PASTOR’S PEN . . .
by Pastor Dave Templin

“Money, Money, Money…” goes the ABBA song.  We have a kind of love-hate relationship with money.  We work hard to get (more of) it.  All the while we grumble about our job and the extra effort demanded if we are to get ahead.  We will even go so far as to steal time from family, friends, and even our own health (rest and re-creation) in our dash for the cash.  We dream of life on “Easy Street.”  Only “Easy Street” seems always to be a couple more streets over.  We tire of the rat-race even while we can’t seem to bring ourselves to give it up.

How do you get ready?  Ready for Christmas?

I’m not talking here about all the shopping which began well before Halloween this year.  (It was a time-warp kind of weird to see jack-o-lanterns and witch’s costumes just down the aisle from the imitation Christmas trees, the decorations, and the signs touting the latest in Christmas gifts for family and friends.)  Neither am I talking about the parties, the baking, nor the planning of trips to grandma’s house.

How to you get ready for Christmas?  For Christ’s (re)birth in your busy and distracted life?  What feeds and inspires your spirit?  Your soul?  And draws you closer to God – not just in warm fuzzy feelings, but in solid, hope-filled ways?

Do you use an Advent candle wreath?  Pondering the meaning of this One in whom we place our life’s hope?  Reading the accompanying scriptures that speak so powerfully of our human need of God’s new life, wholeness and healing in our so fragmented and broken world?  Watching the light grow week by week as we watch for the Savior whom we all so desperately need?

Do you read the daily devotions found in the little devotional booklets made available through the church?   Walking along the journey of faithful prophets and people who experienced the same questions and struggles as we?  Hearing the Word of hope, peace, joy and love born, and borne, in God’s gracious Gift for us?

Do you ponder the words of the Advent hymns we sing?  Hearing the echoes of longing in our own hearts as we seek refreshment, respite, and redemption in a world filled with hatred, death, and party-line special interests?

Getting ready for Christmas is what Advent is really all about.  It is hearing the cries of the prophets’ “How long, O Lord?” as they spring from our hearts and lips.  It is catching the amazing vision of angels promising a new way.  It is journeying through the darkness toward that distant light.

It is then arriving at a manger, amazed that God would choose this way, this One who is in every way like us, to not only show us the way back to God, but to be the Way.  And to leave that manger-bed as did the shepherds – singing praises to God and carrying that incredibly good news into a new year, filled with new life.

It is time to get ready. 

            —— Pastor Dave