Voices Piercing the Chaos – A Sermon for the Baptism of our Lord

January 9, 2022 The Rev. Erik Parker Leave a comment

GOSPEL: Luke 3:15-17, 21-22
As the people were filled with expectation, and all were questioning in their hearts concerning John, whether he might be the Messiah, 16John answered all of them by saying, “I baptize you with water; but one who is more powerful than I is coming; I am not worthy to untie the thong of his sandals. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire. 17His winnowing fork is in his hand, to clear his threshing floor and to gather the wheat into his granary; but the chaff he will burn with unquenchable fire.”
21Now when all the people were baptized, and when Jesus also had been baptized and was praying, the heaven was opened, 22and the Holy Spirit descended upon him in bodily form like a dove. And a voice came from heaven, “You are my Son, the Beloved; with you I am well pleased.”

Imagine with me for moment. That we are far away from the cold winter, and in a warmer place with more comfortable weather. We step down into knee deep water, a gentle stream rolling by. The water swirls around our feet. It is cool, and refreshing. The movement is gentle and easy. It feels good to be in the water.

We have been floating down the river for a while now. Each year, we hop into the boat together and start the trip all over again in Advent. We float towards Christmas and through Epiphany. It is a journey that is familiar yet also new each time we take it. It is a Journey that begins with end times, that stops to hear John’s sermons and questions. Then it makes its way, with Mary and Joseph to the stable manger. We hear Simeon and Anna’s song of promise upon seeing the Messiah they waited a life time for. Then we see the magi follow the star to the child.

Today we pick up speed and fast forward 30 years, we float down the river Jordan where Jesus is baptized by John. Jesus’ baptism is an unusual story, an uncomfortable scene for Christians. Why does Jesus need to be baptized? For forgiveness of sins? Repentance? What does it say about John as he baptizes instead of being baptized? In many ways the story of Jesus’ baptism invites more questions as we hear it again.

In Advent, we heard John’s preaching on the river bank. His stiff condemnation of the crowds and his warnings of the Messiah. This time, Jesus shows up at the end of the sermon. The spirit of God descends upon him and along with John, the crowds witness an incredible thing.

But John and the crowds do not see what is going on. They are full of expectation. They are wondering if John is the one they are waiting for. They looking for a fixes to their problems, for hope and salvation. They are hoping for a powerful Messiah. A warrior who will end injustice and who will remove foreign powers from control in Israel, but Jesus is not those things. It is the beginning of the problems that John, the disciples, the crowds, the Pharisees, scribes and temple authorities will have with Jesus. Some will want an ally, some will want a powerful warlord, some will want Jesus to go away. But Jesus simply refuses to fit their categories. Jesus is going to show us God in ways that don’t see… that we can’t see… that we refuse to see.

Remember the feeling of standing in the water, feeling the cool fresh flow around our legs? Well the further we float, the more the current picks up. The gentleness is replaced by force and weight. The water doesn’t smoothly pass by. It pushes and grabs, it pulls and drags. The cool gentle stream that cooled our feet now pulls us in and drag us along. The power of the river is more than we could have ever imagined.

Like the crowds who gathered along the banks of the Jordan, we gather to wait also. We are waiting for the world to get better. But it doesn’t. We are full of expectation, searching for hope and promise, looking for fixes to problems and an end to struggles.

As we hoped for a more normal Christmas, the pandemic kept rolling on. Plans were dashed and changed in a hurry. And then many became sick, maybe even friends and family sent those texts or made those phone calls, ‘I tested positive.” And worry and anxiety ensued, It has all felt like a great setback.

Our world hasn’t changed all that much since John and Jesus met in the river. Sure, we drive cars, live in heated houses and can talk to anyone on the other side of the planet instantly. But, we are no different than those crowds standing on the rive bank, full of expectation, wanting our world to be different, wanting our problems to disappear.

The weight of all of this threatens to drown us in the inability to care any more. We hear the reports, read the news articles and it is too much to take, too much to grieve for. Not only is it hard to see what is going on as Jesus is baptized by John, it is hard to see where God is at all.

Today, it might feel like the cool refreshing water of the river has pulled us in and dragged us under. The current is churning and spins us about. We bounce in all directions, sputtering for air, aimed over the cliff, over the waterfall.

