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From the Pastor's Desk 

     According to Wikipedia, Advent is “a season observed in most Christian denominations as a time of waiting and preparation for both the celebration of Jesus's birth at Christmas and the return of Christ at the Second Coming.”  I do give thanks for Wikipedia, but that is another article.

     

     Advent may be a time of waiting and preparation, it is also a time that we decorate.  We decorate houses, churches, storefronts, even cars. There are rules and social standards to our decorating, or at least there should be.  My young neighbor put up lights and decorations before Thanksgiving.  I will find time to tell him to wait until after Thanksgiving and tone it down a bit.  He needs to know the old people on our cul de sac do not need to 

climb ladders, and the appeal to our subdivision is the lack of decorations.  In wisdom, I will explain that Christmas lights and decorations are a slippery slope.  If you put up one hundred lights this year, next year its two hundred. Before you know it, you are in the thousands.  After all, you can drive to a young person’s neighborhood and see all the Christmas lights an eye can behold.

      I realize my inner scrooge is emerging.  Forgive me. Sometimes I must let my “scrooginess” out, and that is not necessarily a bad thing.   Once it is out, the light of other more Christmas Spirit filled people can illume my path and lift my spirit.  Us scrooge types secretly enjoy the bright decorations.  Our hearts rejoice in the beauty of the season, even though our mouths struggle to outwardly express the hope we receive from the labors of others.  

     By the time you read these words, the sanctuary at Hardinsburg UMC will be decorated for the season.  These decorations remind us of Christmases past.  We remember the special people who filled our lives with joy, peace, hope and love.  The Advent wreath will lead us through the season of waiting, calling us deeper into the good news that Jesus is coming.  The days will get shorter, but our hope will stretch. 

     Let us decorate our hearts with the hope of Jesus, the newborn savior. May the joy of Jesus’ love fill every corner of the season.  May the “bah humbugs” give way to “O Come, Let Us Adore Him!”

 

Your Servant,

Keith

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