Christmas is about God doing a new thing a long time ago. What makes Christmas so special is that God chose to send God's Child be born, walk in our midst, learn, teach, heal, suffer, die and be raised to new life. Christmas was the beginning of the work that would redeem us all. 

 Christmas is also about God's continuing to do new things in our lives and midst us today. Just like God worked in the life of his Son, God also is working in our midst now, creating new life, working to transform lives and focus God's resurrecting grace on the places of deepest need in this world and in our lives.

God continues to surprise us to this day by sending his Spirit to incarnate - to work through people and human history. It is ironic when we gather to celebrate the surprising birth of Jesus we become more tradition focused than normal. We eat the old foods of our ancestors. We gather to sing the most popular old hymns of Christmas time. We gather with family to remember God's gift but we often celebrate God's decisive action in the same way each year. I understand and value traditions. But this year I encourage you to find a way to surprise one another as a way of remembering the work of our surprising God.

In this Christmas season your staff, and all who love and know Pr. Larry Strenge, Pr. Elizabeth Strenge and who knew their son Daniel, are grieving and feeling lost in more ways than one after Daniel's death. His death is an aching reminder of all the people for whom Christmas this year, or for many years, has been a complex time of absence, fear or disappointment. If you are mourning, grieving and lamenting, remember that God understands your loss in only the way a parent who has lost a child to death can do.

The angel said, "Be not afraid." I need to hear that command and promise more than normal this year. God surprised Mary, Joseph, the shepherds, the Magi and others that first Christmas. I invite you to keep your eyes open. Keep your heart and mind open. 

God is not done with this world or with any of us. I pray that all of you might be surprised by God's grace as it comes in surprising places and ways, even in places and times that might seem God is forsaken and hopeless. God will not give up on you and me. God will not give up on this troubled world. That is what we celebrate, our God's surprising and incarnating gracious love of you, me and all people that we know through Jesus Christ our Lord.