Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas! May the love and peace of the Christ child fill your hearts and celebrations this Christmas!

Join us for worship:
Christmas Eve (tonight!!): Candlelight & Carols, 6pm and 9pm
Christmas Day (tomorrow!!): Service of Holy Communion, 10am
1st Sunday of Christmas (the 26th): Lessons & Carols with Holy Communion, 10am

May the joy of the season last all 12 days of Christmas!

Guest post - A GREAT idea to spread the good news of Christmas

This post comes from the blog of the Lead Pastor of my home congregation, Sammamish Hills Lutheran Church, in Sammamish, Washington.

John says,

Good day! It isn’t my usual custom to forward mass emails, particularly the ones that come in a “you must pass this on…”, however, a request came this morning that tore at my heart. The request is simple. When you do your Christmas mailing (even if that is an “if” or by electronic means), please set aside a card of
encouragement and good cheer and send it to:

A Recovering American Soldier
c/o Walter Reed Army Medical Center
6900 Georgia Avenue NW
Washington, D.C. 20307-5001

As a person who spent more than one Christmas in the armed forces, as well as a month or so in an Army hospital, I can bear witness to either one being a lonely experience on their own. To combine the two, being hospitalized at Christmas, could be heart breaking.

Therefore, take a few extra minutes, fill out a card, mail it,and send the light of the manger to what might otherwise be a dark and lonely place. What do you write? Just a little bit about yourself, but, the most important words to write are these: thank you.

Thank you!

Grant and I are finally beginning to work on our Christmas
card list. I'll be sending at least one card to Walter Reed. Will you,
too?

On this day in 1948...

On December 10, 1948, the United Nations adopted the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. I encourage you to read it, and to pray for all those people and places waiting for recognition of basic human rights.
We pray also for Liu Xiaobo. He is being awarded the Nobel Peace Prize today for his long and non-violent struggle for fundamental human rights in China, but cannot accept this prestigious award in person because he is serving an 11-year prison sentence for proposing democratic reforms. His prize was placed on an empty chair.

Decorations - and a Blessing for the Christmas Tree

Is your Christmas tree up yet? Ours is not, partly because I'd really like to get the multiplying dust bunnies out from under the sofa before we bring anything else into the family room, partly because the days just fly by and we never seem to get to the task (that, and Grant and I are a little more tired than we used to be during Advent... I have renewed appreciation and admiration for all you parents, especially those parenting more than one child!).

I must confess, I don't feel like I need a whole lot of decorations up this year, as I could spend hours just sitting and watching our seven-week old daughter. That's probably predictable, and maybe a little corny, but I think it may be good for me, too - to think about what this season of anticipation is really about, to be thankful for life and love, to do just one thing at a time, to be forced to slow down.

One of the Advent devotions Grant and I are reading together is titled "Hurry Up and Wait." Do you feel that push/pull in your life these days? Stores would have us hurry up and shop, here at church we ponder what it means to wait on God. With all of the commitments of the season - at work, at school, with friends and family, even at church, it can feel like we hurry from one thing to the next without even being able to catch our breath sometimes. Some of us even like it that way. Maybe that's why God came down as a baby - to convince us to slow down enough to notice the little things, to break into our lives with a schedule we can't adjust by sheer force of will (a baby is hungry when a baby is hungry, after all, convenient timing or not), to be as vulnerable as we are, to encourage us to love.

Maybe I'll appreciate our Christmas tree, and all the other gifts of the season, all the more when it finally is up, having been made to wait.

Here's a blessing for the Christmas tree at your house. It is adapted from Sundays and Seasons Year A 2008 © 2007 Augsburg Fortress. Even if your tree's been up for weeks, it's not to late to bless it!

This reading and blessing may be used when the tree is first lit, or at any other appropriate time.

Psalm 96:11-13
Let the heavens rejoice, and let the earth be glad;
let the sea thunder and all that is in it;
Let the field be joyful and all that is therein.
Then shall all the trees of the wood shout for joy at your coming, O Lord,
for you come to judge the earth.
You will judge the world with righteousness
and the peoples with your truth.

Blessing
Be praised, O God, for the blessings around us that point to you.
Be praised, O God, for the signs of this holy season that awaken us in wonder.
Praise for the steadfast green of this tree, like your love, O God, enduring all seasons.
Praise for the light that illumines our darkness, like Christ, who brings light to the world.
Join our voices with those of the tree and of all creation, who sing at your coming:
Glory to God in the highest,
And peace to God’s people on earth.
Amen

Hope over hatred and despair

Remember Pearl Harbor!

