It Is Friday…
And it is cold outside!
Wasn’t it just 70 degrees 2 weeks ago?
I was thinking today when I walked Ollie a bit… that I could say either:
“3 months of this… bitterness!” or
Inhale the cold air and say, “There is a quiet wonder in the air….”
Hard to capture the second thought and keep it. Especially when you have to move about in it – to drive in it – to have to be places when you need more time to scrape and shovel and defrost…
Yet look at the lights! Hear that? They are playing our country’s music! No, not country music… well there is that kind that sings are music too…
No, I am talking about our music. Our home country’s theme sounds and words!
THE story. The True Myth, as Mr. C.S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien would call it. The story that all stories come from.
Hear upon a midnight clear…
Sleigh bells…
Wood smoke…
Cider and cinnamon…
Peace on earth and good will toward men!
That story… the one that many think started in Bethlehem around 2,000 years ago.
But no, it started before even one star began to twinkle. Before the foundations of the earth were laid, it already had been decided and put in motion.
Christmas. For us… yes, for us even!
I know, I said this is Advent and all… but hey… everyone else is getting ready…
We can. My emphasis on a penitential season is exactly made for this…
The “I can’t sleep because tomorrow is Christmas!” kind of waiting in expectation.
The hush before the storm. The dark before the bright light of the dawn of eternity.
Now I wax into the Last Day! Yes, but that will be ONE CHRISTMAS we will never be able to imagine.
And to add a little speculation (a little is fine) I wonder if our Good and Gracious Lord won’t decide to return on Christmas Day… on THAT day…
Just to spite the devil and all his Grinches and Scrooges out there! Imagine it!
In the darkest and coldest part of the year for so many…
Heaven! New earth! Cold only when we want it. Eternal summer with winter only when we want to go skiing, sledding or skating! Or meeting fauns in the woods carrying Christmas presents, only it won’t be winter because of some curse…
Because Aslan would be on the move! (Narnia for all those who don’t know what I am getting at here)…
What? You think those will not matter? Of course they will…
As we will be at play in the fields of the Lord forever! His children. It won’t just be the Pevensie children who have all the fun!
So be enchanted a little by our Lord’s work this time of year. It is there to be glimpsed, to catch a whiff of… to dazzle the taste buds… to make the heart go flutter as it did when we were 7…
Oh, and to hear the sounds! Bells and horns… voices singing… the wonder of it!
Let Him prepare Him room with these His gifts to us by these very means…
He is doing so…
He still holds sway even if not always noticed by the madness out there that is mistakenly called life!
Hey, yes it is Friday, but listen… they are singing our songs… even them, yes…
But then we get to… knowing what they are truly all about…
On Sunday. It is almost here.
This coming Sunday – Second Sunday in Advent – December 7th 2025
Readings:
Old Testament – Micah 4:1-7
Epistle – Romans 15:4-13
Gospel – Luke 21:25-36
Psalm 50
Sermon Theme – Make him room – Based on the Gospel reading
Prayers: For a lasting peace that would be established and would remain between the people of Israel and Gaza as well as for the People of Russia and the Ukraine. For our congregation that it would please our Lord that we would increase in numbers and there remain in this place a congregation that calls upon Him rightly, practicing the faith according to the Scriptures. For those who are being persecuted and murdered because they call upon the name of Jesus—especially in Africa. For the end of violence in our cities and that our schools and congregations would be protected from those who wish them harm. For our families that parents would courageously discipline their children and raise them in the fear of the Lord, teaching them about salvation in Jesus alone.
Reflections from Luther on heaven:
“This life therefore is not righteousness, but growth in righteousness, not health, but healing, not being but becoming, not rest but exercise. We are not yet what we shall be, but we are growing toward it, the process is not yet finished, but it is going on…”.
“If you are not allowed to laugh in heaven, I don’t want to go there.”.
“No matter how great and terrible the cries are that the Law, sin, and the devil let loose against us… still they cannot do us any harm.”.