Zechariah couldn't say a word for his wife's whole pregnancy. His voice came back the day their son was named, and he used it to praise God, then to name what was coming, the tender mercy of our God. He said it months before the shepherds heard anything, while the world still looked exactly as it had the day before.
Not everyone arrives in December with much Christmas in them. These four Sundays stay with the harder parts of the story. A family tree with scandal in it. A long silence. Witnesses nobody would have picked. A shadow across the manger. Mercy runs through all four.
“because of the tender mercy of our God, by which the rising sun will come to us from heaven to shine on those living in darkness and in the shadow of death, to guide our feet into the path of peace.”
Luke 1:78-79, NIV
Matthew 1:1-17
Matthew opens the Christmas story with a list of names, and it isn't a tidy one. There are outsiders in it, and people whose worst moments are still on the record. We start where the gospel starts, with the family God chose to come through.
Malachi 4:5-6 and Luke 1:5-25
Malachi closes the Old Testament, and then the story goes quiet until an angel turns up in the temple. This Sunday sits in that silence, and asks what it does to faith when heaven says nothing.
Luke 2:8-20 and Matthew 2:1-12
The birth announcement went to shepherds working a night shift, and the ones who traveled farthest were foreigners reading the sky. Neither group is who anyone would have picked to carry the news, which may be the point.
Luke 2:25-35
Our Christmas Sunday service, and the last of the four. Mary and Joseph bring the baby to the temple, and Simeon takes him in his arms, blesses them, then tells Mary what this child will cost her. Christmas Sunday carries the joy and the cost together.
Thursday, December 24, at 4 PM
A lot of December goes into getting ready for one morning. This service is for stopping before it comes.
Tom Carter brings the message. The service is livestreamed, so you can be in the room or watch from home.
We're on Nees Avenue between Clovis and Sunnyside, with the lot off Preuss on the west side of campus. Free coffee and tea in the pavilion starting 30 minutes before each service, and New Hope Kids at the 9:30 and 11 AM services. The 9:30 service is also livestreamed.
