December 2020
Advent 2020
Advent devotions will be on our Church Facebook page: exploring Advent and Christmas hymns we love.
Christmas Eve worship: 7:00 p.m. Livestream only, viewed via our church Facebook page
Children’s Virtual Pageant: Do Not Be Afraid, script from Illustrated ministry: December 20.
Pageant may be viewed on our Facebook page and under Sermon Blog
Giving Thanks During Grief
Giving thanks is easy enough when things go ‘as they should,’ but we all experience interruptions to plans, hopes, routines, and dreams. This season of Thanksgiving 2020 is peppered with absences from table fellowship, different celebratory and worship routines, dashed hopes, and renewed concerns over the spread of the coronavirus. After 9 months I, like everyone else, had hoped to see the end of this disease. After 9 months of changes we are preparing for more months of changes.
Change is challenging, both good and bad. Think back on a time you traveled and stayed somewhere other than your home. The change may have been delightful, a holiday or family visit, but the change it brought meant adapting to a new environment: this or that may be out of place, inconvenient, and missing. When it is holiday, those adaptations are enjoyable. Change the scenario to an intrusive, alienating, and deadly pandemic and the necessary changes bring unexpected grief.
Grief is nobody’s friend, but it becomes much, much worse when we hide or deny it. We, your church and the Church of Jesus Christ, are all experiencing grief. We miss seeing each other, we miss doing church in news ways, especially as the season of Advent is around the corner. We miss being seen, being hugged, seeing smiles. A nurse has helped me see a person’s expressions and smiles behind a necessary face mask. I used to just see eyes above a mask, now I see the eyes as a window to a person’s emotions. We miss our beloved routines; and we wish we could miss our homes that have been all too familiar.
Giving thanks to God during grief is extremely hard but is one of scripture’s best lessons. Traditionally grief in scripture is called a lament. Lament is integral to scripture – we cannot live without it because grief and lament are simply a part of ordinary lives. Lament in scripture is often a prayer, like Hannah’s prayer in 1 Samuel 1, David’s prayer in Psalm 51, Jesus’ prayer on the cross in Matthew 27, and Paul’s prayers of thanksgiving at the beginning of his epistles. In Paul’s case his songs of thanksgiving are also his lament that imprisonment keeps him from the Christian community churches that he loves.
Grief and lament in the Psalms are expressed through these common phrases:
Do not cast me away from your presence, and do not take your Holy Spirit from me! Ps. 51.11
Why, O Lord, do you stand far off? Why do you hide yourself in times of trouble? Ps. 10.1
How Long, O Lord? Will you forget me forever? How long will you hide your face from me? Ps. 13.1
Please read these Psalms and notice that each lament includes words of hope and faith in God’s promises even when they seem absent or interrupted.
“It is a paradox, isn’t it? A contradiction. God’s presence is known by its absence. The outline of a thing is defined by the shape of the hole it leaves when it is perceived to be gone. When God feel ‘gone,’ there is a God-shaped hole in your life. And nothing can fill that shape but God.” This comes from the PCUSA Horizons Bible Study for 2020-2021 Into the Light: Finding Hope Through Prayers of Lament by Rev. P. Lynn Miller. Publications take about a year of advance work, so Rev. Miller and the Horizons team were quite prophetic in developing this perfectly timed study into grief and lament.
God’s presence is known in absence. The presence of the church you love is very real, maybe more real, during this season of absence because of grief. The family you love has left a hole in your heart the shape of everyone you miss. Let this be the time to embrace our individual and collective grief, using lament in scripture to turn our tears into thanksgiving for the larger picture.
Grief leaves us feeling wounded, but without visible signs of injury. Thanksgiving is the understanding that there is life beyond grief; there is a larger story still at work beyond grief; there is the workings of the Holy Spirit at play without fail.
Ephesians 1:15-19
5 I have heard of your faith in the Lord Jesus and your love toward all the saints, and for this reason 16 I do not cease to give thanks for you as I remember you in my prayers. 17 I pray that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give you a spirit of wisdom and revelation as you come to know him, 18 so that, with the eyes of your heart enlightened, you may know what is the hope to which he has called you, what are the riches of his glorious inheritance among the saints, 19 and what is the immeasurable greatness of his power for us who believe, according to the working of his great power.
Grief does not stop God’s work in and through you. May it become the voice of lament within you that reflects the hope in Ephesians: that the eyes of your heart be enlightened for God is indeed at work in each of you. Do not fear your grief, embrace it and turn it into songs of thanksgiving for God’s perpetual, uninterruptable presence and glory that will tirelessly sustain you.
To God be the Glory! Jane
Thanksgiving Eve Service
A Recorded Service on Facebook and our Website
In lieu of an in person service your staff has made a video that includes our Confirmands reading scriptures, a meditation, and a story for everyone. It will go live on our church Facebook page and website on Wednesday November 25.
Deacons Mission Project - Every Child Inc.
sending gifts for children this Christmas
Instructions for Purchasing from Every Child Inc Wish List
1. Go to smile.amazon.com/gp/clpf
2. Find “Browse by Cause” towards bottom of page.
3. Search “Every Child Inc” in the search field towards the right of the page:
4. Select “Every Child Inc. on the next page:
5. Select the desired category of items to review list and make purchases:
6. Important! When selecting shipping address, be sure to select the Every Child Inc. address under the Other Addresses section when checking out:
7. Complete your purchase!
Thank you for participating in sending gifts this Advent season.
Music in our Pavilion
In late summer and early fall, our pavilion was used by the Edgewood Symphony for outdoor rehearsals and to do some taping of their music. You may be interested is seeing our pavilion in use for this concert.
Music Director Walter Morales and the Edgewood Symphony Orchestra recorded a virtual concert experience that has something for everyone. The YouTube video and recording will be release on Saturday November 21, at 7:30 p.m. and stored on the ESO Facebook page and ESO website: edgewoodsymphony.org. For more events or questions see info@edgewoodsymphony.org