| DECEMBER 2011 | ||||||
| Sunday | Monday | Tuesday | Wednesday | Thursday | Friday | Saturday |
| | | | | 1 | 2 | 3 9 Cookie Exchange UMW Fruit Basket Assembly 3-Caroling to shut-ins 9-3 Oakwood UMC Bazaar |
| 4 9:30-Sunday School 10:30 – Worship COMMUNION 3-Emmanuel Outreach wrapping party @ St. Lawrence | 5 | 6 | 7 6:30-Fellowship Dinner | 8 6:30-Trustees | 9 | 10 12-Emmanuel Outreach Christmas Party |
| 11 9:30-Sunday School 10:30-Worship Noon-Children’s Christmas Party | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 6:30-Christmas Dinner at Rawlings | 17 |
| 18 9:30-Sunday School 10:30-Worship | 19 | 20 | 21 6:30-Bible Study at Henry’s | 22 | 23 | 24 5:30-Candlelight Service |
| 25 9:30-Sunday School 10:30-Worship | 26 | 27 | 28 | 29 | 30 | 31 |
Newsletters and Sermons
Monday, November 28, 2011
December 2011 Calendar
December 2011 Newsletter
FROM THE PASTOR:
Remember: Jesus is Better than Santa—
Santa lives at the North Pole. Jesus is everywhere.
Santa rides in a sleigh. Jesus rides on the wind and walks on the water.
Santa comes just once a year. Jesus is an ever-present help in time of need.
Santa fills your stocking with goodies. Jesus supplies all your needs.
Santa comes down your chimney uninvited. Jesus stands at the door of your heart and knocks.
You have to stand in line to see Santa. Jesus is as close as the mention of His name.
Santa lets you sit on his lap. Jesus lets you rest in His arms.
Santa doesn’t know your name, all he can say is “Hi little boy or girl, What’s your name?” Jesus knew your name before anyone else did. He knows your address. He knows your past and your future and he even knows how many hairs are on your head.
Jesus has a heart full of love.
Jesus offers health, help and hope.
Santa says “You better not cry.”
Jesus says “Cast all your cares on me, for I care for you.
Santa’s little helpers make toys. Jesus makes new life, mends wounded hearts, repairs broken homes, and builds mansions in heaven.
Santa may make you chuckle. Jesus gives you joy that is our strength.
While Santa puts gifts under your tree, Jesus became our gift and died on the cross.
It’s obvious there is really no comparison. Jesus is still the reason for the season.
FELLOWSHIP DINNER
This month’s fellowship dinner will be held Wednesday December 7th at 6:30 pm in the fellowship hall. Everyone is welcome, even if you don’t have time to make something to bring.
FELLOWSHIP BIBLE STUDY GATHERING
Those interested in a time of sharing, praying, and fellowshipping together are welcome to gather at the home of Henry Procopio on Wednesday December 21st at 6:30 pm. This is a monthly gathering but anyone is welcome to come whenever they can come. The group will be studying the Gospel of Luke. You can start at any time. Desserts are provided.
UPCOMING DATES
January 7th Unhanging of the Greens
CHURCH CLEANING SCHEDULE
For December 4th Steve & Sheri Lain
For December 11th Matt & Renee Huestis
For December 18th Brenda & Tony Alcorn
For December 25th Open
For January 1st Open
COMMUNION
We will celebrate Communion Sunday, December 4th.
TRUSTEES MEETING
The Trustees will meet Thursday December 8th at 6:30pm. The trustees are: Steve Lain, Doug Baxter, Grady Garton, Henry Procopio, Tim Garrett, Martha Neeley, Patsy Clark, Sandra Robinson.
CHILDREN’S CHRISTMAS PARTY
The Children’s Christmas Party with Pizza and fun and a visit by Santa will take place after church on Sunday December 11th.
CHURCH CHRISTMAS DINNER
A sheet is being passed around at church to sign up for our annual Christmas Dinner at The Rawlings, 5395 Rawlings Road, Joelton, Friday December 16th at 6:30pm. The cost for the buffet is $20.75/person and your payment can be given to Sandra Robinson. Each person should bring a wrapped gift for the “dirty Santa” part of the evening!
