From the Pastor...
"Right Here...With Us?"
by Joel Domingo, Executive Pastor

One of the songs that might be heard during the Christmas season is O Come, O Come, Emmanuel.  While the melody itself carries a sort of ethereal feel to it, it is the lyrics themselves that are equally rich in meaning.   Written somewhere around the 12th century, they speak of an anticipation for an Emmanuel, (sometimes spelled, Immanuel) which literally translates to "God is with us."
 
The idea of God is with us is the center of what the story of Christmas is all about.   It is the unique and mysterious act whereby God decides to enter the world and into the human condition.   This act, done in love has been called the "bedrock upon which rests all subsequent acts of God in this world."
 
I cannot help but ponder just how incredible this mystery is, because it tells us that God isn't just concerned with the strong and powerful, but also the small and seemingly insignificant, that he offers an identification with the margins of our lives.  This is precisely what God did in Jesus-- that the divine took on a local habitation and a name and then chose to be the living example of what true love is.
 
This Christmas, may you be reminded of that mystery, and may it propel you to celebrate that fact that God truly is, with us!
 
Merry Christmas.
 
Pastor Joel

This Sunday
"Light, Pain and the Waiting Room"
Craig Mathison
Luke 2:22-40

    

What did the birth of Jesus mean to those who were closest to it as it happened?  Luke's account of the birth of Jesus exclusively introduces us to several people who all experienced it very differently.  Their  stories challenge us to not simply buy refined, packaged and traditional meanings that really don't change us.  We get to grapple with these unusual witnesses and how the Christmas drama ends up as really good news for us, but not necessarily the easy news that fits on a Christmas card.