This is not what the river journey begun in Advent is supposed to be like.

This is not what God is supposed to allow to happen in the world.

We are not supposed to drown in the waters of grief and apathy.

(Pause)

And a voice pierces the chaos.

“You are my beloved. With you I am well pleased”.

Words of promise, words of hope.

As John dunks Jesus down into and then brings him up out of the water, as breath and air flood back into empty lungs, God speaks. God speaks in a way that hasn’t been heard since the beginning of creation. God speaks and the world is transformed.

We tumble over the waterfall, we plunge into the deep pool at the bottom. We are squeezed and crushed under the weight, we can’t tell which direction is up. Death under the waters seems imminent.

And then all of a sudden, while we are tossed about in the churn, not knowing which direction is up or down, we pop up and out of the water. Air rushes back into our lungs. This is where God’s action begins. In drowning, in death. This is as strange a place as we can imagine God to be working. And yet, God speaks as Jesus comes out of the water “You are my beloved children and with you I am well pleased”. What a weird and wonderful God who can push us below the surface in order to make us His own. In order to give us new names as child of God, as Christian, as beloved.

This is why John doesn’t know what is going on when Jesus asks to be baptized. This is why we cannot see God working in the world. It is too radical, too unbelievable.

And yet, this is promise that was made to us in the waters of Baptism, and it is the promise that is renewed each day and remembered each time we witness another child being drowned AND raised in these waters of life. It is a promise made that in the place we lease expect it, in death God is showing us something new, something life filled, something surprising. Something that can come only from a God like ours.

A God who comes into the world as baby born to a unwed teenage mother,

a God who lives a poor carpenter in 1st century Israel,

a God who died on a Roman cross as a common criminal,

a God who was raised from the dead and who in turn calls us to be drowned and then raised,

New life can only come from a God who does not act like we believe God should.

The radical God of water and Baptism comes to us in ways that are so unimaginable and so crazy, that we can hardly make them out. The journey that God is promises is not easy or gentle. The results of God’s work in the world is rarely what we imagine or hope for. Yet, as this unexpected God meets us in our world, and on our terms, we cannot help but be drawn in to this unexpected God whose story has become our story. Whose story we tell over and over again.

As we float down the river of Advent and Christmas, as we pass by Jesus and John in the river, we see again and anew the marvel of God’s love for us. We see a God who not only pushes us below the water to die, but who pulls us out again so that we may rise into new life. And today, we hear a God who speaks through chaos

“You are my beloved Children. With you I am well pleased.”

Amen.

Theology & Culture

Christmas Sermon: Christmas Eve at the Lake House – a St. David’s Story

December 24, 2021 The Rev. Erik Parker Leave a comment

The Gospel according to Luke, the 2nd chapter (2:1-7)

It was December 23rd. Marlena stared out the window at the passing scenery, as the van made its way down the highway. Next to her was her husband Jim. In the back of the van her kids Lizzie, 13 and David, 11. They were watching movies or listening to music or playing video games on their devices. In the middle of that van were family friends Miriam and Jesse, between them was an infant car seat and behind them their 4 year old had nodded off in his carseat.

There was also a mountain of luggage, groceries and Christmas presents in the cargo area of the van.

As they zipped down the highway, Marlena spied a very familiar motel.

“Look Jim! Miriam! Jesse! There it is!”

It was 5 years ago that Marlena and her family had met Jesse and Miriam at a roadside motel in a Christmas snow storm. 4 year old Christopher had been born on Christmas Eve. Marlena had helped Miriam through the birth while they waited for the ambulance to arrive. The rest of the guests had put together an impromptu Christmas dinner. It was quite the experience.

Still, they had lost contact after that extraordinary time. But last Christmas, they found each other again, when Jim and and Marlena wound up delivering a Christmas hamper to Jesse and Miriam. After the two families reconnect, Jim gave Jesse a job at his food supplier business and the two families had grown close over the past year.

Jesse and Miriam weren’t going to have any relatives over the Holidays, so Marlena insisted that they come along for Christmas at the lake house.

Unlike the blizzard 5 years ago, this year as they drove down the highway, the skies were bright and sunny, the highways clear of ice and snow.