CHRISTMAS SERVICES
Our Christmas Eve Service will be held surrounded by the beauty of poinsettias and candlelight at 5:30pm on December 24th.
On Christmas Day we will celebrate the birth of our Savior at 10:30am.
MEMBER ADDRESSES NEEDED
The church is responsible for keeping up with its members’ addresses even if they move. We are missing addresses for the following members: Charlie Brown, Johnetta Brown, Mitch and Vickie Skelton. If you can get an address and phone number for any of these people please write it down and give it to the pastor.
WHERE THERE’S A WILL THERE’S A WAY
It requires proper planning for your survivors to avoid probate and minimize estate taxes upon your death. When you are doing this, don’t forget to remember your church in your will.
ARE YOU HAVING DIFFICULTY HEARING DURING WORSHIP?
Our damaged hearing assistance system has been replaced. This system allows you to sit anywhere you want to in the sanctuary and hear anything that is being broadcast over the microphones through the use of special receivers and earphones. If you would like to try one, ask the pastor.
The Hope Center is located 212 Gifford Place, between Curves and the Laundromat. There are now over 170 client families being helped by our center. This does not include homeless persons and persons just passing through who are in need.
A barrel is in the entryway of the church to receive donations for the Joelton Hope Center. [You can also take them directly to the Hope Center.] There is always a need for cooking oil, sugar, corn meal and flour. These are items that the center has to buy most often. There is also a need for diapers size 4 and 5.
The Hope Center is open Monday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday 10-4 and 10-2 Saturday. The Hope Center Board set a goal of being open 6 days a week, so additional volunteers are needed any day Monday-Saturday. Call the Hope Center at 876-1778 if you can help.
CHURCH BLOG SITE Update
If you haven’t visited the church blog site, go to www.forestgroveumctn.blogspot.com. Each sermon is posted there as they are delivered and most times there will be a link to an audio of that sermon. The monthly newsletters will also be posted. You can post comments, questions and even things you have for sale.
If you want to post something other than a comment on that particular sermon, just email Peg and she’ll post it for you (pegbillman@yahoo.com). If you want to be notified when something new is posted, become a follower of the blog. Soon I hope to have a Facebook page for Forest Grove, too, so keep checking for that on the blog or in this newsletter. If you have an interest in being an admin for a Facebook page, let me know!
Forest Grove Prayer Chain
Forest Grove has a prayer chain that is called when emergency needs arise during the week needing prayer right away. To start the prayer chain all you need to do is call Janice Baxter with your prayer request—876-0489.
EMMANUEL OUTREACH
This year’s Emmanuel Outreach Christmas party for needy children in the Joelton community will be held December 10th at the St. Lawrence Community Center. Eighty five children will be given Christmas gifts and the Joelton Hope Center will give each of the families a Christmas dinner food box. Many thanks to all those who contributed to this project and to Jennifer Lee and Donna Kemp for shopping for the gifts. Help is needed to wrap the gifts at St. Lawrence Community Center Sunday December 4th at 3pm. Bring scissors and tape.
COOKIE EXCHANGE
Saturday, December 3rd we’ll meet in Fellowship Hall at 9am to exchange cookies. Plan to bring as many as you can to exchange. Bring extra containers and make up gift boxes to give away to our shut-ins if you don’t “need” a lot yourself!
OAKWOOD CHRISTMAS BAZAAR
Oakwood UMC’s United Methodist Women will be holding their annual Christmas Bazaar Saturday December 3rd 9-3. Soup and Sandwiches will be served all day! There will be homemade desserts, crafts, gifts and their famous fried pies. The church is located at 1001 Old Pinnacle Road, Joelton.
Un-HANGING OF THE GREENS
Volunteers are needed to gather at the church at 9 am on Saturday January 7th to UN-decorate the church from the Christmas Season. Many hands will make quick work of it!
Pastor Billman and Brenda Alcorn will be taking a bunch of Christmas Carolers to the homes of some of our shut-ins and elderly members to sing and bring them communion on Saturday December 3rd. The gang will leave the church parking lot at 3 pm. If you would like to join the fun and bring joy to some of our members meet in the parking lot at 2:45.
