We're going to end the 2011 calendar year with three special services I'd like to talk about today (for various reasons).
The most obvious is Christmas Eve worship, 7:00 p.m. on Saturday. We call this a service of candlelight and carols for good reason: besides the Word and Communion those are all we do! Normally I'm in favor of innovation and evolution in our church services but this is a service I've done for years upon years. That's justifiable for a couple reasons:
1. On Christmas people want a strong element of the familiar.
2. It's so dang beautiful.
Because we've done it so regularly the impurities and hitches have been refined out of the process. What you're left with is a well-paced, rich, participatory worship hour in which everyone can participate with comfort and ease. All the liturgy is sung to Christmas hymns like "The First Noel" and "Angels We Have Heard On High". We sing more hymns in between. The musicians of the church--instrumental and vocal both--are providing more music before and during the service. At the end we get to "Silent Night", turn out the church lights, and sing with raised candles. It brings a tear to the eye...often literally. The message of beauty is so condensed that it's unmistakable.
By contrast having such traditional breading allows the meat of the service--the sermon--to venture out a little. You'll hear the familiar Christmas readings but it's my pleasure to be able to translate them into the modern context in new ways. I can recall singing a song from The Grinch Who Stole Christmas, using props, and a couple other interesting forays into the Christmas Spirit. This year a current event in Genesee is going to play a prominent part in the message.
To me this is the best of both worlds: familiar and participatory service, slightly more avant garde and entertaining sermon. If you haven't been--or have friends who haven't been--you shouldn't miss it. I can almost guarantee it'll become a fixture of your Christmas tradition...probably from the moment you hear the voices of your friends/neighbors/musicians in the prelude!
Click through to hear about Christmas Day and New Year's Day!
Since we announced the Service of Remembrance for 11:00 a.m. on Sunday the 25th people have asked a lot of questions:
Mourning on Christmas morning? Really?
Yes. We're not creating the mourning, rather acknowledging it. The holidays aren't 100% carefree, or even "happy" (whatever that means), for everyone. Missing a loved one on Christmas can be a sad and lonely experience. You don't want to "ruin everyone's holiday" so you kind of keep it inside while everyone celebrates. What nobody realizes is that everybody else misses dad or grandma or whomever too, just nobody's talking about it. The ironic thing is, life and death and tears turning into hope are woven into the Christmas story itself. We've just whitewashed the Christmas images so thoroughly that everybody now feels pressure to live up to the "Merry" part of it and feels strange if every moment isn't an expression of glee. All we'll be doing Christmas morning is exploring all the ramifications of Christmas with an eye towards accepting a little sense of loss--in ourselves and others--in addition to the glee and excitement.
I don't know about you, but I don't feel 100% right buzzing through the enjoyment unless we also take a moment to hold hands and pray with folks who also might be suffering a little...which is pretty much all of us.
Who will come? Who belongs here?
I imagine the people who want and/or need to come will find their way. Whether that's 10 people or 100 doesn't matter. God's compassion grows wherever two or more are gathered, which means by definition if anybody comes it'll be good.
As for who belongs: anyone remembering a loved one, the family of anyone remembering a loved one, or anyone who wants to support people remembering loved ones.
Will it be totally sad?
This is a huge misconception. In general the holiday forces us to act happy even if we're not, for the sake of appearances and for each other. So the natural response when people hear about something like this is to ask, "Are you going to force us to act sad now?"
Argh.
A good service of worship doesn't lead you to feel any particular way intentionally. Rather it opens the door for people feeling all kinds of ways, lets them express their feelings, reminds them that God is with them in the midst of their day no matter what happens in it, and allows all of these differently-responding people to gather together and support each other. That's all we're doing here. The issue in our society is that we've marginalized those who are grieving on Christmas...said it's not OK. All this service will do is say, "It is OK to feel this way too. Here's a little oasis where we affirm and acknowledge that. You don't have to be happy or sad or anything you don't want to be. Just know that Christmas touches you right where you are, wherever that may be." If we do our jobs right this won't be a "horribly sad moment" that's "ruining Christmas". Instead it'll be a little rest stop, an affirmation and a breather that allows you to fully enjoy and participate in all of the rest of the wonderful Christmas things. In other words, it hopefully won't make Christmas sadder overall, but happier!
What are you going to do?
Read the Christmas story. Talk about it a little. Maybe sing a song. We might have a time when people can share stories or pictures...probably after the service if they want. There will be cookies. One of the Sunday School classes made beautiful remembrances for people to take home with them. Mostly we'll be together and pray together for comfort and strength and hope. Prayer will probably be the most important feature of this service. It's not too hard and not too long. It's certainly not a big production. Simple, honest, comforting, and hopeful are the bywords of the day...kind of like Christ being born in a manger really.
Finally we move on to New Year's Day the following Sunday. Given the holiday and late nights and football and such this probably won't be a huge service. Some people take that as a sign to mail it in. I can't stand that. It's an opportunity! Did you know that there are worship things you can do with 50 people that would never work with 100? This is going to be one of those days.
Everybody makes resolutions for the New Year, right? Well, we want to acknowledge the cycle of the year and cap off the circle we've been walking all through the Advent/Christmas season with a special service of renewal. For the service we'd like you to come up with at least one thing you'd like to leave behind and/or repent of in the old year and one thing you'd love to jump into in the new. I don't know if we'll have you write those on folded-up papers or simply keep them in your heart, but either way we'll have you come to the altar and put them before God, receiving the sign of the cross and getting a blessing from the Pastor allowing you to put behind the old and embrace the new. If you're coming you can start thinking about these questions early!
We hope you can join us for these beautiful services!
--Pastor Dave (pastordave@geneseelutheranparish.org)
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