Merry Tenth Day of Christmas! I hope that you all have had a restful and fulfilling celebration of the 12 Days of Christmas, and a wonderful start to the New Year!
As we continue our journey through Christmas, one of the big ideas that we think about is the Incarnation. It’s part of the readings of the season, including today’s gospel passage, “And the Word became flesh and lived among us, and we have seen his glory, the glory as of a father's only son, full of grace and truth.” (John 1:14, NRSV).
The incarnation is this notion that the eternal and infinite God came down to this earth in the finite and first-century Jesus of Nazareth. That’s an important thing to remember, and it also has implications for who we are as the church.
God comes to us as one of us. God breaks into the world through the birth, life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ. God continues to change the world through God’s on-going presence in the Holy Spirit. This coming, breaking in, and blowing through of change is what breathes life. It’s these acts which help us see what God might be up to, and how we are called to be part of God’s work.
When God breaks into the world, the world is forever changed. When the Holy Spirit blows through creation, it is forever changed. One of the ways I believe that change continues to happen is through the growth and presence of Messiah North County. God is at work in North Clark County, and during my first four months here as your mission developer I have seen this with my own eyes.
Questions I have pondered about this include: What might God be up to here? Where is God leading us as part of God’s on-going work in the world? And, how are we uniquely prepared and called as this congregation to do God’s work?
These questions have also been ones that the North County Core Visioning Team have been thinking about since October. Next week, on Sunday January 10, the team will share some of what we have discovered and done so far as we update you on our progress. We willl also let you know about what’s next in the process, and bring us all up to speed together in the conversation.
I hope that you will be able to join us at North County next Sunday, January 10, at 9am for our meeting over breakfast and then stay for worship immediately following as we welcome our new worship team leader, Daniel.
I am looking forward to continuing to ponder these questions about what God might be up to with all of you next week. And, for a few more days anyway, may Christmas Blessings be with all of you!