From the Pastor

Thursday, December 23, 2025

NEWS FOR THE PEWS

FROM THE PASTOR

Dear Friends,

For me, this Christmas is such a blessing, and it’s a relief from the last few Christmases I’ve experienced. It’s not as if the season wasn’t special, or the gifts and decorations and cookies and special meals have been absent. It’s just that I haven’t been able to be as fully present in the season. Some of you know what I’m talking about. For Christmas 2023 I was still in a wheelchair recovering from emergency spine surgery that October. And then for Christmas 2024 I was returning to a wheelchair as I waited for another spine surgery in January. Constant nerve pain kept me reliant on others—on Scott at home and all of you at church.

If you’re struggling this Christmas, know you’re not alone. Health struggles, personal and family issues, job and economic pressures—these things affect each one of us at one time or another, and I’ve been where you are. For me, God’s been there through all of it, not always with the quickest or easiest resolution to my problems, but always faithfully being with me.

“Being With” lies at the heart of the Christmas story. With the nativity, God loved us so much that He became one of us. Jesus—Emmanuel, “God with us”—came to experience all the things that we do, and to show us a way of being with one another that allows us to reflect the light and love of God in our world.

Join me on Christmas Eve at 4:00 pm for A Living Nativity or at 11:00 pm for A Choral Christmas, both services including candlelight and communion.

And then, join me again for worship on Sunday, December 28, 2025, at 10:30am. “Singing Our Story” leans on scripture from Psalm 148 and Matthew 2:13-23. We’ll sing many carols we didn’t have time for on Christmas Eve, and you’re invited to share a brief, meaningful story with us. Our worship this week is more casual, and will be followed by a catered brunch in the Parlor in recognition of our 2025 storytelling grant. We’ll have prayer and song, as well as times for reflection and sharing. Come as you are! Won’t you join us?

May your Christmas be merry and bright. May God’s love be with you, this season and always.

See you soon,

Pastor Rebecca

Grounded and Growing: Christmas

Any time a baby is born there is reason to rejoice, but Christ’s birth is so much more than sentimentality. If Christ’s birth was ordinary there wouldn't be angels announcing it. If Christmas was all about a cute baby then the shepherds wouldn’t have left the field nor the magi their home. “Do not be afraid,” we read in Luke 2, “for see, I am bringing you good news of 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.”

The point isn’t that a baby is born, but that the long awaited Messiah is born. God “has remembered his steadfast love and faithfulness” that was highlighted on the fourth Sunday of Advent (Psalm 98:3). But before we get too excited, this same Psalm warns, “he is coming to judge the earth. He will judge the world with righteousness and the peoples with equity.” Maybe we should hear the news of Christ’s birth with a little fear or at least with a greater sense of its import. Isaiah 61:11 highlights the impact of this child’s birth: “For as the soil makes the sprout come up and a garden causes seeds to grow, so the Sovereign LORD will make righteousness and praise spring up before all nations.” This is what our focus should be on this Christmas day. Once again we are left with the question of whether or not we find ourselves grounded in that soil and part of the growing vineyard—will we be part of the flourishing?

As Isaac Watts writes in verse 3 of Joy to the World:

No more let sins and sorrows grow,
nor thorns infest the ground;
he comes to make his blessings flow
far as the curse is found.

May your Christmas season be grounded in the love of God, the grace of Christ, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit. [1]

From The Pastor

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