United Church of Two Harbors

If we didn't have Christmas we'd have to invent it.

For some reason this year I seem even more aware of the pressing shadows of shortening days. Darkness, like a vice, squeezes in on my day making it shorter and shorter. And the light from the sun in its southern journey is muted and lazy, as if the sunbeams when they finally get to us are too tired to really shine. This season makes the raw light from a fire or a candle all the more welcomed.

Biblical archeologists mostly agree that Jesus was probably not born in December but sometime in the spring, but never mind that. Christmas is not about historical accuracy, it's about our need for light in the dark times.

Light is no longer the precious commodity that it once was. We no longer have to work for light. In fact, we have to work hard to get away from sources of light.

Last month the Confirmation Class and I went to Clearwater Forest for a retreat and our first night there we took a night hike. I took along one flashlight but I told them we weren't going to use it unless it was absolutely needed.

"How will we see?" they asked.

"Your eyes will adjust. Work on your night vision."

We were amazed at how much we could see. The night sky is not black but a cacophony of colors. The stars were so bright that when we looked away from the night sky our eyes still burned with their images. When we returned from our night sojourn the light seemed doubly bright.

In Advent we are reminded that we walk in darkness. In Christmas we celebrate a light that shines in the darkness, a light that illumines our way. Those who have walked in darkness will appreciate it even more. Those who are inundated with artificial light may not even recognize its coming.

Blessings to you on your Advent and Christmas journey.

Winter Break Brunch for Returning College Students

So, you're home. Christmas is over. You still have a week or more until you have to go back to school. Your parents and siblings have not yet quite succeeded in driving you crazy but they are trying - really hard. What are you to do? Go have brunch, of course!

Pastor Lawrence extends an invitation to his Fourth Annual Give a College Student a Decent Brunch program. And by decent, he means something he did not prepare. Gather at United at 10 am on Wednesday, December 27th and we will go someplace from there. Better still, it's FREE! Who said there was no such thing as a free brunch?

Yesterday the United Youth went out Candy Caning Christmas Wreaths. Don't know what Candy Caning is? Think of it as reverse Trick or Treating. We wandered around Two Harbors finding Christmas Wreaths and then stuck candy canes in them with little handmade notes. We got the idea from an episode of Rocketboom. It seemed like a good idea and we had a lot of fun doing it. The best, I think, was sticking a candy cane in the wreath of a dentist.

In my sermon this Sunday I spoke about how Muhammad Yunus, this year's Nobel Peace Prize winner, started the Grameen Bank by loaning $27 out of his pocket and thus started what is now known as microloans.

I compared his transformative business model to that of George Bailey in the perenial favorite, It's a Wonderful Life. In the end, George understood what a difference his life made by simply faithfully tending what seemed to be small things. But, in fact, his "nickel and dime Savings and Loan" and his life had a big impact on his community and many other lives.

Likewise, Mary - an unwed, teenage mother in a backwater part of the ancient world - shouldn't even qualify as a footnote to history. And yet because she was faithful in little, her impact is felt through the ages.

Finally, I noted that this day is the centenial anniversary of the first radio transmission of voice and music. Before December 24, 1906 radio was only used for morse code signals. Imagine the surprise of the morse code workers out in the Atlantic hearing that voice through the code! Imagine, further, the surprise of that first broadcaster if he could see what broadcasting has become 100 years later.

As insignificant or impotent as we may feel, it is good this time of year to remember that we are called to be faithful in small things, and these little things may lead to big things.

Micah 5:2-5a
Luke 1:46b-55 (The Magnificat)