A CHRISTMAS CAROL AND GRACE IN PRACTICE
Scrooge did it all, and infinitely more
I will make you a light for the Gentiles, that you may bring my salvation to the ends of the earth. Isa 49:6
“I’m getting to the airport at 5 am, I don’t think I’ll hit bad wait times,” I thought to myself. Seeing curbside drop off caused me to reconsider. I was greeted by a line of cars with flashing lights, and weary passengers weighed down with suitcases waiting in line. So I stood in line waiting, waiting to print my boarding pass, waiting to drop off my suitcase. Everyone around me seemed to be forgetting how to move through an airport properly, and I found my own patience pretty scarce at 5am sans coffee. “Yes, you need to have your ID out and ready,” I muttered, tapping my foot. The security lines were even longer, with more confusion, more forgetting to remove shoes, more foot tapping from me. These long lines were encroaching on my precious “sit-at-the-gate-reading-books-and-people-watching” time. Even when I got to the gate it was pretty packed. I had my coat resting on the seat next to me, and then, glancing at the crowds, I resentfully moved my coat to the ground, to open up the seat. All these fellow humans were really encroaching on my personal comfort and happiness.
As I waited (and waited) for the boarding process to begin, I stopped aimlessly scrolling on my phone and looked up, taking out my headphones, mostly to listen for boarding announcements but also letting in some of the clamor around me. And then I made eye contact with a smiley little toddler who was staggering around. She was the most chipper person at the gate, just content to be walking around with her dad. I saw an elderly couple, talking about how big their grandkids would be and how eager they were to see them. Every person in those long lines was eager to be going somewhere or see loved ones, not nuisances, fellow sojourners. And I’d been viewing their journeys as lesser than my own. I am constantly struck by my own myopia. How easily I get caught in the snare of my own comforts and emotions! I pulled out A Christmas Carol sitting at my gate and was struck (again) when I read the lament of Jacob Marley:
Business! Mankind was my business; charity, mercy, forbearance, benevolence, were all my business. The dealings of my trade were but a drop of water in the comprehensive ocean of my business! At this time of the rolling year I suffer most. Why did I walk through crowds of fellow-beings with my eyes turned down, and never raise them to that blessed Star which led the Wise Men to a poor abode! Were there no poor homes to which its light would have conducted me!
I set the book down and did another glance around the airport. Everyone in that gate was my business, a fellow passenger. I don’t want to be Scrooge, I really don’t, but I saw my own ugly Scrooge-ness as I stood waiting in those lines. You can’t help but feel that Dickens wrote A Christmas Carol for the Christian, reminding us that our gaze should be fixed on a blessed star and the first founder of this season. It’s in following the star the wise men were led to Christ, and so it is in our journey. We are pointed to Christ, and after that we see newfound opportunities to love those around us.
Dickens was trying to show us, indirectly, that we are capable of great selfishness but also of great compassion. That a cantankerous morning in the airport doesn’t have to have the final say on how I treat other people for the rest of the day. Even a life of selfishness can be redeemed in Christ. This little Christmas tale pushes all of us to consider what to do with the time we’ve been given and to learn there is something far greater beyond our own desires and pride. We can open up our hearts to those around us, and what better time to do so than the season of Advent.
In Advent we wait; we wait as sojourners standing in a TSA line, but with far more hope. I have about as much control over my life as I do making sure the plane safely lands, but I can soak in the beauty of the sunrise from the plane window. I can help get an overhead bag down for the elderly couple in front of me. In my little row I might just have the potential to make a little difference, even if it’s just viewing my fellow travelers as humans.
The short speech Scrooge’s nephew, Fred, gives after his uncle chastises him for his celebratory spirit captures well the theme of the season:
I am sure I have always thought of Christmas time, when it has come round, as a good time; a kind, forgiving, charitable, pleasant time; the only time I know of, in the long calendar of the year, when men and women seem by one consent to open their shut-up hearts freely, and to think of people below them as if they were really fellow-passengers to the grave, and not another race of creatures bound on other journeys.
I’m not much of a crier, but I do cry reading A Christmas Carol every year, and I’ve choked through every performance of it, this year was no exception. The message of it doesn’t change and always compels me to be kinder and gentler to my fellow sojourners. We are all of us continuing to wait, but our time here isn’t forever. And when we look at our own lives as the gift they are, a spark of gratitude kindles a fire of generosity. When we realize the founder of Christmas came for all of us while still in our Scrooge-ness, our hearts change. It’s a miracle that Christ came to us, loving the unlovable. He came to a world of sheep desperately needing a shepherd, to selfish humans reluctant to share a seat, and to be light in great darkness. With Him we our selfishness gives way to see our neighbors as individuals to be loved and served.
In the last few lines of A Christmas Carol, we see a transformed Scrooge, a redeemed Christian living a life of joy and peace. We see the miracle of what happens when an embittered miser is met by divine grace:
Scrooge was better than his word. He did it all, and infinitely more; and to Tiny Tim, who did NOT die, he was a second father. He became as good a friend, as good a master, and as good a man as the good old city ever knew, or any other good old city, town, or borough, in the good old world… It was always said of him that he knew how to keep Christmas well, if any man alive possessed the knowledge. May that truly be said of us, and all of us!