ADVENT COIN FOLDERS
Advent coin folders are available this month in the entryway to the church. By saving quarters during the weeks of Advent by Christmas Eve you will have collected $20. Our coin folders collection will go to our local and foreign mission projects. Local: Joelton Hope Center and Aldersgate Renewal Ministries. Foreign: the Wertzes in Tanzania and the Harrisons in ministry to the Muslims in the Middle East and the Billmans in Brazil.
A CHRISTMAS VERSION OF I Corinthians 13
As you prepare your heart and home for Christmas this year, consider the following words of wisdom and have Christ be the center and essence of your celebration.
If I decorate my house perfectly with plaid bows,
strands of twinkling lights and shiny balls, but do not show love to
my family, I'm just another decorator.
If I slave away in the kitchen, baking dozens of
Christmas cookies, preparing gourmet meals and arranging a
beautifully adorned table at mealtime, but do not share the true meaning of
Christmas, I'm just another cook.
If I work at the soup kitchen, carol in the nursing
home and give all that I have to charity, but do not demonstrate
kindness to strangers, it profits me nothing.
If I attend a myriad of holiday parties and sing in
the choir but do not focus on Christ, I have missed the point.
Love stops the cooking to hug the child.
Love sets aside the decorating to kiss the husband.
Love is kind, though harried and tired.
Love doesn't envy another's home that has
coordinated Christmas china and table linens.
Love doesn't yell at the kids to get out of the
way, but is thankful they are there to be in the way.
Love doesn't give only to those who are able to
give in return, but rejoices in giving to those who can't.
Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all
things, and endures all things.
Love never fails.
Video games will break, pearl necklaces will be lost,
golf clubs will rust, but giving the gift of love will endure.
If I decorate my house perfectly with plaid bows,
strands of twinkling lights and shiny balls, but do not show love to
my family, I'm just another decorator.
If I slave away in the kitchen, baking dozens of
Christmas cookies, preparing gourmet meals and arranging a
beautifully adorned table at mealtime, but do not share the true meaning of
Christmas, I'm just another cook.
If I work at the soup kitchen, carol in the nursing
home and give all that I have to charity, but do not demonstrate
kindness to strangers, it profits me nothing.
If I attend a myriad of holiday parties and sing in
the choir but do not focus on Christ, I have missed the point.
Love stops the cooking to hug the child.
Love sets aside the decorating to kiss the husband.
Love is kind, though harried and tired.
Love doesn't envy another's home that has
coordinated Christmas china and table linens.
Love doesn't yell at the kids to get out of the
way, but is thankful they are there to be in the way.
Love doesn't give only to those who are able to
give in return, but rejoices in giving to those who can't.
Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all
things, and endures all things.
Love never fails.
Video games will break, pearl necklaces will be lost,
golf clubs will rust, but giving the gift of love will endure.
Author Unknown
"And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of
these is love." 1 Corinthians 13
these is love." 1 Corinthians 13
A CHRISTMAS LETTER FROM GOD
Dear Children,
It has come to my attention that many of you are upset that folks are taking My name out of the season. Maybe you've forgotten that I wasn't actually born during this time of the year and that it was some of your predecessors who decided to celebrate My birthday on what was actually a time of pagan festival. Although I do appreciate being remembered anytime.
How I personally feel about this celebration can probably be most easily understood by those of you who have been blessed with children of your own. I don't care what you call the day. If you want to celebrate My birth just, GET ALONG AND LOVE ONE ANOTHER. Now, having said that let Me go on.
It has come to my attention that many of you are upset that folks are taking My name out of the season. Maybe you've forgotten that I wasn't actually born during this time of the year and that it was some of your predecessors who decided to celebrate My birthday on what was actually a time of pagan festival. Although I do appreciate being remembered anytime.
How I personally feel about this celebration can probably be most easily understood by those of you who have been blessed with children of your own. I don't care what you call the day. If you want to celebrate My birth just, GET ALONG AND LOVE ONE ANOTHER. Now, having said that let Me go on.