When they pulled up to the lake house, Marlena’s parents met the van in the driveway. The house was more like a large rustic bed and breakfast than small summer cabin. There were rooms for everyone and great room big enough to spread out in, with spacious kitchen and dinning.

Marlena’s parents quickly welcomed Jesse and Miriam, and began fawning over 4 year old Christopher and 1 year old Lilly. The whole crew unpacked the van and settled in to their Christmas abode.

The next day, the kids played out in the snow, and the adults puttered around the house baking and cooking, wrapping presents, chopping firewood and taking many coffee breaks. Soon they would be ready for Christmas Eve Dinner and church. Marlena’s dad kept the kids entertained with all kinds of grandfatherly antics. Everyone seemed to be settling in for a cozy evening.

As the sun began to set, the group grazed over a Christmas Eve buffet supper. Jim set up the projector from work and connected his phone, so that they could stream the Christmas Eve Service from St. David’s. Everyone found comfy spots on couches and easy chairs, the kids in Christmas PJs and wrapped in blankets. Jesse lit a roaring fire in the fireplace, and everyone had their own candle (or glow stick depending on age), for the service.

The procession began at St. David’s. The sanctuary glowed with candles and Christmas garland, with tree lights and gathered congregation. The processional party looked like Angels floating down the aisle, carrying torches and candles. They joined in singing O Come all Ye Faithful with the congregation. After all they had been through in the past 2 years, it finally seemed like a normal, peaceful moment.

Then all of a sudden the screen and all the lights in the house went dark. There was loud sound outside followed by something that looked like fireworks going off outside. Baby Lily started crying, Christopher rushed to his dad, Marlena’s mom gasped.

Jim rushed to the front door.

“The power poll down the street is sparking.”

Jim and Jesse put on their boots and coats to go out and get a closer look. As they hurried down the road, the air was crisp, the night sky was dark with no clouds, and the snow crunched under their feet.

They came upon the flashing lights of a power company truck, and they could hear a loud electrical buzz and something that sounded like whip.

When the truck came into view, they saw the bucket lift was halfway down the ground, and a severed electrical line was sparking and whipping the road. And right in the middle of all was a man in an orange reflective jumpsuit, laying on the ground.

As Jim stepped closer, he felt a hand on his shoulder.

“That’s a live wire. You need to stay back. Phone 911.” Jesse said seriously.

Jim pulled out his phone and dialled.

As Jim connected to the 911 operator ,he saw Jesse dart past him into the ditch. Jesse was collecting dead wood and rocks. He found the biggest logs or rock he could carry, and took them over to the far side of the live wire. Began throwing on the back side of the wire to see if could pin it down. He slowly made his way down the wire, until he had most of it trapped like an angry snow snake.

Then Jesse rushed over to the man laying on the ground. Jim could hear the man moaning. Jesse quickly but carefully checked for broken bones and then hauled the man off the ground and over his shoulder. He carried the power company worker over to Jim.

Jim and Jesse then carried the man in the orange jump suit between them back to the house, assuring him that an ambulance was on the way.

Once back at the house, they wrapped him in a blanket and gave him a chair to sit on.

Jim waited outside and before long the familiar red flashing lights of an ambulance arrived. A couple of burly EMTs knocked on the door.

One went to check the power company worker, the other one checked in with Jim.

“Whoever went and covered that power line with logs and rocks was really stupid.” He said.

“But also brave, because you probably saved this guy’s life,” he said gesturing to the worker.

Then the EMT furrowed his brow. “Hold on a second, do I know you?”

Jim looked the name tag on the EMT’s coat – John Shepherd.

John looked around the house.

“You are the people from the motel 5 years ago!”

“And you were the one who made it through the blizzard to take Jesse and Miriam and baby Christopher to the hospital!” Jim said.

The group greeted and welcomed John Shepherd, reminiscing about the miracle birth in the blizzard 5 years ago, and they all shared where they now. Christopher stood proud and tall, showing how much he had grown.

“I don’t know if you folks should be together on Christmas anymore “John Shepherd joked. “This is twice that it has brought me trouble.”

They all laughed.

Soon the EMTs were gone with the worker, and another power company truck was out restoring power.