Nation will not take up sword against nation, nor will they train for war anymore. Isaiah 2:4c

Sixty-nine years ago today the naval air forces of Japan launched a devastating surprise attack on United States naval ships and other military targets on the Hawaiian island of Oahu. It was the worst defeat recorded for the United States Navy. Over 2700 lives were lost that December morning. Over 1100 men were killed when the battleship U.S.S. Arizona took a direct hit in its black powder magazines.

The attack was a complete success in the eyes of the Japanese airmen who flew in the raid, lead by Imperial Japanese Navy Commander Mitsuo Fuchida.

The attack by Japan forced the United States to declare war on the Japanese empire, as well as her allies Germany and Italy.

The battle cry “Remember Pearl Harbor” sent Americans by the millions to enlist in the war effort and support it with their flesh, blood, and treasure. The war was fought until August 1945 when Japan surrendered unconditionally to the United States and her allies.

The war in the Pacific was especially brutal, fueled by racism on both sides that dehumanized the foe and traumatized the combatants.

America would suffer a string of defeats from December 1941 until April 1942, when a retaliatory raid was launched against Japan by U.S. Army Air Corps bombers flown off a naval carrier.

An air man on that raid was Sgt. Jake DeShazer, who flew as a bombardier on Plane No. 16 that launched from the U.S.S. Hornet.

After the war, Commander Fuchida was despondent and out of work. He represented many of his fellow Japanese, a thoroughly defeated foe.

In 1950 Mr. Fuchida went to hear Mr. DeShazer speak at an evangelism rally in Japan. Mr. DeShazer had made a promise on April 18th, 1942 as he was bombing the empire of Japan, that if he survived the Doolittle Raid he would return to Japan as a Christian missionary.

Two old foes had a chance to meet, and Jake DeShazer brought Mitsuo Fuchida to accept Jesus Christ as his savior.

Both men endured ridicule and outright rejection by their former comrades in arms for befriending the enemy.

Later in his life, exactly twenty-five years after leading the attack on Pearl Harbor, Mitsuo Fuchida presented the Pearl Harbor survivors association with a bible.

Fuchida and DeShazer remained close friends for the rest of their lives.

It is a miracle, that in the cauldron of human conflict played out in the Pacific Theater of Operations during WW2, two old foes found a common identity in Jesus Christ, the Prince of Peace.

Inspiration

Looking for some reflective inspiration this Advent? Check out Jan Richardson's blog, The Advent Door: entering a contemplative Christmas.

Looking for ways to keep the heart of Christmas in the season and ideas for not getting overwhelmed by consumerism? Check out Advent Conspiracy.

Happy browsing!

A new (old) sound for Advent

This is not Wyle E. Coyote's anvil, though when I think about it, that's probably where most of my exposure to anvils came from as a kid: Road Runner cartoons. No, this is Isaiah's anvil, as in Isaiah 2:4: They shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruning hooks; nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war anymore.

Isaiah 2:1-5 was the Old Testament reading for the first Sunday in Advent in the Revised Common Lectionary this year. And we heard it at CtK last night during our Advent Evening Prayer. Perhaps the sound of sledgehammer meeting anvil is a better soundtrack for Advent than jingle bells and cash register drawers (thanks to Rolf Jacobson for talking about Jim Liburg's sermon with the mother of all object lessons: an anvil in the sanctuary).

Can you imagine a world where no one learns war anymore? Where soldiers aren't trained to kill, children are not left orphans or dead as collateral damage casualties themselves, where women aren't victims of sexual assault as a weapon of war, and the whole world actually lives in peace?

Isaiah can imagine it. The prophet has seen it in a vision from God.

May God grant us faith in the coming Prince of Peace, and hope so sure that we can start using that anvil, even now. Come, Lord Jesus.

World AIDS Day

December 1st is World AIDS Day. Please join in praying for all those who live with HIV/AIDS and for those who care for HIV/AIDS patients.

Check out Bishop Hanson's World AIDS Day message.

An Ubuntu Christmas

The newest issue of Bold Cafe is here. Check out the reflections on Advent and Christmas.