![[Bible Study] Chapter 7+8 | 2Corinthians](https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5852f18a20099e30cd2c01dc/1639147122218-4WBOGZVMZMAUCSEZ4KJU/cor+78.jpg)
![[Sunday] Await the Nativity](https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5852f18a20099e30cd2c01dc/1638495832421-GE6I616E0YQQ1RHNDQH4/Await+2a.jpg)
[Sunday] Await the Nativity
The prophet Isaiah is warning us of our proclivity to build foundations upon the power of Babylon rather than the kingdom of God. The gift of the nativity is the place where the world's power structures are completely upended and the original creation is put back to rights.
Questions for the week
Describe a time when you were so focused on perfection but were actually just shallowly covering up your faults?
Read 2 Kings 20:12-19. Why is Isaiah upset with Hezekiah? What have they tried too hard to be like?
In what ways have you sought pride, power, and prestige trying to be like Babylon?
Read Isaiah 13:6-16, 14:1. The day of the Lord comes to call us from pride, power, and prestige. How does the day of the Lord bring about God’s wrath as well as his compassion (hint: connect this to Jesus on the cross)?
What Had happened at Grace this week.
![[Sunday] Royal Introduction - Kingdom Way](https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5852f18a20099e30cd2c01dc/1732292654207-IOAL90WWETSNSYJWNI92/KW+1a.jpg)
![[Sunday] All Things - Keep It Simple](https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5852f18a20099e30cd2c01dc/1731687836393-04YTHZK3FOM503Y57MM3/Simple4a.jpg)
What if We Are The Unfaithful Ones?
Facing the Darkness We Are in Now
This article is by Taylor Mertins:
How the faithful city has become a whore! She that was full of justice, righteousness lodged in her — but now murderers! (Isa 1:21)
There’s a reason that Isaiah 1:21 doesn’t appear in the Revised Common Lectionary. When we think of Advent we conjure up in our minds the Chrismon trees and the lights surrounding the altar. We remember the purple and pink Advent candles and the red plumage of the poinsettias. We consider the plight of Mary and Joseph to the small town of bread knowing not at all what their future would hold. We like our religious observances to be orderly and helpful and we don’t even mind a sermon that steps lightly on our toes because we know that everyone has room for improvement. But then when we hear these words from what some call the “5th gospel,” we experience some painful theological whiplash.
The faithful city has become a whore!
She was once full of justice but now she is full of murderers!
Who wants to hear about that kind of stuff in church?
In her book Advent: The Once & Future Coming of Jesus Christ, Fleming Rutledge writes:………………………………………..
Read the whole article at https://mbird.com/bible/what-if-we-are-the-unfaithful-ones/
![[Bible Study] Chapter 6 | 2Corinthians](https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5852f18a20099e30cd2c01dc/1638494872876-TWWETOEMHDR6S3S94S1I/cor+6.jpg)
Wednesday Advent Christmas Time Carols + Photos Dec 1st
Join us and sing Christmas Carols.
![[Sunday] Await the Ornament](https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5852f18a20099e30cd2c01dc/1637891860017-5349YN5DBWRW8JE8NPYS/Await+1a.jpg)
[Sunday] Await the Ornament
The beginning of advent can be a rough time for a young boy. All hyped up from the fun of Thanksgiving, school can be a reality check making him feel like Christmas will never come. For the children of Israel, a bloviating Assyrian makes very real threats, causing them to doubt if the Father is really there. However, a loving father gives us gifts to sustain us until Christmas morning.
Questions for the week
Describe a time when you’ve been tempted to listen to voices to doubt God’s love for you.
In Isaiah, the King of Assyria is trying to convince God’s people to doubt God’s power and presence. What prayer does the king of God’s people pray? Read Isaiah 37:14-20.
What does he remember about God, even in this dark time?
Read Isaiah 37:21-38. How does God deliver his people from the King of Assyria?
Ultimately, how does God deliver you from the dark times in your life?
What Had happened at Grace this week.
Everett John McWhorter Baptism
Watch Everett John McWhorter Baptism
Everett John McWhorter Baptism
November 26th 2021; 11am
Click to watch the live stream.
An Ever Widening Future
The many lives of the ancient Israel — and you.
The many lives of the ancient Israel — and you.
This morning’s devotion comes from Daily Grace, the latest 365-day devotional from Mockingbird.
Sing, O barren one who did not bear; burst into song and shout, you who have not been in labor!
For the children of the desolate woman will be more than the children of her that is married, says the LORD.
Enlarge the site of your tent, and let the curtains of your habitations be stretched out; do not hold back; lengthen your cords and strengthen your stakes.
For you will spread out to the right and to the left, and your descendants will possess the nations and will settle the desolate towns. (Isaiah 54:1-3)
You’ve known those people who, like cats, seem to have at least nine lives. They’ve survived illnesses and accidents and really toxic relationships, and they are, miraculously, still standing. The Israel that Isaiah addresses here is like that cat — possessing, at the very least, four lives.
• She is the barren woman of the exile in Babylon, fearing that Israel’s family tree is in danger of being uprooted (v. 1).