Jim grabbed his portable power bank, hooked up the projector and got the Christmas Eve service running again. The fire place kept them more than warm. They picked up with the usual Christmas Eve readings.

“The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light.”

The listened to the Christmas story that began “In those days, a decree went out from Emperor Caesar Augustus”

Father Angelo, the priest at St. David’s, reminded them that despite all they had been through in the past two years, that God was still sending light and hope into the world. The same Light and hope that came into the world in the Messiah, the baby born in a manger.

Finally, it came time to light the candles for Silent Night. As the lights were dimmed in the church, the small flames of candle light began to spread and glow across the sanctuary. The group at the lake house also lit their candles.

The congregation began singing Silent Night.

As the families joined in, Miriam helped Christopher hold his candle. Lizzie and David sat with their grandparents, singing intently. Jesse held a sleeping Lily in his arms.

Marlena and Jim were snuggled next to one another. Marlena leaned back to her husband.

“Our Christmas night hasn’t been that silent, has it?” She whispered.

Jim shook his head and smiled. “Something tells me that the first Christmas wasn’t all that silent either, with the manger stalls, travellers in the city, Shepherd from the field, angels singing in the heavens.”

“Maybe the bright lights and drama under the starry night, the unexpected Shepherds and miracles are more like the first Christmas than we really know.” Marlena mused.

As the service neared its conclusion, Father Angelo gave the blessing:

“May the Christmas Star illuminate your path and show you the light.

May the Miracle Messiah, born this night, reveal God’s grace and mercy given for you.

May the the incarnate love of God found in the Christ, move us to see the divine in our neighbour.

And may the Father, Son and Holy Spirit, bless you on this Holy and Joyous night of the Angel’s song and forever more.

covid-19, Pastor Thoughts, Theology & Culture

Pastor Thoughts – Christmas Eve and Pandemic Timing

December 24, 2021 The Rev. Erik Parker Leave a comment

As a kid, Christmas Eve was one of my favourite services of the church year. I can still hear the congregation and choir singing “Glo-o-o-o-ria, in excelsis deo” in 4 parts. I can close my eyes and easily picture the darkened sanctuary, with stained glass dimly glowing in the night. The crowded and full congregation often meaning that we didn’t get to sit in our familiar family pew, but instead a new spot that afforded a new view of proceedings. It was fun to go to church at night for some reason.

Combine that special service with all the family traditions: our Norwegian menu for Christmas Eve dinner (thankfully Lutefisk was a rare sight), gathering with grandparents, uncles, aunts and cousins, opening presents, singing carols and staying up late!

Christmas Eve was indeed a special night, filled with memories and nostalgia. I am sure many of you feel the same way.

And then came my first Christmas Eve as a pastor. Things had already been a little dicey. The congregation was used to having a pageant on Christmas Eve, but didn’t have the kids or teachers to pull it off that year. So I was roped into coming up with something, and we decided on the Sunday school kids singing some Christmas carols and reading the nativity gospel. Let me assure you, conducting a kids choir is not a seminary class. Regardless, we practiced and prepared for the big night.

Knowing that there would be a lot going on, I planned to arrived 15 minutes earlier than I usually did for most Sundays. On my first Christmas Eve, I walked into the church at 5:45 PM for a 7PM service expecting to have a few minutes to myself. Being an hour early most Sundays gave me that opportunity.

But when I walked over to the church (across the field from the parsonage) the lights were already on, the doors open and several cars already in the parking lot.

Inside and already sitting in the pews where about 15 people, none of whom I had seen before. This totally threw me. I wasn’t ready to be welcoming and greeting people for over an hour before the service started. We made it through, but it wasn’t my most enjoyable Christmas Eve.

The next year I got to the church 2 hours early, which left me with 30 minutes to myself, but the night was still a challenge.

I will confess that, since becoming a pastor, Christmas Eve has taken a sharp fall off my list of favourite services of the year. Most Sundays folks don’t arrive with a complete vision of what is going to happen in worship. And as a pastor it is hard to live up to all those expectations (let alone my own Christmas Eve memories) on the most highly attended service of the year.

It is also hard to find something to preach that cuts through all that expectation.

All this adds up to a night that usually fails to live up to my own Christmas Eve desires, and a lot of stress about trying to provide something that meets the desires of others.

