Merry Christmas, 2011

Merry Christmas! 

Do not be afraid;
for see - I am bringing you good news of a great joy for all the people:
to you is born this day in the city of David a Savior,
    who is the Messiah, the Lord.
          ~ Luke 2:10

My experience has been, that when Christmas falls on a Sunday, people either come to the Christmas Eve service the night before, or to the Sunday Christmas service. Here in the Pacific Northwest of the United States, we usually don't have a Christmas Day service. Not sure why, exactly, we just haven't. So, when Christmas falls on a Sunday, I've tried to do something a little different for the Sunday service. Here's a Las Posadas type of service that I've adapted before. As part of the service, I ask for some volunteers to stand outside the church, or at least outside the sanctuary. Sometimes we leave the door slightly ajar so that the people inside and outside can hear one another. Today, I just noticed that these responses (after the initial knocking) can be sung to the tune of St. Kevin (Come, Ye Faithful, Raise the Strain).*

Blessed Christmas!

Rev. Joel

Joseph & Mary stand outside the sanctuary, accompanied by youths and children. One member of the group outside knocks on the sanctuary door and says:

Listen! I am standing at the door, knocking;
if you hear my voice and open the door,
    I will come in to you and eat with you, and you with me.           (Rev. 3:20)

 [The following can be sung ...]
People Outside:

In the name of God, we beg: will you let us enter?
We are tired and we are cold. May we please have shelter?

People Inside:

You look dirty and you smell. Will you please keep moving.
For you kind there is no place, for our inn is decent.

People Outside:

It is not by our own choice that today we travel.
But the emperor has said that all must be counted.

People Inside:

For your reasons we care not, every room is taken.
Can't you see the place is full? You are bad for business.

[The following section is said ...]
People Outside say:

He was in the world, and the world came into being through him;
    yet the world did not know him.
He came to what was his own, and his own people did not accept him.
But to all who received him, who believed in his name,
    he gave power to become children of God.           (John 1:10, 12)

People Inside say:

Who are the children of God?

People Outside say:

All who are led by the Spirit of God are children of God.          (Romans 8:14)

People Inside say:

To what does the Spirit of God guide us?

People Outside say:

You shall love the Lord your God with all of your heart,
    and with all of your soul, and with all your mind.
You shall love your neighbor as yourself.          (Matthew 22:37, 39)
The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness,
    generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.          (Galatians 5:22-23a)

People Inside say:

How do we know we love the Lord and have faith?

People Outside say:

What good is it, my brothers and sisters,
    if you say you have faith but do not have works?
Can faith save you?
If a brother or a sister is naked and lacks daily food,
    and one of you says to them, "Go in peace; keep warm and eat your fill,"
and yet you do not supply their bodily needs, what is the good of that?
So faith by itself, if it has not works, is dead.          (James 2:14-17)

[The following section is sung, again ...]
People Outside sing:

Will the child be born tonight out on a street corner?
Can't you find a place for him? Do you have no pity?

As the People Outside come into the sanctuary, the People Inside may stand and sing:

Oh, my goodness, do come in, You can use the manger.
For the rooms that we do have are for a rich trav'ler.

All Sing:

Gentle Mary laid her child lowly in a manger;
There he lay, the undefiled, to the world a stranger.
Such a babe in such a place, can he be the Savior?
Ask the saved of all the race who have found his favor.

All Pray:

God all-powerful,
    grant that we may rid ourselves of the works of darkness,
and that we may invest ourselves with the works of light
    in this life
        to which your Son, Jesus Christ,
    with great humility came to visit us;
so that in the final day,
    when he returns in majestic glory to judge the living and the dead,
we shall rise to eternal life through Jesus Christ,
    who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit,
    now and forever. Amen.

____
*From the United Methodist Book of Worship