Praise the Lord for this beautiful snowy morning. It is wintry, to say the least. Gathering for the mid-week service is at 6 PM, with a warm, nourishing meal by Rodney Haines. We will spend time singing Christmas carols, and reading from the familiar prophetic passages regarding the birth of our Savior. We may also be sharing some personal memories. Come and join us.
The Adult Choir will be practicing their Christmas cantata, beginning at 7:30 PM.
Praise the Lord for the season of Advent. This season is always full of hope and expectation. Even amid defeats and disasters we see the hand of Jesus. We serve a mighty King who always goes before us in battle. He is the King of kings, who has never lost a battle.
In 1755, a series of natural and political disasters swept across the continent of Europe. In June of that year the Seven Years War broke out. There was also a poor harvest and a severe earthquake in Lisbon, Portugal. A cattle plague devastated western Europe. Even the very thoughtful felt that, perhaps, the end of the world was at hand. England called for a national day of fasting, to be held on February 6, 1756. Charles Wesley, the prolific hymn-writer of the Christian Church was commissioned to write a hymn for that occasion. In fact, he wrote 17 hymns, vigorous in their descriptions of the disasters that had befallen Europe. The disasters were portrayed as acts of a Righteous God, who was baring His arm in judgment. Throughout all of this Wesley could write,
"Whatever ills the world befall
A pledge of endless good we call,
A sign of Jesus near."
Though there may be disaster all around us, we can, as Wesley did, hold to God's "pledge of endless good". We, as Christians, see God through the eyes of Jesus, as a loving and benevolent Father whose will is for the good of His children. "Whom He loveth He chasteneth." Yet, He must work withing the boundaries of discipline, and sometimes that means that His children are reproved and chastened. However, since His purposes for us and for His world are always good we can say, as Wesley did,
"The famine all thy fullness brings,
The plague presents thy healing wings."
Even when Jesus looked at the signs of the times he promised that summer was on the way. He said, "Look up and raise your heads, because your redemption is drawing near." All of these signs, according to Jesus, are like leaves bursting forth on a fig tree. That is, when you see them you know that "summer is already near".
In Christ,
Brown
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WcjP4LgW0Rw
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