Now, you probably know where I am going with this.

After last year, when no one’s hopes and dreams for Christmas were met, we find ourselves in a place that we did not expect to be this year. Even just last week, we were pretty sure we were going to get something a whole lot better than watching our computer screens or iPads. Today, as I write this, we are living under a cloud of uncertainty. We have decided to suspend our in-person services.

Once again, this Christmas Eve will not meet the expectations of our memories and nostalgia.

But a secret that I learned after those first couple of challenging Christmas Eves as a pastor… unmet and unrealized expectations are, in fact, at the heart of the Christmas story.

The first Christmas was nothing but things not going as folks expected. An unwed teenage mother, a fiancée who was not the father, no room at the inn, shepherds and sheep crashing a birth, and the Messiah born into this mess in the back corner of this supremely unimportant place in the world.

Leaning into all the ways that this story of Messiah’s birth challenges our expectations and challenges our versions of what Christmas ought to be is sometimes precisely what we need.

Sure, I would rather just be trying to meet all the regular expectations about Christmas Eve than having to deal with a relentless pandemic with bad timing.

But I also know that the promised Messiah is born regardless. Born to a people walking in darkness. Born to be our new light in the world.

If Messiah could be born in a stable in 1st Century Judea, Messiah can meet us wherever we are and how ever we worship on Christmas Eve.

covid-19, Sermon, Theology & Culture

Advent 4 Sermon – The Messiness of Advent

December 21, 2021 The Rev. Erik Parker Leave a comment

Luke 1:39-45(46-55)
In those days Mary set out and went with haste to a Judean town in the hill country, where she entered the house of Zechariah and greeted Elizabeth. When Elizabeth heard Mary’s greeting, the child leaped in her womb. And Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit and exclaimed with a loud cry, “Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb. And why has this happened to me, that the mother of my Lord comes to me? For as soon as I heard the sound of your greeting, the child in my womb leaped for joy. And blessed is she who believed that there would be a fulfillment of what was spoken to her by the Lord.”

We have come to the end of Advent. Advent has been rough this year. We have endured talk of the end times and John the Baptist’s fiery preaching from the river banks.

Finally today, on this last Sunday of Advent things start to sound a little more Christmasy. Elizabeth, a woman thought to be too old to conceive and barren, is pregnant with John. Mary, a virgin still only engaged to be married, is pregnant with the Messiah.

Today’s story sounds beautiful and picturesque. It is easy for us to imagine two delightfully pregnant women greeting one another lovingly; a scene that makes us smile.

But we forget to consider the struggles these two women are facing. Elizabeth is older than a pregnant woman should be. She and Zechariah will be raising a child in their old age, more like grandparents who have unexpectedly found themselves raising children again. While Mary is a young unmarried teen girl, and her fiancé is not the father of her child. Joseph could call off the marriage off at best… maybe forcing Mary to a life of begging on streets, with a child to care for. At worst, both she and her unborn child could be stoned for adultery. For both women in their day, child birth was dangerous and all too often women would not survive the birth experience without some luck. There is probably more relief than joy while the women greet one another, as Mary has gone with haste to see her cousin, to avoid the judgement of her hometown family and friends.

The story of Mary and Elizabeth is not one of those Christmas movies. Rather it is story full of fear and danger, one that stands in contrast to the Christmas image we generally try to present. Mary and Elizabeth challenge the notion that we usually hold about Christmas: shopping, baking, decorating and hosting. Mary and Elizabeth introduce things we don’t want to talk about this time of year. Fear, danger, shame and uncertainty.

(Pause)

Marlena’s mind was wandering, thinking about Christmas things. Father Angelo’s voice snapped her back to attention, “These two reveal to us the ways in which the spirit is pregnant with possibilities among us.” Marlena was sitting in the pews at St. David’s, listening to the sermon on the last Sunday before Christmas.

With her was her husband Jim and to two kids, Lizzie and David. The world had been slowly finding a new equilibrium. Even with masks in church, showing their vaccine passports, sitting one household to a pew… simply being at church with other people was such an improvement over the year before.

