That's right, tonight is my First Christmas...as a pastor of a congregation. I am excited. I am nervous. I am like a little kid on Christmas Eve I think - still with the twinkle in my eye, looking for the greatest gift that we can ever receive...listening with ears glued to the greatest story ever told.
In the calm before the celebration (service is one hour away and I am all alone in the parish right now) I am thinking about all the pieces that come together tonight. All of the gifts that people bring to this place...and yet, I am called to preach that it is not about what we give - it is about God who gives us the most outrageous and incredible gift ever imagined. The gift of new life in a little tiny baby, a savior who will bear my sin and the sin of the whole world so that we can be in a right relationship with God. That's what tonight is about...what we get...not in a selfish sort of counting, but in the realization that this is a gift I don't deserve, and a gift I can't repay. This gift that all are given tonight and every night is the gift of a new life in and through Jesus Christ, the baby in the manger, the man on the cross, the Lord in the light of the resurrection. Tonight is about what we get...and God pulls out all the stops, giving fully of Godself so that we won't be in want. God gives us God's only son...first as a baby in a manger. Counter-cultural.
So with that I am going to step away for some quiet prayer before people start flooding in. I pray that all may come to know God's amazing gift to all the world tonight and that all can celebrate and go out telling of this great gift...sharing the best gift ever given with one another, with friend and neighbor. God's at work in and through this gift - in each one of us, in our communities, and in the church in the world. Merry Christmas!
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