[The 2012 Parish Christmas letter dated...]
The Feast of John of
the Cross
December 14, 2012
Merry Christmas, Dear Parish Family!
It is time. Christmas is arriving. Perhaps you are all
prepared – your gifts made or purchased, your home decorated and ready for
guests. Perhaps you are completely unprepared. Or perhaps you have no desire to
prepare at all and wish this time would just pass by. The Christmas Holy Days
can be wonderful or hard or both.
I think it helpful to know the birth of Christ so long
ago was both - wonderful but hard and hard but wonderful. Also helpful is knowing
that no matter how we have prepared for the Christ event, God consistently delivers
and surprises. In spite of centuries of prophecy and prophets, Israel wasn’t
ready. Mary and Joseph had nine months to prepare, and yet Joseph apparently
forgot make hotel reservations ahead of time! You can imagine the words Mary
must have had for her husband. And the shepherds, on the other hand, had no
time to prepare and like true Jonny-come-lately’s, they left their herds at a
dead run in order not to miss out. In all the chaos and preparations, still
Christ came and still a surprise.
Oh, preparation is important. Yet God’s grace is greater
still. In spite of all that was done and left undone on that Holy Night, Christ
arrives. And there is no greater thing to be done than to receive - to open the
eyes, open the heart, open the mind, open one’s life to this Little One. The
Almighty enters our reality swaddled in frailty so that we, imprisoned in our
own frailty of spiritual blindness, hard hardheartedness and preoccupation might
receive him in unsuspecting meekness and tenderness.
In order that we may no longer be estranged, God comes.
Not begrudging or ill-tempered, God comes in gentle sweetness and
vulnerability. God comes first to be held, nursed, loved, known; to be looked
upon eye to eye, to be wondered at, and even to be cuddled. Injustice, denial,
immorality, sin, death, and evil – all that will be dealt with, but it will
wait.
First we must know God to be this precious child. So then
we may know ourselves to be, first and foremost, the precious children of God.
And how great our joy!
Joy and Hope and Peace to you and all your dear ones. God
loves you so very much.
Merry Christmas,
Fr. James+
Christmas Services at St. Peter's Episcopal, Seattle ( www.stpeterseattle.org )
Sunday, Dec. 23rd - Fourth Sunday of Advent, 10am Eucharist
Monday, Dec. 24th - The Candlelight Vigil of Christmas Eve, 4pm.
Tuesday, Dec. 25th - The Christ Mass, 11am.
Christmas continues for 12 whole days! So don't miss out on...
Sunday, Dec. 30th - A Christmas Festival of Lessons and Carols, 10am
The Season after Epiphany (although I prefer 'Season OF Epiphany') marks a time of realization. Who is Jesus? What is his significance? What does he have to do with me? From the Magi, celebrated on January 6th, we learn that Christ call all nations. On the Sundays afterwards we are told of Jesus' Baptism where the Triune God is revealed simultaneously as a voice from Heaven, the Son of God being baptized and the dove/Holy spirit. We read also of the Wedding at Cana where Jesus performs his first miracle and Mary gives us a hint about following Jesus, "Do whatever he tells you." And on February 2nd is Candlemass, the celebration of Jesus Presentation in the Temple which celebrates the Light of God in the midst of the Temple and the worshiping community.