If it bothers you that the town in which you live doesn't allow a scene depicting My birth, then just get rid of a couple of Santas and snowmen and put in a small Nativity scene on your own front lawn. If all My followers did that there wouldn't be any need for such a scene on the town square because there would be many of them all around town.
Stop worrying about the fact that people are calling the tree a holiday tree, instead of a Christmas tree. It was I who made all trees. You can & may remember Me anytime you see any tree. Decorate a grape vine if you wish: I actually spoke of that one in a teaching explaining who I am in relation to you & what each of our tasks were. If you have forgot that one, look up John 15: 1 - 8.
Stop worrying about the fact that people are calling the tree a holiday tree, instead of a Christmas tree. It was I who made all trees. You can & may remember Me anytime you see any tree. Decorate a grape vine if you wish: I actually spoke of that one in a teaching explaining who I am in relation to you & what each of our tasks were. If you have forgot that one, look up John 15: 1 - 8.
If you want to give Me a present in remembrance of My birth here is my wish list. Choose something from it:
1. Instead of writing protest letters objecting to the way My birthday is being celebrated, write letters of love and hope to soldiers away from home. They are terribly afraid and lonely this time of year. I know, they tell Me all the time.
2. Visit someone in a nursing home. You don't have to know them personally. They just need to know that someone cares about them.
3. Instead of writing George complaining about the wording on the cards his staff sent out this year, why don't you write and tell him that you'll be praying for him and his family this year. Then follow up. It will be nice hearing from you again.
4. Instead of giving your children a lot of gifts you can't afford and they don't need, spend time with them. Tell them the story of My birth, and why I came to live with you down here. Hold them in your arms and remind them that I love them.
5. Pick someone that has hurt you in the past and forgive him or her.
6. Did you know that someone in your town will attempt to take their own life this season because they feel so alone and hopeless? Since you don't know who that person is, try giving everyone you meet a warm smile it could make the difference. Also, you might consider supporting the local Hot-Line: they talk with people like that every day.
7. Instead of nit picking about what the retailer in your town calls the holiday, be patient with the people who work there. Give them a warm smile and a kind word. Even if they aren't allowed to wish you a "Merry Christmas" that doesn't keep you from wishing them one. Then stop shopping there on Sunday. If the store didn't make so much money on that day they'd close and let their employees spend the day at home with their families.
8. If you really want to make a difference, support a missionary, especially one who takes My love & Good News to those who have never heard My name. You may already know someone like that.
9. Here's a good one. There are individuals & whole families in your town who not only will have no "Christmas" tree, but neither will they have any presents to give or receive. If you don't know them (and I suspect you don't) buy some food & a few gifts & give them to the Marines, the Salvation Army or some other charity which believes in Me & they will make the delivery for you.
10. Finally if you want to make a statement about your belief in and loyalty to Me, then behave like a Christian. Don't do things in secret that you wouldn't do in My presence. Let people know by your actions that you are one of mine.
P.S ~ Don't forget; I am God and can take care of Myself. Just love Me & do what I have told you to do. I'll take care of all the rest. Check out the list above & get to work; time is short. I'll help you, but the ball is now in your court. And do have a most blessed Christmas with all those whom you love and remember. I LOVE
2. Visit someone in a nursing home. You don't have to know them personally. They just need to know that someone cares about them.
3. Instead of writing George complaining about the wording on the cards his staff sent out this year, why don't you write and tell him that you'll be praying for him and his family this year. Then follow up. It will be nice hearing from you again.
4. Instead of giving your children a lot of gifts you can't afford and they don't need, spend time with them. Tell them the story of My birth, and why I came to live with you down here. Hold them in your arms and remind them that I love them.
5. Pick someone that has hurt you in the past and forgive him or her.
6. Did you know that someone in your town will attempt to take their own life this season because they feel so alone and hopeless? Since you don't know who that person is, try giving everyone you meet a warm smile it could make the difference. Also, you might consider supporting the local Hot-Line: they talk with people like that every day.
