If your thought is “Jesus” when reading “Can anything good come out of Nazareth?” you are correct! This is the question that is asked when Phillip tries to show Nathanael Jesus Christ. From our gospel lesson this coming Sunday (the lesson I will not be preaching on) we know Nazareth doesn’t have a dazzling reputation. It echos a similar sentiment when in the gospel of Matthew Jesus is preaching in Nazareth,  “Is not this the carpenter’s son? Is not his mother called Mary?” as the people of Nazareth could not compute how someone as awesome as Jesus could come from Joseph and Mary. Apparently, Jesus is not only from a non-noteworthy town; within the town, he is not from a family of good reputation.

I think we all need this to be true right now - that Jesus Christ does not come from a city as glamorous as New York, or a family as prestigious as the Bezoses or the Musks. I need goodness to come from unexpected places and peoples. I need God incarnate to come from Appalachia, the rust belt, and “the hood.” I want Jesus to come from low places, especially when I feel as if I am in a low place, or when we are in low places.

And indeed, he does. My boyfriend and I are black sheep in our families for the simple fact that we have moved away from home. Justin’s entire family lives on the same street in King’s Mountain, Kentucky, but he packed his bags for Louisville and insists on living in a city. I am the only person I can think of on my mother’s entire side of the family that has moved out of state, as her family resides in the south end of Louisville or western Kentucky. And I will probably be the only member of the family that will continue to live out of state as my career evolves with time. 

It can be perceived as leaving one’s roots to be somewhere bigger, better, or more promising. It can even feel like a rejection. Yet, we know there is so much goodness in Appalachia. The breathtaking mountains are filled with string music, and if you know someone - easy access to homemade moonshine (one of Justin’s Christmas gifts). Kentucky is the land of bourbon and more bourbon, my papaw’s overalls, and my mamaw’s cooking. We “don’t wear shoes” as the endless jokes and second thoughts roll on, but Jesus comes from places like Kentucky, “dying” rust belt cities, and low-income neighborhoods. Jesus comes from farming, coal mining, and factory working. There are goodness and beauty in the undervalued low places and unseen people.

Look for God where there is no expectation to find Him. See Her where others choose not to go. God is there. 

Blessed by the low places,

Alec Brock, Seminary Intern

he/him/his

I use the word Peace often. I write it when closing a letter or note. It has been part of my email signature for more than fourteen years. I say it to both friend and stranger when departing and I mean it. It is shorthand for “I wish you God’s peace.”

You might think that I lob it out because it is a kind Christianese signature and you would be correct. You may also wonder if there’s a hippie part of me lurking just beneath the surface. Yep, that’s true, too. I’ve owned two vintage Volkswagens and briefly lived in both the Pacific Northwest and California. But the real reason I invoke a word of peace regularly is because of the deep gravity of this holy word.

Our world is not at peace and our hearts and minds are not at peace. We need God’s peace every chance we get. Each Sunday throughout my entire life, our congregational prayers have included a petition for peace – in our neighborhoods and cities, in our schools and places of work, among our government leaders, in our lives, and throughout the world. We live in fractured relationships in a broken world that is mangled and disfigured by greed, selfishness, fear, and the other symptoms of sin.

The Hebrew word for peace, shalom, is derived from a root denoting wholeness or completeness and its frame of reference throughout Jewish literature is bound up with the notion of shelemut, perfection.

(www.myjewishlearning.com). Shalom is the daily greeting in Israel and shalom alekem “peace be upon you” is a common expression we could translate as “Good day” or “May you be well.” The Greek word eirene springs from the same essence meaning “unity and accord.”

In our Christmas reading from Isaiah, we hear, among other things, that the name of Jesus is “Prince of Peace.”

 “For a child will be born to us, a son will be given to us;
   And the government will rest on His shoulders;
   And His name will be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God,
   Eternal Father, Prince of Peace” (Isaiah 9:6).

