Each year Advent and Christmas role around to bring us some of our most cherished traditions. As surely as we put up Chrismon trees and light Advent wreaths, we look forward to the special worship opportunities Advent brings. Even in the continuing challenges of being church in a pandemic, we continue to anticipate and celebrate the good news of Christ’s birth. Our circumstances are unprecedentedly different, but we continue to celebrate this good news through worship.
This coming Sunday, December 6th, we will have our Service of the Longest Night. People who are grieving or depressed may feel out of step or left out of the happiness everyone around them seems to be experiencing. Coming near the longest night of the year, the Service of the Longest Night is an opportunity to bring that grief and pain to God in worship. The service will be at 5:00 in the Sanctuary.
The Festival of Nine Lessons and Carols is another of Central’s great Advent traditions. Since we cannot safely sing as we ordinarily would, we will have a virtual service of Lessons and Carols on December 20th. Recording the service allows the choir to space out around the sanctuary and safely sing the carols we love to hear. This service will be broadcast on YouTube and centralmethodist.net at 4:00 on the 20th.
Christmas Eve also brings challenges this year. Nothing would give me greater joy on Christmas Eve than to hear the good news of Christ’s birth and sing songs of celebration in a packed sanctuary. We simply cannot do this safely. Packing the sanctuary risks our becoming ground zero for COVID cases in Florence. On the other hand, if we were to limit the sanctuary to a safe occupancy level and ask people to sign up in advance for a specific worship time, we would likely need ten Christmas Eve services to accommodate last year’s attendance. Even then, we run the risk of having to turn people away at the door. With this in mind, we will have a virtual Christmas Eve service at 4:00. This service will be replete with the music. We will also have an outdoor in-person service at the porte chochere at 6:00. This service will include Holy Communion.
Regardless of what is going on in the world around us, the good news remains the same. God saw our human brokenness. God became one of us and became part of our brokenness. Jesus came to mend our brokenness, to take away our sin, to show us a better way to live on earth, and to ultimately live with him forever. Advent and Christmas 2020 come with challenges, but this truth remains the same. To paraphrase Luke 2:11, the Savior is born for you. The Messiah is born for you. The Lord of all creation is born for you. Let us worship him!
Yours in Christ,
Thomas