7. Instead of nit picking about what the retailer in your town calls the holiday, be patient with the people who work there. Give them a warm smile and a kind word. Even if they aren't allowed to wish you a "Merry Christmas" that doesn't keep you from wishing them one. Then stop shopping there on Sunday. If the store didn't make so much money on that day they'd close and let their employees spend the day at home with their families.
8. If you really want to make a difference, support a missionary, especially one who takes My love & Good News to those who have never heard My name. You may already know someone like that.
9. Here's a good one. There are individuals & whole families in your town who not only will have no "Christmas" tree, but neither will they have any presents to give or receive. If you don't know them (and I suspect you don't) buy some food & a few gifts & give them to the Marines, the Salvation Army or some other charity which believes in Me & they will make the delivery for you.
10. Finally if you want to make a statement about your belief in and loyalty to Me, then behave like a Christian. Don't do things in secret that you wouldn't do in My presence. Let people know by your actions that you are one of mine.
P.S ~ Don't forget; I am God and can take care of Myself. Just love Me & do what I have told you to do. I'll take care of all the rest. Check out the list above & get to work; time is short. I'll help you, but the ball is now in your court. And do have a most blessed Christmas with all those whom you love and remember. I LOVE
Sunday, November 27, 2011
11-27-11 Sermon - THE SCANDAL OF CHRISTMAS
Listen to today's sermon, "The Scandal of Christmas" by clicking here. Below is the manuscript version if you'd care to read the sermon.
THE SCANDAL OF CHRISTMAS 11-27-11 Sermon
They heard the sound of the Lord God walking in the garden at the time of the evening breeze, and the man and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the Lord God among the trees of the garden. But the Lord God called to the man, and said to him, “Where are you?” He said, “I heard the sound of you in the garden, and I was afraid, because I was naked; and I hid myself.” Genesis 3:1-10
This morning I want to say something that needs to be said at Christmastime, something that is not often mentioned. And that is that Christmas began with a scandal. It’s easy to avoid this scandal, because the occasion of Christmas itself is bathed in so much loveliness. Think of the pictures. There’s a baby; what could be lovelier than a baby? And a star in the sky; one that has a heavenward pull. And there are angels singing, and wise men on a quest with gifts. The manger itself, if the truth be told, was not a pretty place, but artists through the ages have kindly hidden its distasteful elements in mystical shadows.
But the church calendar prepares us for the Christmas scandal, and as a result, so has some of the music related to that calendar. We begin the season of Advent this morning, a season celebrated in the church since the 6th century. As you can see on the altar and the pulpit the color of Advent is purple, which is symbolic of repentance. And it is in that mood of repentance that earnest Christians over scores of generations have prepared themselves for the celebration of our Lord’s coming by reminding themselves of our great need for a Savior. We modern Christians don’t easily get into that mood. At Christmas, we’re planning festivities, and the music around us encourages it. Not just “I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus” and “Jingle Bell Rock,” but the festive church music. You may hear “Joy to the World” and “Silent Night” in a shopping mall, but you probably won’t hear “Come Thou Long-Expected Jesus,” or “O Come, O Come Emmanuel.”
That’s because we don’t face up to the Christmas scandal. And if we don’t comprehend the scandal, we’re not likely to get the full magnificent impact of Christmas. It may well be that one of the reasons so many people have to deal with depression at the Christmas season is because in our cultural patterns, Christmas is so tied to fun, celebration, childhood memories, and a sense of belonging; and because we have so little grounding in the theology of Christmas, we can be quite empty when these elements are missing. As a result, we’re easily susceptible in the Christmas season to feeling of loneliness or depression.
So here’s the hard fact. There wouldn’t be a Christmas, there wouldn’t be a need for Christmas, if it weren’t for our scandal. Note that I said OUR scandal. Stay with me, and I’ll tell you what I mean. There are many ways to tell the story, but the book of Genesis really tells us the reason for Christmas.
Genesis tells us that once there was this couple. The Bible calls them Adam and Eve, but, in truth, we could just as well call them Frank and Peggi, or Henry and Martha or Tony and Brenda, because we know them well. Anyway, they had everything going for them, living as they were in a garden of exquisite beauty and perfection. But they turned their lives into a shambles by disobeying God.