The psalmist declares that the LORD blesses God’s people with shalom (Psalm 29:11) and encourages all people to seek peace and pursue it (Psalm 34:14). Jesus spent his life speaking a word of shalom to those who were alone, hurting, fearful, and anxious. On Easter, Jesus met his disciples in the upper room and brought a word of  eirene – peace and unity (Luke 24:36).

When we pass the Peace in worship, it is not our peace. It is not the “Hey dude, chill out!” kind of peace that the world offers and it is not some shallow aspiration of “Can’t we all just get along?” This is not just about our well wishes. Instead, we are clear that our wish – our prayer – is that the Spirit of God would fill the one to whom we are speaking with hope and joy, alleviating fear and anxiety, now and forever. “The Peace of Christ be with you – always!”

Today, let’s “Go in peace to love and serve the Lord.” As we do, may the Spirit of God use us to bring wholeness and unity as we get to work in Jesus’ name.

Wishing you God’s deep and abiding Peace,

Pastor Lowell

What a year it has been! We never anticipated how different our lives would be in 2020. We are so grateful for the many new ways you have served and participated in life and ministry at Lord of Life throughout the past year. We thank God for each of you and the numerous ways that you generously share your lives for God’s mission here, in our community, and throughout the world. Thank you also for your Christmas gifts.

As we jump into a new year of growing in faith, we pray that the Spirit of God will continue to bring us health, joy, and peace as we remain rooted in the promises of Jesus.

Ok, so that phrase might be a cliche around here by now. But I've been obsessed with Christmas lights since I was a kid. Not just looking at them. I remember taking strands of lights apart and putting them back together, learning how the wiring worked, how I could work around the burnt out lights if they took out a whole string. I remember learning the hard way that incandescent lights that were designed to work in a circuit of 35 lights were not happy if you cut the same circuit down to just one bulb plugged into a 110v jack. I learned how to flip a circuit breaker when I was ten years old. Don't tell my mom.

I was excited when people started syncing light shows with music. One year I did all my research and ordered all the circuit boards, resisters, transistors, diodes, and IC chips I would need to solder together my own technology to build my own light show at home. By November I realized that since my job revolves around Christmas, I don't really have time to put something like that together at home. My box of parts has been sitting there for about 12 years now, and technology has changed quite a bit since then. 

Enter 2020. I'm busy, but not the same kind of busy I would normally be because I don't have any ensembles to rehearse. The church is under construction and I'm looking forward to a time when our lighting technology is integrated with our video and cameras. We're streaming our services, and I'm desperate to find a way to make our online experience more special. And here I am with my soldering iron, a christmas light obsession, and a little extra time on my hands.

I'm not going to give away all the extra features we may have built into our worship moving forward. Some of them are permanent, and some of them we will feature for Christmas and then move back to my own holiday light bins. It certainly doesn't replace getting to see you all in person during the Christmas season, but I hope it adds just a few more special moments that we can experience online together.

Merry Christmas,

John

A poem from Kaitlin Hardy Shetler

“Sometimes I wonder
if Mary breastfed Jesus.
if she cried out when he bit her
or if she sobbed when he would not latch.
and sometimes I wonder
if this is all too vulgar
to ask in a church
full of men
without milk stains on their shirts
or coconut oil on their breasts
preaching from pulpits off limits to the Mother of God.
but then i think of feeding Jesus,
birthing Jesus,
the expulsion of blood
and smell of sweat,
the salt of a mother’s tears
onto the soft head of the Salt of the Earth,
feeling lonely
and tired
hungry
annoyed
overwhelmed
loving
and i think,
if the vulgarity of birth is not
honestly preached
by men who carry power but not burden,
who carry privilege but not labor,
who carry authority but not submission,
then it should not be preached at all.
because the real scandal of the Birth of God
lies in the cracked nipples of a
14 year old
and not in the sermons of ministers
who say women
are too delicate
to lead.''

Earlier this week I was scrolling through Facebook and I discovered this poem. The words caught me off guard as I was not prepared to dwell in meaningful thought before bed, rather, I was mentally prepared for memes before nodding off to sleep. Nonetheless, I was stopped in my tracks.

