The Reverend Dr. William A. Evertsberg
Alpha and Omega God, the one who is, and who was, and who is to come, thank you for bringing us together as community to this place of joy and peace and light.
Thank you for all that is bright and sacred about December: the splendid musicians who bring their voices and their instruments and their heaven-sent expertise and their rare craft to share the good news in melody and meaning; the bracing, polar, almost-winter wind; a candle in every window; pines and spruces clad with stars like the night sky itself; Rudolph and Scrooge and George Bailey and Kevin McAllister and all those hapless, distracted Hallmark characters with misplaced priorities who improbably find love before the credits roll.
Thank you for the season of babies. For that God-with-us infant who came down to Bethlehem so long ago. For our own reminders of innocence and goodness and new life like Brooke Farley and Audrey Markson. Christmas itself has come to those happy homes this year.
Patch up the broken hearts of those who notice who’s missing this Christmas, all those for whom the holidays are more about loss than love, more about lack than joy.
Joseph and Mary were far from home when their baby was born, and they remind us of all those who can’t be home for the holidays—because of illness, or distant responsibilities, or military service, or estrangement from those they once loved. Show them a place of shelter and welcome.
All this thanks, and all these pleas, we offer to your throne of grace in the name of the One who came down long ago to a tiny town, and will come again in glory, and who taught us all to pray together, saying: Our Father…Amen.