Open my eyes so that I can see heaven everywhere. Welcome, Lord Jesus. Welcome.”
The New Testament and our baptismal liturgy make it clear: we are to be one with Christ and to embody Christ in this world. That is our great joy and privilege. Christmas will not be over until Jesus is enfleshed in us. And the more he is enfleshed in us, the more every day will be like Christmas.
So receive him. Welcome him. Embody him. Today.
Invited to come. Christmas Eve 2020. The Rev. Kathleen M. Sturges
Luke 2:1-20
On this Christmas Eve I find the familiar story of Jesus’ birth especially comforting. It’s a story that many of us have heard year after year - maybe even for all of our lives. And in a year when so much has changed and so much has been lost it’s especially nice to have at least one thing remain the same. We may not be able to gather in person, but we are united in spirit as we hear once again the story of a child who is born. A savior who is come. The baby Jesus wrapped in bands of cloth and lying in a manger.
InnAnd it is to that manger we are invited to come. But before we get there, let us join those shepherds living in the fields, minding their own business, keeping watch over their flock by night. When all of a sudden, literally out of the blue, an angel of the Lord appears before them, and the glory of the Lord shines all around them, and - guess what? - they’re terrified. In fact, the original Greek reads that “they feared with great fear.” It seems that the appearance of an angel in full on glory is a rather frightening event - way out of one’s comfort zone. So after practically giving these poor shepherds a collective heart attack, the angel speaks the very first words we hear in the Christmas story, Do not be afraid.
Merry Christmas!
Wednesday, December 23, 2020
Sunday, December 20, 2020
Hearing God's message. December 20, 2020 The Rev. David M. Stoddart
Luke 1:26-38
I don’t know how you picture this wonderful Gospel, but certain motifs have long dominated Western art, motifs we can see in this wall mural by an unknown artist.
Mary is at a prayer desk to show that she
has been praying, and she has a Bible in front of her, conveniently opened to
Isaiah 7: “Behold a virgin shall conceive and bear a son.” Her eyes are
downcast, her arms are crossed, and her look is submissive. She is prayerful
and pious, a holy young woman. And the angel is visibly present before her, an
androgynous figure with golden hair and beautiful wings. The scene is serene
and otherworldly. Similar depictions have been painted countless times: it’s a
common way of envisioning and interpreting this story . . . but it’s not the
only way.
Wednesday, December 16, 2020
Monday, December 14, 2020
Not the only voices out there. December 13, 2020 The Rev. Kathleen Sturges
John 1:6-8, 19-28, 1 Thessalonians 5:16-24
When I was a child Saturday mornings were the best. That’s when all the good cartoons were on TV, one of them being The Adventures of Gulliver. But I must have been the only fan of the show because it only ran for one season. Nonetheless, I still remember it. Not the whole series but one character, in particular. His name was Glum. And he was true to his name. Whenever there was trouble, Glum, in a deep, monotone voice, would always declare, “It'll never work. We’ll never make it. We’re doomed. It’s hopeless.”
Now hope doesn’t make life easy. What
hope does is make life possible - even during wilderness times. Hope reminds us
that it will not always be this way. Hope tells us that we have a future. Hope
proclaims that the Word who is God is our light and our life which will never
fail.
Sunday, December 13, 2020
Wednesday, December 9, 2020
Tuesday, December 8, 2020
Words of comfort. December 6, 2020 The Rt. Rev. Susan E. Goff
“Comfort, O comfort my people, says your God.” Advent is by far my favorite season of the year. Every year on the night before Advent begins, my husband Tom and I set up the Advent wreath on our dining room table, then hang a Moravian Advent star on our front porch. Each week we add more lights inside and out, working to keep at bay the growing darkness as we prepare in heart and mind for Christmas.
This year, though, we blew our traditions out of the water. After setting up the Advent wreath and hanging the Advent star, we put up our Christmas tree. In any other year I’d be embarrassed to admit it! This year, though, the darkness has been darker than usual. This year, we need the light to be more visible than ever. We haven’t decorated the tree yet, but it is up and the lights are lit. And in those lights we are finding comfort.
“Comfort, O comfort my people, says your God,” we heard today from the book of the prophet Isaiah. Comfort, O comfort. Said twice for emphasis, twice to indicate tenderness and compassion, twice because people needed a double measure of comfort.
The people of Judea, the southern territory of the biblical holy lands, had been conquered by the Babylonian Empire in the year 587 BCE. The beloved Temple, the center of worship and cultural identity, was torn to the ground and hundreds of people were force marched to far off Babylon where they lived in exile. Far from home, far from the land they loved, the people mourned. They lamented in prayers like Psalm 137:
By the rivers of Babylon—
there we sat down and there we wept
when we remembered Zion.
On the willows there we hung up our harps.