The entrance of God into our world was not simply human, as God became man. God’s entrance was enveloped in the feminine, as the Mother of God screamed in labor and almost broke Joseph’s hand with her tight grip - and when Mary held Christ in her bosom and rocked him to sleep - and when she cried out because he bit her, or sobbed because he would not latch. 

The mothering of Christ has been a fascination. An entire song, Mary Did You Know?, plays into the importance of Mary and in a few lines the song captures her motherhood, “This child that you've delivered, will soon deliver you,” “When you kiss your little baby, you kiss the face of God.” Yet, despite acknowledging Christ’s entrance being feminine as he was birthed into our world, and the reality of motherhood being present in the gospel, we often do not give credence to womanhood in Scripture, nor do we allow such mothering to impact our understanding of God.

The creator of Heaven and Earth creates through women in a way men cannot claim, and it certainly isn’t “dirty,” rather the sacredness of birth is front and center in the Nativity Story. Pregnancy, birthing, and mothering give us a glimpse of our God, as it is seen by Gabriel’s message to Mary in the first chapter of Luke, “The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you; therefore the child to be born will be holy; he will be called Son of God.” There is God in womanhood.

Your sibling in Christ,

Alec Brock (he/him/his)
Seminary Intern

After an already long Thanksgiving weekend, I was hopeful that my kids could extend their break one more day with a Snow Day, this past Monday. The temperatures were falling and the forecast predicted a 80-100% chance of snow for most of the day, but there were no closures in our region of the Tri-state.

I mentioned this to my 9^th grader during the dark, morning commute to school that day and he said, “No way! Snow Days are a thing of the past. Now that so many districts are able to do stuff online, rumor is that it will just be a virtual learning day for everyone. No more Snow Days.”

The news stunned me. How could there be no option for hearing those most coveted winter words – equally beautiful to child and teen alike – blessed words heard in a sleepy haze even before the morning alarm went off: “It’s a Snow Day. No school, today. Roll back over”?

Is it true? Will there be no more hunkering down, loafing in pjs for the day (which some have already perfected during this season of COVID)? No sledding hill with friends for an exhausting afternoon and then arriving home, numb, ready to sip on a warm drink to thaw you out? Have our online and virtual capabilities relegated the Snow Day to be a thing of the past? I can’t imagine.

For centuries, and often even today, humanity thought they had God figured out. Everything they did was only to stay in God’s good favor. Worship, sacrifice, and obedience in daily living was to appease a God who could become angry if people wavered from the demands and commands of The Almighty.

God promises otherwise. God creates out of love and joy, declaring “It is good!” over critters, creatures, and creation. God comforts through compassion and restoration. God leads with justice and equity. These are some of the attributes of God we especially witness during these weeks leading up to Christmas.

Advent is a season of waiting and hope. Like a child, longing for the gift of a Snow Day, we watch and wait with eager anticipation for the arrival of Jesus – and he doesn’t disappoint. With the arrival of Emmanuel, God with us, Jesus created a seismic shift which would change the course of history for all time.

In their video about hope (www.bibleproject.com/videos/yakhal-hope/), the Bible Project declares, “Christian hope looks back to the risen Jesus to look forward!” Jesus’ birth, life, death, and resurrection give us a forecast which pull us into the realities of God.

We hear it from the opening chapter of Luke, when Mary declares,

“I’m bursting with God-news; I’m dancing the song of my Savior God…
His mercy flows in wave after wave on those who are in awe before him.
He bared his arm and showed his strength, scattered the bluffing braggarts.
He knocked tyrants off their high horses, pulled victims out of the mud.
The starving poor sat down to a banquet; the callous rich were left out in the cold.
He embraced his chosen child, Israel; he remembered and piled on the mercies, piled them high.
It’s exactly what he promised, beginning with Abraham and right up to now.

(Luke 1:46-55, The Message)

God doesn’t make empty promises or speculative forecasts. Instead, God moves into the neighborhood and gets to work instilling hope, creating joy, waging peace, and revealing love. With Christ, life will never be the same.

Watching and waiting with you,

Pastor Lowell