Ben’s Letter for December
Dear Friends in Christ,
How does a weary world rejoice?
As I write this in mid/late November, I am struck by how many people around me are jumping ahead of Thanksgiving to set up Christmas decorations. I usually prefer to wait until the weekend after Thanksgiving. But this year many people in my life are saying “I need the joy, the coziness, the fun of the holidays more than I need some arbitrary timeline for decorations”. Touché.
A while back, as I looked for resources for Advent, I found a series called “How Does a Weary World Rejoice?” And it matched everything I was feeling in that moment. In the Christmas hymn “O Holy Night”, the first lyric goes “a thrill of hope: the weary world rejoices, for yonder breaks a new and glorious morn!” But O Holy Night never tells us how exhausted, burned-out, in-need of a break people rejoice in a weary world. I knew instantly that it was a theme I wanted to explore with you this year.
So this Advent season we will explore how a weary world rejoices. We will…
…acknowledge our weariness, with Elizabeth and Zechariah
…find joy in connection, with Mary and Elizabeth
…allow ourselves to be amazed, with Zechariah
…sing stories of hope with Mary
…make room in a manger for something good, with shepherds and livestock
…root ourselves in ritual, with Simeon and Anna
…and trust our belatedness, with Jesus and John.
Perhaps we will shed our weariness in the joy of the season. Or perhaps we will learn how a weary world still rejoices, welcoming its savior…
Blessings for you as we rejoice this season.
In Christ,
Rev. Ben