Praise the Lord for the most wonderful time of the year, a festive season of sharing and caring. I had my first treatment yesterday. The doctor and his team are most caring, compassionate, and competent. After the visit to the doctor's office, Alice and went to/for Christmas shopping in the "City". (We actually only went to Sam's Club). I love Christmas in the City. "City sidewalks, busy sidewalks dressed in holiday style; in the air there's a feeling of Christmas.

The Lord has blessed us immensely during the Holy Days of Advent. The Worship service last Sunday was a blessing, and it was followed by a Church-wide reception. On Sunday evening, all churches of the town came together for an evening caroling. It was old-time Christmas caroling. After singing joyfully and merrily at the various churches, all gathered at our Methodist Church for a mega- reception with Coffee, Christmas cakes, cookies, and pastries. Jesus, the host, prepares a banqueting table for His people in all seasons. You must be wondering and laughing at us, perhaps gently mocking us and saying that we eat a lot here. We are simply following our Captain Jesus, who loved to dine and celebrate in all places and in all seasons. He has promised us the Marriage Feast of the Lamb.

    Our Church chartered a bus to NEW York City this past Tuesday.  Many community members went along for an all-day excursion in the city, sightseeing, window shopping, and attending the Christmas Extravaganza at the Iconic and world famous The Radio City Music Hall. During Christmas, New York City is transformed into a magical world for Christmas, filled with Christmas Spirit and celebration. The whole world comes to New York City for Christmas.

    On Friday evening, (tomorrow), we will be hosting the St. Petersburg Men's Ensemble in concert at 7:00 PM at the sanctuary of the Marathon United Methodist Church. There will be a dinner at 6:00 PM, with some international cuisine. Those who live in the area, please join us for a great blessing. On Sunday evening, December 11, our church in conjunction with other neighboring churches, will be hosting a Christmas Youth event. We will be serving dinner for the youth at 6:00 PM, with pizza, lasagna, and chicken wings, and the main event will begin at 7:00 PM with a worship band and a youth specialty speaker. We are praying for the Lord's mighty spirit to be poured out that the young people will be blessed.

    Praise the Lord for the Christmas narrartive, Christmas event , Christmas Story. I never get tired of reading and reflecting upon it. One of the paramount imperatives and commands of the Christmas narrativs is “Fear not,” said the angels at Christmas. Then the doctor’s office calls, and there’s a problem with the tests, maybe a serious problem. You need to come in and have a talk.

“Fear not,” the Bible says, in one way or another 366 times, as if God wanted us to get this message every day of our lives, and two for that extra burdensome, heart wrenching day. I read about a major university which did a poll of its students asking them to identify the number one problem they faced. The administration expected to have answers like too much to do or too little time to study or things like that. The number one problem 75 percent of the students named was fear, insecurity, lack of self-confidence, and it was eating away at their own ability to do their best in the studies before them.

Our Lord God, loving Father, did not create you to live in fear, and He intends for us to move beyond that fear. in the language the angels use at Christmas, the expectation that we will move from fear to joy, from anxiety to assurance. Whenever the angels say “fear not”—and they say it all the way through the Christmas story—they are using the imperative . The angel is commanding us to dump the fear and choose the joy coming into the world!

It seems absolutely impossible, but the reason the angel can say it is because at Christmas God gave the world the gift of Himself in Jesus. That gift comes with power to transform our lives from the inside out, so that our fears can be dispelled and we can experience true joy.

I was reflecting on Mary ... Pauper, poor peasnt yet chosen by the Lord to be the mother of Lord Jesus.Joseph and Mary travelled to Bethlehem, almost 80 miles from Nazareth.they wanted a warm bed, a decent place to stay, friends and family around them as they made their way to Bethlehem. They didn’t get any of it. Yet one gift was given. One gift was given, a gift so great it set the angels to singing, a gift so great we still celebrate it today. God gave himself.

     What is the one thing we need most? I am reminded during these days of pilgrimmage to put the focus of my heart not on the problems , but on the person who comes to us at Christmas to enter into our hearts with nothing less than the heart of God, I want to know it, sometimes seems to change nothing, but in fact, everything is different.