There’s a word for what happened to them, and for what they did. It’s called SIN, and that’s where the scandal comes in. The human race became a race of sinners. They weren’t created that way, they became that way by their own choice and actions.
Now let me be clear about this, because most modern people aren’t very good at understanding sin; but for that matter, we humans never have been. If we think of sin (and a great many don’t; they find the word distasteful and therefore judge it to be outmoded and inappropriate), we generally think of rather dark, back-street matters. “Sin” brings to mind pictures of addiction, pornography shops, criminal conduct, and adulteries. Yes, those are sins, but they can distract us from the larger, more compelling facts.
That is because sin is a problem all of us have to deal with. It’s a fact of life for ALL of our lives. You see, the basic sin is disobeying God. The ways in which we disobey God may be crude or sophisticated, naïve or knowing, but the root issue is the same. To be specific, it’s the issue of self; and the reason it’s so complicated is that we have to live with self, and self is so familiar that it doesn’t really frighten us.
So there we have it. Sin is our problem, and it’s related to self. Every generation has found ways to excuse its sins, but our generation has raised this skill to a particularly high level. We have euphemisms for sin that take away its sting. We identify sin as a personality disorder, a genetic predisposition, a problem in our genetic code, a pattern of antisocial conduct. Or, at a simpler, everyday level, our word for sin is mistake. Have you noticed how often we hear persons guilty of everything, from corporate fraud, to child abuse or murder, offer an explanation by saying, “I made a terrible mistake”? We find it very hard to describe our conduct for what it is. That is, we hate to admit that we are sinners—or, to put it another way, to confess that we’re part of a scandal. The human scandal.
Isn’t it interesting that we sometimes identify newspapers as “scandal sheets”? Why? Because they tell us about some of the particular acts of sin that are going on in our world. They rarely get at our deeper problem, nor do they often compel us to face some of the hidden sins that affect the lives of even model citizens. But it is quite true that when the newspapers report on the world in which we live—a world of war, poverty, rape, murder, fraud, slander, corruption—we call them scandal sheets. And the term is well chosen, because this is what we’re dealing with—the scandal of our human condition.
But let me bring the matter closer to home, because probably not many of us feel very scandalous at this moment. We may well have some chapter in our lives that we wish we could forget, and certainly some thoughts that we’d rather were not broadcast in the lat-night news. But because I’ve used such a strong word, scandal, we may think sin relates more to others than to ourselves.
Consider the following poem:
I was shocked, confused, bewildered/As I entered Heaven’s door,
Not by the beauty of it all, Nor the lights or its décor.
But it was the folks in Heaven/Who made me sputter and gasp—
The thieves, the liars, the sinners,/The alcoholics and the trash.
There stood the kid from seventh grade/ who swiped my lunch money twice.
Next to him was my old neighbor/ Who never said anything nice.
Bob, who I always thought/ Was rotting away in hell,
Was sitting pretty on cloud nine, Looking incredibly well.
I nudged Jesus, ‘What’s the deal?/I would love to hear your take.
How’d all these sinners get up here?/ God must have made a mistake.
‘And why is everyone so quiet,/ So somber—give me a clue.’
“Hush, child,” He said,/ “They’re all in shock.
No one thought they’d be seeing you.”
So hear me. When we live below our best potential, when we’re anything less than godly, it’s because we’re involved in this scandal called sin. Not just those other people, but you and I. You and I are part of the scandal.
Now what makes our human scandal even worse is the way we deal with it. Look again at the story in Genesis 3 because the experience there sounds so much like our own. By their sin, Adam and Eve felt guilty before God. Good sense would suggest that they therefore should have sought God’s forgiveness, in order to get back on the right track. Instead, the Bible tells us, they “hid themselves from the presence of the Lord God among the tress of the garden. “ The trees of the garden ought to have been instruments of revealing God to them, and for giving them still another reason to appreciate God’s blessings. Instead, Adam and Eve used them as a way of hiding from God.
