Welcome to this week’s Edition to weekly words….

NEWS FROM SANCTUARY –

Tonite 12/16 – Special Taproot Theatre “Christmas Past” one act play plus Sanctuary Band Christmas Music and Carols followed by Dessert at the Green Bean --- brought to you by The Green Bean, Taproot Theatre Company and Sanctuary. 7pm. Admission is free.

Monday 12/24 – Candlelight Christmas Eve service 7pm @ Taproot Theatre….we will doing a really meaningful (and cool) ancient candle lighting ritual that is quite different than the typical candlelight service. Please bring family and friends an join us.

Maile and Ozzie are missionaries from Africa living in Greenwood and they are a part of Sanctuary while on “furlow”. They just had a beautiful baby boy and are going to need to stay in Seattle for a good part of the next year. We are looking for rent relief monies, furniture and baby stuff to help them out. Want in? Good. We need you. Contact MarkMohrlang@gmail.com to get on board.  Thanks.

Also, as year-end approaches, we ask that you would prayerfully remember your church, Sanctuary and The Green Bean Coffee House in your giving. We are stretched on resources because we are doing so much. Also pray for God to help us meet our monetary and ministry needs. Thanks.

PRAYERS –

We pray, Lord, for Michael’s family as they mourn his passing from cancer. Comfort and draw them together.

Christ, we ask that you would continue to look after Ozzy and Maile and baby Nicholas as they adjust to a new home in the states and continue medical care for Maile.

Holy Spirit, we rejoice with all the students who have completed their academic terms and we pray for a restful and refreshing winter break.

Father, we do ask that you would provide for the financial needs of Sanctuary and The Green Bean Coffee House during a time when we are stretched thin.

God, we pray that unemployed and underemployed people who really desire to work will find jobs and be able to be self sustaining.

Jesus, we praise you for this Season of your coming to us…and we delight in the fact that you are with us now and always.

Lord, be with all who are or who are preparing to travel this holiday season. We pray safety and comfort.

REFLECTIONS ON “Voicing Advent” from Luke 1:56-79

I knew these folks who were devoted and humble people of God.

I wish we could have been neighbors.

She was a kind, engaging sort. He was a quiet, strong working man with a deep spiritual bent.

They did well in life and were loved by many….deeply involved as leaders in their faith community.

They even suffered pretty well. You see, they couldn’t have children, even though the desperately wanted to. There was pain and dignity in their loss – in their eyes.  Although, I could sort of see a little bit of resentment under the surface on him. But, together, this deep pain deepened their relationship rather than splitting it. You have to admire that.

They were really faithful people. You’d think that they deserved better. They were such practical and steady people. And, they weren’t religious cuckoos who were naming and claiming miracles to fix their problem…they just lived with it…no, in fact….beyond it.

Well, anyway, later in life, they actually thought they were pregnant. He found out about it one day while he was at a church meeting …. And the irony of his situation slipped out of his mouth along with a little of the bitterness…

Okay…well, let me give you a little more detail on this church meeting. The guy, he was a pastor/priest and he was in a holy prayer room burning incense as praise to God and praying when he says….and I totally believe….that an angel…well, more like THE ANGEL…archangel Gabriel, showed up, freaked him out and told him that he and his wife were pregnant. And, as he later told the story, he just couldn’t help but pop off a little…the shock of running into an angel in a prayer room, sort of made him transparent…and as the story goes…

 
¹⁸  Zechariah said to the angel, “How shall I know this? For I am an old man, and my wife is advanced in years.” ¹⁹ And the angel answered him, “I am Gabriel, who stands in the presence of God, and I was sent to speak to you and to bring you this good news. ²⁰ And behold, you will be silent and unable to speak until the day that these things take place, because you did not believe my words, which will be fulfilled in their time.”

So………..this guy that I really would have like to have known and been neighbors with, who is a practical dude, gets his practical vocal cords put on sabbatical for about 2/3 of a year…

 But, the angel was right. She, Elizabeth, was pregnant and all went as expected.

