Triple C News - December 4, 2020
Hey, everyone!
Hope you’re having a deck-the-hally, jingle-belly, let-it-snowy, pa-rum-pa-pum-pummy, bright and merry, holly jolly week!
I really DO hope that!
But it’s just not gonna be the same this year.
No Christmas choir practice this Christmas season.
Not supposed to sing inside because singing sprays the Coronavirus.
I do have some choir news tho!
We WILL be able to have our Easter choir in 2021!!
I bet so many will be vaccinated by then, that “Rolling Thunder” will be back in the bass section…“BRiiiiiiiNGiN’ iT”!!! *
*(This is if we celebrate Easter in mid-May instead of April 4,2021 as scheduled.)
Another important announcement…
This coming Sunday (day after tomorrow) we ARE moving our worship time in the park to 11:00am!
Yes, starting this Sunday, we’re going to be getting together to worship and praise in the “open air” at 11:00 am (instead of 9:30 am)
This is to get us a little closer to that average high of 48/50 F in Dec/Jan for the Ridge!
(It should be sunny and upper 40’s by 11:00 am this Sunday!)
And we’re thinking about having our Christmas Eve service outside as well!
We’re calling it “An Elm Grove Christmas”!
Or “Hark! In the Park!”
I don’t think Christmas Eve this year will be like anything we’re used to.
It’ll be…
outside…
in the field…
in the chilliness…
with the sound of dogs barking in the background (have you heard them lately?)…
And we’ll all be making sure we don’t step in anything yucky in the grass…
WAIT!!
This is gonna be AWESOME!!
Maybe it won’t be like other Christmases, but it will be most like the first one!
Remember what the carols say??
“While shepherds watched their flocks by nightA
ll seated on the ground…”
We’ll be in the field just like they were! Seated on our camp chairs on the ground!
And they were probably making sure they didn’t step in anything yucky, listening to their sheepdogs bark…just like us!
Or how ‘bout…
“In the bleak mid-winter
Frosty winds made moan
Earth as hard as iron
Water like a stone…”
And it’ll be chilly for us as well!!
Hopefully even with frosty winds, just like the song!
Or…“Hark! The herald angels sing…”
They must have been shocked to see the angels that night!
And we would be too!
But they’re always around us!
And they will be around and above us at our Elm Grove Christmas Eve!
As always!
This will be the “Most-Like-the-First-Christmas” Christmas Eve ever!
Trying to “feel” what the first Christmas was like, is where those manger scenes come from.
On Christmas, in the year 1223, a lion-hearted Italian friar named Francis of Assisi,
built a rustic manger, and put it into a “grotto” (cave) in the village of Grecio…
He next led an “ox and ass” into it and tied them up.
After a while, it was…
stinky…
poop-y…
nasty…
and buggy.
Then he invited the citizens to enter…
and watch…
and sniff…
and reflect.
And into a world like this…
a world of darkness…
and yucky-ness…
and heart-break…
and sickness...
and sorrow...
our Savior came.
Alone and afraid, a couple of very poor kids held a quivering Infant King in a barn or stall or cave and no one knew or cared except a few peasant shepherds.
And hope was born!
For many, Christmas 2020 won’t be an easy Christmas.
But we do know this…
His Coming was told to those in a dark, chilly field…
And because of global sickness, we’ll meet in a field like theirs to remember.
But one day soon He will come to take us to Home!
What a Christmas that will be!!
No masks!
Face to face!
No social distancing!
“He will gather His lambs in His arms and carry us close to His heart!” (Isaiah 40:11)
No fear of singing!
In fact, we’ll say…
Let Heaven and Nature sing!
Let Heaven and Nature sing!
Let Heaven…
let Heaven…
and Nature sing!