Advent and Christmas 2024

JOIN US AT PEACE THIS ADVENT AND CHRISTMAS SEASON!

The Advent/Christmas season begins soon—December 1^st to be exact. And this year may find you emotionally or mentally or spiritually running on empty. We are tired. Tired of the us-versus-them. Tired of the distrust and line drawing. Tired of the political nastiness. Tired of waiting for prayers to be answered. Tired of our all-too-familiar personal struggles. We come to Advent and Christmas weary for a world and ourselves that will one day be made right.

So it seems to me it’s fitting that Advent and the preparations for Christmas, have a certain tone. We don’t cruise into Christmas with triumph and a rah-rah certainty that all is well. We begin by waiting. This feeling I know you know too well. Waiting for the test results. Waiting for the phone call. Waiting for your kid to come back or the job offer to come through. Waiting for your parents to get better or finally apologize. Waiting for the family you longed for or that financial relief you desperately need. Waiting for prayers to be answered or some belonging to be found. We are very familiar with weary waiting; waiting for something or someone we cannot make happen ourselves.

Yet, throughout Advent, we are encouraged by God’s promise; that God in Jesus Christ has come, is coming, and will come again. We can live in the promise of God present with us and live into the promise of his coming once again; a return, a restoration of all things to their true purpose, a goodness which we long for.

And as Christmas will remind us once again, we don’t wait in vain. Something that took place over 2000 years ago still resounds through us today. Christ’s birth is hope realized. Now we have someone; a reality, the truth, a way of living, a purpose for life! It’s hope for all of us. For the anxious. For the afraid. For the vulnerable. For the not-feeling-so-joyful. For the overwhelmed and at-the-end-of-their-rope. For the least of these. For the left-out and the lonely………for the weary.

I invite you to Advent and Christmas at Peace. To join together in worship on Sundays and Wednesdays; joining in learning and serving and celebrating together throughout these weeks. For Christ has come—”a thrill of hope the weary world rejoices.” We rejoice for Christ has been born, the Emmanuel, God with us. Thanks be to God!

—Pastor Mark Nelson

For me, the season of Advent begins when I hear us sing in worship, “O Come, O Come, Emmanuel.” Listening to this hymn, it dawns on me; we are inviting God to step into our lives. And, if you’re the church, we make preparations. We decorate. We put up a tree. We ask: “What do we need to do to get ready to receive God’s chosen one?”

To answer, Christians turn, during Advent, to prophets like Isaiah and Mary, Elizabeth and Malachi. They’ve done this whole “prepare for the arrival of the Lord” business before. They have wisdom for us. They are ready to advise us on how to prepare for the coming of the Messiah to us any time in any place.

This year, during the four weeks of Advent, we’re going to visit four of these experts, Malachi, Isaiah, Elizabeth, and Mary.

—Pastor Mark Nelson

• December 1: “Christmas at Malachi’s House”
• December 8: “Christmas at Elizabeth’s House”
• December 15: “Christmas at Mary’s House”
• December 22: Worship featuring the children’s Christmas program and music from all the church choirs

Christians have claimed from our beginnings that Jesus was the Messiah foretold in the Scriptures. His reign began a new witness of the relationship between God and humanity. Jesus did not replace the expectations of what the Messiah would do; he fulfilled them. What were these expectations? The prophet Isaiah uses four royal titles to describe the Messiah: “Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.” In Advent midweek worship, we will ponder each title and how the people understood it then, how Jesus did or did not fulfill the title, and what these titles mean for us today.

—Pastor Mark Nelson

• December 4: “Wonderful Counselor”
• December 11: “Mighty God”
• December 18: “Everlasting Father” and “Prince of Peace”