⁵⁷ Now the time came for Elizabeth to give birth, and she bore a son. ⁵⁸ And her neighbors and relatives heard that the Lord had shown great mercy to her, and they rejoiced with her. ⁵⁹ And on the eighth day they came to circumcise the child. And they would have called him Zechariah after his father, ⁶⁰ but his mother answered, “No; he shall be called John.” ⁶¹ And they said to her, “None of your relatives is called by this name.” ⁶² And they made signs to his father, inquiring what he wanted him to be called. ⁶³ And he asked for a writing tablet and wrote, “His name is John.” And they all wondered. ⁶⁴ And immediately his mouth was opened and his tongue loosed, and he spoke, blessing God. ⁶⁵ And fear came on all their neighbors. And all these things were talked about through all the hill country of Judea, ⁶⁶ and all who heard them laid them up in their hearts, saying, “What then will this child be?” For the hand of the Lord was with him. ⁶⁷

Zechariah then begins to talk about this child…and more than just a child…but a KINGDOM…AN AGE THAT WAS DAWNING…after 273 days or so of silence … here’s what beautifully bubbles to the surface…

And his father Zechariah was filled with the Holy Spirit and prophesied, saying, ⁶⁸ “Blessed be the Lord God of Israel, for he has visited and redeemed his people ⁶⁹ and has raised up a horn of salvation for us in the house of his servant David, ⁷⁰ as he spoke by the mouth of his holy prophets from of old, ⁷¹ that we should be saved from our enemies and from the hand of all who hate us; ⁷² to show the mercy promised to our fathers and to remember his holy covenant, ⁷³ the oath that he swore to our father Abraham, to grant us ⁷⁴ that we, being delivered from the hand of our enemies, might serve him without fear, ⁷⁵ in holiness and righteousness before him all our days. ⁷⁶ And you, child, will be called the prophet of the Most High; for you will go before the Lord to prepare his ways, ⁷⁷ to give knowledge of salvation to his people in the forgiveness of their sins, ⁷⁸ because of the tender mercy of our God, whereby the sunrise shall visit us from on high ⁷⁹ to give light to those who sit in darkness and in the shadow of death, to guide our feet into the way of peace.”

Here’s the distillation of what Zecchariah says in his word from God that comes from the depth of his being. I think it has some Advent inspiration for you and me.

1.    God made us. We belong to him….And, while we experience ourselves and our minds and our emotions…the reality of life is more about GOD than it is about us. We get that message today, when we see our friend get SILENCED to stop self-referencing and take time to GOD-REFERENCE. That’s a huge part of advent: TO MAKE THE COMING OF GOD A BIGGER DEAL THAN THE COMINGS AND GOINGS OF YOU AND ME.

2.    God is Saving us, because we are precious to him. You are worth whatever it takes to move your life forward. You are worth it!  God is not only taking care of you spiritually and in all other ways in your life at HIS EXPENSE…God is also taking care to shape something in you and me that is GOOD FOR THIS WORLD AND FOR ITS SALVATION.

3.    God is calling us to a future to serve him WITHOUT FEAR “all our days” – just like Zechariah, Elizabeth and Baby John.  I believe that this call to the future is in stark contrast to how Western Christians have been shaped and seduced into celebrating this Season on which we are embarking: Cultural Christmas=The Past, Sentiment/Memory, Family of Origin. There are some good things about that. I am not denouncing the past, sentiment, memories or families of origin…but I AM SAYING that an ADVENT encounter with the GOD OF HOPE…THE GOD OF THE FUTURE…THE GOD OF THE KINGDOM OF GOD…Stirs longing and yearnings for what will be that trump the sentiments of WHAT WAS.

Zechariah style ADVENT=The Future of What a Loving God is going to COMPLETE, HOPE and LONGING, New FAMILY (KINGDOM) OF GOD.

I can’t say I know everyone of you here well, but I have met and chatted with most of you. I would be happy to be your neighbor.

I have seen your honest faith and hard work.

I have seen a good life, and a desire to be a part of a faith community that makes a difference.

Some of us here … have suffered much pain with much dignity…and we have managed to keep OUR collective resentments and disappointments below the surface…below a greater desire to persevere and stay connected to God, Others, Life…

Most of us here are pretty practical. We aren’t of a name and claim it faith. We aren’t spiritual “posers” who try to show how we have it all together. We humbly accept what God has for us. But, we don’t necessarily see ourselves as world changers…and we don’t necessarily expect God to jump in and do miracles in and around us…..do we?

We find it easy to shape our lives on our past, our sentiments. We find it easy to “carry on” with today.

But, I need to warn you to be careful – this advent season may go down differently for you and me.

We may get sucked out of the sentimentality of Christmas’s past and sucked into the EVER EXPANDING, FUTURE FOCUSED ADVENT of which Zechariah speaks that is now and is coming in greater portions…

   because of the tender mercy of our God,

 whereby the sunrise shall visit us from on high ⁷⁹

He will give light to those who sit in darkness and in the shadow of death,

 to guide our feet into the way of peace.”

Please, go out in HOPE and MAKE IT A GREAT WEEK!!!

Much Love,

Dr. Randy L. Rowland

2854 NW 59th Street

Seattle, WA  98107

USA

206.953.0909

www.sanctuarycrc.org