The Christmas and New Years Pastor’s Garage 2019

My Dear Friends,

Scarlette reminded me this morning that Christmas is only 5 days away! Wow.
Hard to believe. This will be the last Pastor’s Garage for the year. We’ll
start up again in mid January.

So, Merry Christmas. The dictionary says merry is a season characterized by
festivity and rejoicing. The word Christmas obviously contains the word
Christ. The *mas *has its roots in the word mass – as in communion or what
the Catholic church would refer to as the Holy Eucharist. So are we wishing
each other a merry Christ’s communion? That doesn’t feel quite right in
regards to the celebrating we are going to be doing does it? A Christ
filled festive time of rejoicing over communion? I am not sure that
explains the Christmas season that most have in their minds.

Now, I am not suggesting that what we are doing is all wrong. Most of us
don’t celebrate mass over Christmas and most of the world doesn’t really
bring Christ into the picture. We have lots of tradition and “to do’s” that
don’t have a lot to do with Jesus and mass is not even on the radar in the
evangelical church. Again, I am not suggesting for a second that you change
the way you do Christmas. I think tradition and the way it connects us in
our families and communities is really, really important.

What I would suggest though is that you bring Christ into you traditions
and your days – steer yourself back to the roots of the actual word
Christmas. Whether it’s through prayer or scripture reading or perhaps just
talking about your faith – bring Jesus into your Christmas. We try to read
the Christmas story in some form before we open our presents on Christmas
morning and then we pray together thanking Jesus for coming into the world
and dying for our sins. How will you bring Jesus into your Christmas?

As far as the mass thing, I think that should be a reminder to us that
while we are celebrating his birth and the wonderful thing that it was, we
must remember that it was only wonderful because of what he did at the end
of his life – the thing that communion points us to – his sacrificial death
for us. So whether you want to add communion to your Christmas meal or
whether you just want to find a way to remember his death, try doing
something, for that is the ultimate reason for the season. May you have a
Merry Christmas – a Christ filled festive time of rejoicing over the reason
he came to his earth. And also, have a Happy New Year as we step into 2020.
May God give us clear 20/20 vision as we move into this year and all that
he has in store for us!

*On December 24th at 7:00 pm we will have our annual Christmas Eve Service.
It will be a short candlelight service followed by light refreshments. Kids
are more than welcome and there will be glow sticks for them. Feel free to
invite a friend or neighbor.*

Please let me know if you are able to sign up and help with the Senior
Spitfires game on January 10th at 8:30. I only had a couple people respond
and I need to let them know soon who all our helpers will be.

God bless and Merry Christmas and Happy New Year,

Pastor Dave