For there our captors asked us for songs,
and our tormentors asked for mirth, saying,
“Sing us one of the songs of Zion!”
How could we sing the Lord’s song
in a foreign land?
The people grieved for their loved ones who died in the attack on their city. They grieved for the Temple, the concrete sign of their faith. They grieved for their lost homes and lands and possessions, for life as they once knew it. And they experienced remorse and guilt, because they believed that Jerusalem was captured and destroyed as a punishment from God for their lack of faithfulness. In a foreign land, they suffered. Children grew and married in exile. Babies were born in exile. People died in exile. For forty years they lived in exile, and yearned with all their hearts to return home.
God spoke to them through the prophet:
“Comfort, O comfort my people,
says your God.
Speak tenderly to Jerusalem,
and cry to her that she has served her term,
that her penalty is paid . . .”
Words of comfort were spoken. An end was in sight. Forgiveness was granted. The people were still in exile, and would be for some months longer until the Persian Empire conquered Babylonia and the Persian King Cyrus set the captives free. The people were still in exile, but they had comfort and hope at last. Comfort and hope because God is tender, because God loves creation and all humanity deeply, because God is present and acts in the world.
Comfort and hope because God forgives and because God is good. Comfort for the present and hope for the future.
Today we are living in exile, not in a foreign land, but exiled by the Coronavirus to months of quarantine and separation in our own homes. In this exile, we grieve for what we have lost. We grieve for well over a quarter of a million people who have died of COVID-19 in the United States alone, far more than in any other nation of the world. We grieve for more than 63 million people who have been infected worldwide. We grieve for events that have been cancelled, trips we couldn’t take, friends and family we haven’t seen in person since March. We grieve the loss of jobs, the loss of income, the loss of livelihoods. We grieve that we will remain separated for a while longer, and that our Christmas celebrations will be as changed as were our celebrations of Easter, Pentecost and Thanksgiving.
Like the exiles in Babylon, some of us also wonder about the part sin has played in our exile. I don’t believe for a moment, the way they did, that God sent this exile upon as as a punishment for our unfaithfulness. I don’t believe that God who is tender, who symbolically carries the lambs in his arms, sends punishment indiscriminately, causing those who are already vulnerable to suffer even more. But I have seen how our human sin has made things worse. The Catechism at the back of our Book of Common Prayer says that “Sin is the seeking of our own will instead of the will of God, thus distorting our relationship with God, with other people, and with all creation.” Sin breaks relationships. So, neglecting to protect one another when the virus first broke out, claiming that personal liberty is more important that communal safety, is sin that plays a part in spreading the virus. Turning the virus into a political battle zone, instead of focusing our battle on the virus itself, is sin that breaks relationship. Choosing financial well-being for some over the health and safety for all is sinful. This is hard news, because Americans take pride in our individuality, our political system and our economy. It’s hard to hear that every aspect of our lives, even those we cling to most tightly, can become occasions for sin and can pull us from being all that God created us to be. This pandemic, I believe, is not God’s punishment for sin, but human sin has made it worse. We grieve that brokenness, that sinfulness, along with all the rest that we have lost in this pandemic time.
In our grief, God speaks to us today. “Comfort, O comfort my people, says your God.” God sends us comfort that, although we’ll still be in this exile when Christmas comes, we will not be here forever. Although we’ll still be separated from loved ones and from our beloved church buildings for some months more, we won’t be apart forever. Although our sinfulness has helped make this pandemic far worse in the United States than in any other nation on earth, this pandemic will not last forever. The end is in sight. Effective vaccines are on the horizon. It will be an exile of over a year by the time it is over, but it won’t be 40 years as it was for the Judeans in Babylonia. God comforts us with that assurance today.
And God commands us to offer comfort to others. “Comfort, O comfort my people.” In this passage comfort is a verb in command form, and it is plural. Many commentaries imagine these as God’s words spoken to the angels. “Go, angels, go my messengers, go and comfort my people.”
God commands us to do the same. You, all of you, you in the middle of coronavirus exile, go and comfort my people, says our God. Comfort others. Keep reminding your family and friends that we’ve come so far and the end is in sight, so don’t give up now, don’t let your guard down now. Send texts and letters and old-fashioned Christmas cards, offering comfort. Make old fashioned phone calls. Give comfort and hope everywhere you can. In the words of Isaiah, “lift up your voice with strength, . . . Lift it up, do not fear, . . . Say to the cities of Judah, [to the cities of Virginia and beyond] ‘Here is your God!’” Be a part of obeying the command to comfort God’s people.
And if part of comforting others is to hang those Christmas lights early, do it boldly. Don’t worry, I’m assured that the Advent Pharisees are being quite lenient this year. Just be assured of God's comforting presence as you go and comfort others.
Sunday, December 6, 2020
Wednesday, December 2, 2020
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