Wednesday Word: Defiance

Yesterday I sent out a message saying that in-person worship services had been suspended indefinitely. I immediately received a text from a parishioner asking if I was canceling the Parking Lot Lessons & Carols. I responded, “Only if the weather is really bad.”

A weather app that I've come to trust is predicting approximately one quarter of an inch of rain beginning at 3:00 and continuing through the five o'clock hour. But it is also calling for temperatures in the upper fifties. So, unless that temperature changes, or the wind kicks up and it's raining sideways, I'm going to go out on a limb here and say that the 4:00 Parking Lot Lessons & Carols will go on as planned.

Bring an umbrella – or two or three or four. Bring your rain coats. Bring your flashlights.

On this Christmas Eve let us gather to read the story and sing the songs of Christmas. The weather may not be perfect, but I think it will do us good to gather safely and to see our friends and family of our parish who have become so important to us over the years.

And then let us celebrate the birth of Christ with our families to the best of our ability. Maybe that means we change some traditions, or start new ones, or create temporary ones to get through this season. Hopefully it also means joining us on our Facebook page at 10:45 tomorrow night for the late Christmas Eve service.

I titled this edition of the Wednesday Word “Defiance.” It was at this time, this first Christmas, that, as the Gospel of John says, the light of God broke through the darkness to shine on the world, and the darkness did not overcome it.

These are, no doubt, dark days. And some days it feels like the darkness is closing in. In-person worship is indefinitely suspended. It's going to rain on Christmas Eve during a planned Lessons & Carols. Our inability to gather and celebrate with friends is becoming weary. And any number of other dark, depressing things are piling up around us.

It is at this time that we need to shine some of the light of God into the world. Come and sing in the rain. Come worship online. Invite others to participate in our online worship.

Defiance isn't always grand acts of courage. Defiance certainly isn't not wearing a mask and rebuking the virus in the name of Jesus. Sometimes all it takes to defy the darkness is to shine even a little light.

Let us defy the darkness, shine our light, sing with joy, and proclaim to the world that God is with us, even and especially in dark times.

Blessings,

Todd+