I read story of Moss Hart that I wasdriven to tears.Moss Hart, in his day, was one of the great playwrights not only in North America but in the world. He was honored in cities and palaces, by presidents and kings and queens. Over the years he saw amazing Christmas celebrations. He would hear amazing music, go to amazing worship services, listen to amazing sermons, have amazing feasts, receive amazing presents. He had extraordinary experiences, which was why people were at first so surprised by the answer he gave once to a question about this season of the year.

Toward the end of his life he was doing an interview at Christmas time, and he was asked: What was the best Christmas he ever had? Immediately, without any hesitation, he said, “It was when I was 9 years old.” The people listening were stunned, because they expected him to say it was while he was in France or in Washington, D.C., or somewhere else magnificent. He said, though, his best Christmas was when he was 9 years old.

He went on to explain that as a boy he would go toward Christmas filled with fear, because he had not had a toy for Christmas in years. His parents were very poor. His father worked two jobs and sometimes a third, but could barely afford to keep a roof over their heads and food on the table. So Christmas was a time of pain and even dread for Moss Hart, not excitement. But then, when Moss was 9, on Christmas Eve his father got back from his last job and said to Moss, “Let’s take a walk downtown.”

Moss got so excited. He was jubilant. First of all, his father was very distant. He had never learned how to express affection, and never went walking with Moss. They did not have that kind of relationship at all. Now, though, they were going walking! And they were walking downtown on Christmas Eve, which was where you went from the poor neighborhoods when you were going to get a toy.

Families from those neighborhoods could not afford to actually go in the stores, but downtown there would be vendors out on the street with carts. So when a family got the money together, they could go up to a cart, and a child would pick out a toy, the child and the parents together, and they would buy it. That was the ritual at Christmas for their community, and now, on Christmas Eve, Moss Hart was walking up to the carts with his father.

He was so excited. His feet didn’t even touch the ground. He was flying inside. He was going to get a toy for Christmas. They went up to the first cart, and his father asked about the things, and Moss said he would have given his eyeteeth for anything on that cart. They all looked wonderful. His father quietly fingered the things, the toys, and he asked about prices. Then he said, “Okay, okay. Well, we’ll look around.”

So they went to the second cart, and there was a chemistry set there that Moss would have given an arm for. He was so excited. His father looked at things, asked about prices. He said, “Well, let’s look around.” They went to cart after cart after cart down that long winter street, and Moss began to realize they were coming to the end of that block.

They were coming to the end of the vendors, and he started thinking, “What’s going on here?” He would have loved any of these toys. Why was his dad waiting? Then suddenly he realized that, although his father had gotten some money together to get Moss a toy, he didn’t have enough. He couldn’t buy any of the toys they had in the carts.

Suddenly that little 9-year-old boy got so mad and so upset and was filled with such rage, because it wasn’t fair. It wasn’t right. Other kids got toys, and he never had one, and now he wasn’t going to get one again. He opened his mouth, and he got ready to let out the biggest scream of rage and pain and despair that you could ever imagine.

But in telling the story later, he said that just before he did he looked up, and he saw his father’s face filled with anguish and despair. And for the first time in his life, he realized how much his dad loved him, because he realized whatever pain he was feeling over not getting a toy, his father was feeling double over not being able to give the toy.

All the anger and pain seemed to go out of his soul as he looked up into his father’s face and saw there the terrible heartbreak filling his father’s eyes. Then, as his father looked down into his son’s crestfallen face, without even thinking about it, his father reached out his hand. In response, Moss reached out his. And for the first time ever, without either one saying a word, they walked back to their house—they took the long way—holding hands.

In telling the story, Moss Hart said, “I have experienced Christmas in many situations and had many grand moments. But the greatest Christmas and the greatest gift I’ve ever been given came that night, for from then on my father and I walked and talked regularly, always holding hands.” Nothing was changed, but everything was different.

in this world with so many problems we all would like fixed.. We are reminded,   about the mystery and the wonder of the person Christmas is all about. In these sacred weeks, let us open our heart to the gifts He has come to bring. And as the angels said so long ago, fear not.

In Christ,

Brown

https://youtu.be/QIvH5GdY4JE