These three little words – grace, joy, thankfulness – should be the basic plot of our lives. We’ve all experienced God’s grace in more ways than we can ever number. Thinking about the many ways we experience God’s grace, following Paul’s words to the Philippians should be natural: “Rejoice in the Lord always; and again I say, rejoice!” (Phi. 4:4) And then, with hearts overflowing with the joy that comes from experiencing God’s grace, we should always be thankful.

I remember one early Easter Sunday, before dawn, in Kentucky. This service was held in our sanctuary, and my apartment was just a block from the church. As I was walking down the alley between my place and the church, I heard something I’d never heard in town before: a rooster crow. And immediately I thought about Peter on that first resurrection morning.

Sin divides. Christ unites.  Ageism, sexism, racism, schism of any sort  . . . the only “ism” in the church should be evangelism, because from a Christian perspective there are only two categories of people: those who are in Christ and those who are not. According to II Corinthians 5, God has entrusted us with the ministry of reconciliation, so our goal is to eliminate the second category and make sure that everyone is in Christ!And once we’re in Christ, Christian unity is important because it shows the world a way of living peacefully together they cannot know on their own. 

This week we have a guest! Kim Elliott told me about  something she was teaching in her Bible class that I thought was perfect for Lent. I asked if she would write about it for our Pastor’s Note this week. Enjoy! 

When we see certain individuals, do we immediately assume things about them? We look at people whose eyes are different from ours, or their skin is a different shade, and we make certain value judgments about them. Human tendency is to categorize people and then judge them based on that category – and leave the rest of their humanity by the wayside. But in Christ, we are no longer free to do that. To look at an individual, a person, not as a person but as a category, is anti-Christian.

The first name we chose for our congregation was “Christ Church of North Alabama: A Wesleyan Congregation.” We dropped the Wesleyan part because of associations with an established Wesleyan denomination and also with a new group forming from some who disaffiliated from the UMC which used “Wesleyan” in their name. But we didn’t drop our beliefs.

One of my frequent houseguests told me that he ran across a picture of himself from decades ago with an ashen cross on his forehead. He said he kept it like one would keep a vaccination card – he’s one and done; no need to ever do it again!I told him that’s not the way that it works. 

If we only love those who love us back, we are simply imitating the world rather than imitating God. Even scoundrels like tax collectors can love like that. But if we’re really children of our Heavenly Father, then we will love like God loves – for Jesus, this is the heart of the law. This is the righteousness that exceeds that of the scribes and pharisees. This is the way we are salt and light in the world. This is the way of life Jesus calls “blessed.”

Week after week, season after season, year after year, we participate in the drama of our salvation history. We gather together, hear and proclaim the Word, give thanks and share at the Lord’s table, and we are sent into the world as renewed people of the Kingdom. Each time we repeat the process, we retell how God has called us out of a lost world, and we celebrate God for his love and grace. And this repetition shapes us, refocuses us, and reorients us after a week of living in our crazy world.

This Sunday, we celebrate four years as a congregation. But, young as we are, we’re part of a long line of worshipers that stretch back through the ages, and our worship reflects that. But what do we believe? What do we profess while we’re worshiping? I’ll write about that next week!

That’s it. These are what we call the essentials – 5 key practices (and that word, “practice,” is key!) that if we do them regularly – if we practice them the same way a pianist practices scales every day – these essentials will become a normal part of our lives, and will not only shape our lives, but also the world around us. When we make these a part of our lives, we won’t have to worry about “Have I done anything important? Have I been happy? Have I made the most of these precious few footsteps?” Our lives will be lived following the example of Jesus. Which is the point.

So the vision for Christ Church is of a people committed to learning and living the Word of God. Their ultimate desire would be conforming to the image of Christ. And the creed by which they lived their lives would be the same creed by which Jesus lived his life, a creed simply summarized in the words: Loving God . . . Loving Others. Furthermore, they would trust God in every area of the Church’s life. Nothing would be done without faith.

We’ll be spending 2023 in the Gospel of Matthew where we find the two “Great C’s” of our Christian faith, the Great Commandment and the Great Commission. By now, we should know the Great Commandment: “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind and strength” and “you shall love your neighbor as yourself” (22:37-40) Which, of course, we’ve embraced as “Loving God . . . Loving Others,” and everything we are and everything we do flows out of that.

How are the resolutions coming? I used to start each new year with a pile of resolutions, only to end the year with a pile of rubble . . . unfulfilled promises to myself, dashed hopes for change and more than a smidgen of guilt. But now, there’s really only one resolution I’m thinking about, and I’d like to offer it to you. It’s not anything you can really measure. There are no guilt-inducing bathroom scales or calorie counters. But you’ll know if you’re keeping it or not (and so will everyone around you).

“The Lord of all this reveling.” I love that phrase. The coming of Christ into the world is certainly the reason for being glad and rejoicing — in short, for “making merry” — despite the best efforts of the Puritans and their descendants who frowned upon too much merriment. I guess they missed the words of the Prodigal son’s father in Luke 15:32 (NKJV), “It was right that we should make merry and be glad.” There are those times that call for “making merry” and Christmas is indeed one!

This Advent we’ve heard: It’s not enough to light a candle of Hope, we have to be the candle of Hope in the world. It’s not enough to rejoice over the Spirit bringing life to a dead stump, we have to be people of the Spirit, not people of the stump. It’s not enough to sing “Joy to the World,” we have to bring joy to the world — just like Jesus coming down, we’re not to leave the world the way we find it. Finally, the God of Love will never leave us. No matter what we face in this life, we never have to face it alone — and not only that, but as people in whom the Spirit of God dwells, we’re to bring the Hope, Peace, Joy, and Love of God to those who need it, pointing them toward Emmanuel: God with us.

Christmas trees were not invented by pagans. Nor are they merely a decoration! From the beginning, they were used to remind us of the story of redemption and the faithfulness of God. Their triangular shape of the fir tree reminded the people of the three persons of the Trinity. The decorations originally pointed to Christian themes. Truly, as the old German (of course!) carol says, “We learn from all your beauty.”

And you might just find, when you combine our love of the Babe in the manger with Dickens’ concern for those less fortunate, that your Christmas celebration can be a tangible way of living out our Mission: “Loving God . . . Loving Others.”