And so do we. Almost any wondrous thing in this world can be turned into a means of holding God at a distance. We absorb ourselves with “the trees of the garden”—family, work, sports, politics, music, TV, even church work—all of them good things. But we can easily use these things the way Adam and Eve used the trees of the garden, to hide ourselves from God—or perhaps more correctly, to distract ourselves from God. All of us know that people flee from God through alcohol, drugs, gambling, pornography, but we aren’t as quick to recognize that we may use the good things of life to hide us from God and from God’s demands.
And that is a scandal. God has provided a wonderful potential for our human race, and we squander it. Then, to make it worse, we flee from God, and we use God’s own gifts to hide ourselves from him.
And that’s why we need Christmas. Christmas didn’t come to our human race because we worked ourselves up to it, or because we evolved to a state of deserving such a favor; Christmas came because we are a scandalous lot. Christmas is, indeed, a gift, the ultimate gift, because it is a gift undeserved and unjustified.
We try, generally, to avoid these crucial facts about the Christmas story. That’s why we don’t really “get” this Advent season. When we sing, in a true Advent hymn, “Come, thou long expected Jesus, born to set thy people free; from our sins and fears release us, let us find our rest in thee,” we’re inclined to sing it in a detached sort of way, not really applying it to ourselves. Who wants to know that Christmas happened because there was a scandal, and that we are the obvious inheritors and perpetuators of that scandal?
Here’s something that is fascinating. The secular Christmas stories we love best are remarkably true to this original Christmas story, in their own special way. Perhaps the classic Christmas story of the Western world is Charles Dickens’s Christmas Carol. It’s the story of that mean man, Scrooge. See how Dickens describes him: “Oh! But he was a tight-fisted hand at the grindstone, Scrooge! A squeezing, wrenching, grasping, scraping, clutching, covetous old sinner!”
Did you get that? Dickens called Scrooge a sinner! And so he was. Scrooge was the quintessential sinner, though he broke no laws and was quite safe from prison. But he was a miserable human being who was all wrapped up in himself, and who seemed almost to enjoy making other people miserable.
And do you remember how the story ends? Scrooge is converted! Dickens doesn’t use that theological term, but that’s what happened. So, as the story ends, Dickens sums it up this way: “It was always said of Scrooge, that he knew how to keep Christmas well, if any man alive possessed the knowledge.” The man who violated Christmas worst became the man who kept it best. What a conversion!
These days one of the most popular secular Christmas stories comes to us from Dr. Suess, How the Grinch Stole Christmas. Dr. Suess doesn’t get around to Dickens, in calling the Grinch a sinner, but he surely describes him as such—so much so that the term “Grinch” now competes with the name “Scrooge” as the epitome of everything that is bad. But as many of us know, at the end of the story, the Grinch is completely changed (converted, though Dr. Suess wouldn’t use such a word), so that every “Who down in Who-ville” has the greatest Christmas ever.
I’m trying to say that our secular Christmas stories can’t help saying what the original Christmas story has always said. We humans have a scandal to deal with, whether our name is Scrooge, Grinch, Adam, Eve, Frank or Peg. We all need to be converted—to be born again. And that’s why we have a Christmas.
That’s also why we change the style of the word, and often also the melody, when we move from Advent music to the songs of Christmas. Advent songs are so often cast in a minor key, and with slow, deliberate timing. They’re songs of longing and of waiting.
But Christmas music is an entirely different matter. Mind you, it may be quiet and thoughtful, as is “Silent Night” or “O Little Town of Bethlehem” but the mood is peace, not longing. And more often than not, the words and music of Christmas are light and celebrative. One like:
God rest ye merry, gentlemen, let nothing you dismay,
Remember Christ our Savior was born on Christmas Day; {Why?}
To save us all from Satan’s power when we were gone astray.
[there’s the scandal]
O tidings of comfort and joy, comfort and joy;
O tidings of comfort and joy.
There’s a song to be sung by people of scandal—people who need to be saved from Satan’s power, and who realize it, and who now have found the way. This is the good news that turns our scandal into laughter. Tidings, indeed, of comfort and joy! The power of the scandal has been broken. The Savior has come.
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