Well...Amy and I celebrated our first Christmas together at the old Anglican Church where we rent living quarters and where our church, Calvary Evergreen, rents the sanctuary for Sunday evening services.
We held an open house at the church and combined it with a Christmas celebration holding two services at 2pm and one at 6pm. I conducted the first one preaching out of Luke 2 primarily, while Pastor Craig preached out of Matthew 1 at 6pm
I encouraged congregational participation during the 2pm service which I conducted more as a lecture than a sermon. There were people who attended that I would classify as "seekers" and who had questions about the birth of Christ especially the nature of the virgin birth. So, I dispensed with sermonizing and instead took questions and answered them the best I knew how.
I emphasized Jesus' purpose in incarnating in the flesh the twin ideas of the Kingdom and the Cross while explaining the political/religious/economic climate of Judea during the early and middle first century.
Jesus' life and teachings are as important as his death on the cross. Too often we Christians tend to reduce the Gospel or "Good News" to solely his death and resurrection... important as they are...but fail to explain that his death and resurrection were means to an end which is to reconcile all things to God including his entire creation.
We Christ followers need to concentrate more on this life instead of focusing solely or primarily on the next. We need to be working out our soul's salvation (sanctification) in the here and now and show fruit worthy of repentance.
I personally believe too much emphasis is placed on end time prophecy, worrying about when and exactly how Jesus is going to return and not enough on loving God with all our heart, mind and soul and our neighbor as ourselves in this life and in this dimension of reality.
That in a nutshell was my message for Christmas 2016.
We had more than enough food and drink for the 25-30 or so people who attended.
Thanks to Pastor Craig and his wife Christie along with their three children who gave of their time, money and resources to make this Calvary Idaho Springs Christmas celebration a smashing success.
And thanks to all from Idaho Springs and Evergreen who celebrated and shared their lives with us for a few hours on the Holiest day of the year.
It was good to see Jonas from Idaho Springs as well as John Mark, Shannon, Tim from York Gulch who incidentally brought a gift of wine for us, my good friend from Evergreen, Matt, my friend the Bernie supporter, Trey from Wall Street and David, my new friend who drove up all the way from Denver to attend and many more.
And thanks to Luigi from Evergreen who cooked a fantastic "root beer glaze" ham and deviled eggs! Best wishes to him and his wife as he recovers from recent brain surgery.
And finally a great thanks to my new wife, Amy, for organizing the event and putting up with my very noticeable shortcomings. She's a saint to be sure.
Now, it's off to work for both Amy and I after a good night's sleep.
Grace and peace to you all...And a very Merry Christmas!
BR Schoenbein
Amy Schoenbein
December 26, 2016- Monday
Merry Christmas to you both!
ReplyDelete