Christmas Eve Sunday Morning 10:30 AM Worship Article
It is a wonderful thing to be inspired at Christmas by the enthusiastic delight of children. As that great theologian Erma Bombeck said it, “There's nothing sadder in this world than to awake Christmas morning and not be a child.” So those of us more seasoned must ask, “How is it in our experience, especially our faith experience, that we experience delight?” Often faith is thought to be something that involves many statements about what we “ought” to do. I certainly understand that. But faith has at its core the capacity to find delight, exhilaration, and joy. As the actual theologian Thomas Aquinas said it, “No one can live without delight.”
In the first chapter of Luke’s Gospel, we read about Elizabeth, the woman who would be the mother of John the Baptist. Both women were pregnant when Mary, who would be the mother of Jesus, came to see her. When she heard Mary’s voice, Elizabeth exclaimed in a loud voice, “Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb.” In this moment of excitement, she felt the little baby within her “leap for joy”. In and around Elizabeth that day, there was an energetic moment of delight and joy. She stands as a witness of the glory coming to us, one that cannot be dismantled by chatter, but which can only be known in the experience of delight. As a more contemporary Catholic theologian, Karl Rahner, would say it, “If God’s incomprehensibility does not grip us in a word, if it does not draw us into superluminous darkness, if it does not call us out of the little house of our homely, close-hugged truths, we have misunderstood the words of Christianity.”
Let’s work with this on Sunday in worship at St. Mark’s, which will be Christmas Eve morning and the fourth Sunday of Advent. The sermon is titled, “Advent Exhilaration: Waiting for Deep Joy to Emerge”. The sermon flows from Luke 1: 39-45, which will be read by Brenda Bailey Hughes. Tom, Beth and Kaiainne Mooradian will lead the call to worship and light the Advent Candle. We will be led musically by our choir, and accompaniment by organ, flute and cello. Two of our hymns have been chosen by a survey of the congregation to discover their favorite Christmas carols. And of course, we will pray and have a time for children.
If this will be your first time at St. Mark’s, you are especially welcome. Join us in the sanctuary at 10:30, or join online at that time by visiting www.smumc.church, and clicking on the Livestream banner.
Christmas Eve 11:00 PM Worship Article
Have you ever had something remarkable happen to you in the dead of a dark night? On Christmas Eve 1906, Reginald Fessenden, a university professor, and former chemist for Thomas Edison, undertook something that at the time was considered astonishing. Using a newly developed device, Fessenden spoke into a microphone and, for the first time ever, a human voice was broadcast over the airwaves. He read the Christmas story found in the Gospel of Luke. “And it came to pass in those days, that there went out a decree from Caesar Augustus, that all the world should be taxed.” After his reading, he picked up the violin and played the first song ever sent out over the airwaves, “O Holy Night”.
That night, this message and music stunned radio operators on ships wireless radio operators at newspapers as their working communications were interrupted by scripture and song. It was almost as though surprised shepherds, keeping their sheep, were serenaded by a band of angels who had opened the heavens with newly minted praise. That, too, was a holy night. And it is often in the night that the holy thing happens.
This late-night traditional service on Christmas Eve, is a wonderful way to bring in the joyful celebration of the Nativity. The sermon during this service is titled, “ Holy Night: A Thrill of Hope for a Weary World.” The service will also include carols, solos, readings of the Christmas story, changing of the paraments, and candle lighting during the singing of Silent Night. The music will be accompanied organ, harp, flute, piano and cello.
We would love for you to join us in-person or on livestream.