Wednesday, December 26, 2007

Christmas Day

Christmas was difficult for me this year, for a number of reasons, which I won’t get into here. I always feel a certain sense of relief when the services are finished and I can finally relax with my family. This year I was able to relax a bit more as we did not leave right away to visit our extended families. [My wife worked last night (a nurse in pediatric oncology) and so we are not leaving to see family until this afternoon.]

I must say, though, that I was pleasantly surprised at the number of folks who came to the Divine Service on Christmas Day! Still not a large gathering, to be sure, but more than expected. And what made it great was the variety of people we had – we had a retired Chinese pastor and his wife; our Ethiopian family; a man from our Spanish Bible Study; an Iranian man and his Norwegian wife who are friends of our congregation; and one of our adopted seminary students and his family! It was truly a picture of the “people of every tribe, people, and language” that we hear of in Revelation. And then to receive the body and blood of our Lord on the day we remember His birth, nothing is better than that.

1 comment:

Elspeth said...

I'm sorry Christmas was difficult for you. It didn't show.

I, too, thought the make-up of the congregation was great. And everyone joining together singing the liturgy and hymns so enthusiastically sounded just wonderful.