• She is the widowed woman of that same exile, feeling at times like God, her husband, has died (v. 4).
• She is the momentarily deserted wife (vv. 6-7), whom God walked out on in anger over her flagrant unfaithfulness.
Yet somehow, in God’s plan, Isaiah prophesies that all those past and tragic lives will be swallowed up in a new “covenant of peace” (v. 10). And her new identity will be that of the reunited wife of God and beloved mother of God’s growing brood. In fact, verse 2 suggests that she will need to keep patching that tent, keep widening those stakes in all directions, in order to hold all the children God will bring into her home.
I don’t know you, so I don’t know how many lives you’ve had nor which life you are currently living. I do pray, however, that God’s presence in your life will enlarge your tent to shelter an ever-widening future.
Await: Daily Gifts From a Loving Father
Remember being little and excitedly waiting for Christmas to come. As we await the coming messiah, its like we are moving on a grand advent calendar moving closer to the coming Christ. But waiting is hard and can feel like there is nothing good for us. In that struggle of waiting God leaves us daily gifts, a foretaste of what is to come.
Remember being little and excitedly waiting for Christmas to come. As we await the coming messiah, its like we are moving on a grand advent calendar moving closer to the coming Christ. But waiting is hard and can feel like there is nothing good for us. In that struggle of waiting God leaves us daily gifts, a foretaste of what is to come.
![[Sunday] Await Epiphany](https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5852f18a20099e30cd2c01dc/1640701470511-JW1U7GVOJZGZ5EGTWN8F/await+epiphanya.jpg)
![[Sunday] Await Holy Night](https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5852f18a20099e30cd2c01dc/1640274898409-HRS2H9CH8NZA5G7B0FT0/Await+5a.jpg)
![[Sunday] Await the Empty Tomb](https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5852f18a20099e30cd2c01dc/1639758127214-0JWS87ILEHZ44BP3W3Z5/Await+4a.jpg)
![[Sunday] Await the Christmas Ham](https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5852f18a20099e30cd2c01dc/1639149545618-L5PE1GGD1ICPLYK0PY6K/Await+3a.jpg)
![[Sunday] Christ the King Sunday 2021](https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5852f18a20099e30cd2c01dc/1637337391706-RFGQNEMC1L5ACOOKG6N8/CTK+21a.jpg)
[Sunday] Christ the King Sunday 2021
Just as Christ is “the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end,” at the close of every liturgical year, we look forward with a renewed hope in Christ’s coming again in glory to reign as Lord forever. In the same way, we look forward to our own resurrection and the time of a new earth — an earth that is no longer broken by sin and groaning. Christ will come again in glory just as surely as He came the first time — when He was born. So we have “transition” at the end of the “long green season” into the Advent Season, the new beginning of the liturgical year.
Questions for the week
What does it mean to be a king?
Read John 10:22-30. What did it mean for the disciples to ask if Jesus was the Christ?
Read John 18:33-40. How does Jesus define his kingdom?
How is Jesus different from the kings, political leaders, and rulers of our world? How does Jesus rule in a different way?
When you see problems in the world, what comfort do you get, knowing that Jesus is king?
What Had happened at Grace this week.
Photos of Operation Christmas Child and LWML Rally 21
See this LWML and Christmas Child Photos
Stressed Out About Thanksgiving
The Anxiety of Wanting a Perfect Holiday Feast
Read the Rest at Stressed Out About Thanksgiving - Mockingbird (mbird.com)
I‘m already stressed out about Thanksgiving. I should amend that previous statement. I’ve been stressed about Thanksgiving for months now. As the holiday approaches, my anxiety level is going sky high.
It’s going to be my first experience cooking and hosting the gobble gobble day. Two years ago, I cooked most of the meal and then carted it to someone else’s home. This year, though, I’ll be cooking and hosting. It’s a marathon only made somewhat easier by the fact that I don’t have to worry about roasting (or frying?) a turkey; no one particularly likes it in our family.
If all else fails …
But I’m already stressing … How am I going to cook and bake everything with only one oven? When are we going to eat because the daughter usually is napping when I like to have Thanksgiving Din…………………
Read the Rest at Stressed Out About Thanksgiving - Mockingbird (mbird.com)
![[Sunday] Strong Weakness - Forgive & Give](https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5852f18a20099e30cd2c01dc/1636732880933-BW95MBE2L3G410IF4JYJ/F%26G+4a.jpg)
[Sunday] Strong Weakness - Forgive & Give
So much of our capital time and money is spent trying to make ourselves look strong, to give us something to boast about. This makes it where we spend all that capital on ourselves. But when we look through the cross of Christ, it softens our hearts, and we can boast in our weakness.
Sermon!
Questions for the week
What is the biggest mountain top experience you’ve had in your faith walk?
What is the darkest valley you’ve experienced in your faith walk?
Paul talks about his mountain top experience and his darkest valley.
Read 2 Corinthians 12:1-10. What does Jesus say about our weaknesses?How could you reassure someone this week that God works through the cross, even in their weaknesses?
What Had happened at Grace this week.
Guys night is every 1st Thursday