As she began scanning the congregation scattered throughout the amphitheatre style seating, she caught the eyes of a good friend Miriam. Miriam and her family had become quite close to Marlena’s family this past year. Miriam was holding a bouncing one year old girl in her lap while keeping a precocious 4 year old busy in the pew below her.

Marlena smiled, though she knew that smiling happened mostly with the eyes while wearing a mask. Miriam seemed to be smiling back, but she couldn’t help but look tired. Marlena was too. They all were.

(Pause)

The real story of Mary discovering that she is pregnant unravels and upsets our vision of the Christmas story. We don’t want Christmas to be like real life, it supposed to something different, or least that is what we hope to create. The perfect and ideal vision of the perfect family preparing for a new baby. This was supposed to be the Christmas that we have been desperately hoping for after our zoom Christmas last year. Yet, once again our plans are disrupted and real life will not come close to matching our expectations, our hopes and dreams. We easily imagine calm and peaceful expectant mothers, Mary and Elizabeth, as if they this is the way the planned to have children all along.

Just as we imagine our own family gatherings, Christmas parties, and holidays traditions that we used know. But that is our version of Christmas. NOT necessarily God’s.

God is telling a different story at this time of year. God is telling a real story, about real people. About people who have big problems, and no easy way out. It is about poverty, about unmarried parents, about unwanted babies, about couples too old to raise a child, about judgment and the threat of death. It is about tiresome pandemics, exhausted poeple, a longing for our trials tribulations to be over. And it is about how God’s people respond to fear and danger.

(Pause)

After church Marlena and Miriam met in the in parking lot. The kids were playing on the windrows that surrounded the cars. Jim and Miriams’ husband Jesse were chatting about work. Marlena looked to her friend.

“Have you heard from your family yet?:” Marlena asked.

“They aren’t going to make it.”

“What about Jesse’s family?

“They can’t either.” Said Miriam.

The two friends looked at each other.

“Well, then it is settled.” Marlena declared. “You all will come us to the lakehouse.”

“I feel like we are imposing on your family Christmas, we have done that enough already.” Responded Miriam.

“Nonsense. You are family. Christmas without you would hardly be Christmas.”

(Pause)

Sometimes the real world can get in the way of Christmas. While we try to create perfect memories with seemingly perfect families, God is discarding the rules about pregnancy before marriage in order to send us a messiah. As we stress and worry and prepare for the perfect Christmas, God is sending divine messengers to an old woman and unwed teen mom living in poverty.

God does not wait for the everything to be perfect or to fall into place in order to begin the work of the incarnation. God does not come only when it is safe and there is nothing to fear. God’s activity of taking on our flesh and becoming like us starts now. God comes to us, whether we want God to or not.

Mary’s and Elizabeth’s real life shoves aside our idyllic nativity scenes, visions of perfect Christmases. Mary and Elizabeth show us a real story about real people. A story about shame, and danger and betrayal. But also a story about mercy, and compassion and grace.

(pause)

Miriam looked at her friend Marlena.

“Why do you keep taking care of us?” Miriam asked. “Aren’t you tired of us yet? Aren’t we more work than we are worth?”

Marlena laughed. “Ridiculous. We aren’t the ones stuck with you, you are the ones stuck with us. Ever since that roadside motel, when I got to hold newborn Christopher in my arms, when I see the way my kids and Jim come alive with you all. Your family is special to us. I see hope and joy and promise when we are together.”

Miriam sighed. “The spirit pregnant with possibilities, just like Father Angelo said, I guess.”

The two friends smiled and laughed, and this time they could see each others’ faces.

(pause)

For when Mary gets past the shame of pregnancy before marriage, when she get spast the fear of death for adultery, she with her husband to be Joseph, with her elderly cousins Elizabeth and Zechariah, they all become guardians of God’s promise, bearers of the Good News made flesh.

And it is the same for us, when our fears and worries get out in the way, when we can’t see what God is up to. God comes anyways. And God bears grace and mercy for the world in us. God makes us the messengers of the Good News of God’s love and compassion for all. God sends Messiah to frightened world.

And because of what God is doing, with Mary, we can sing:

“My soul magnifies the Lord,

and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior,

for he has looked with favor on the lowliness of his servant.”

covid-19, Pastor Thoughts

Pastor Thoughts – What are we going to do about Christmas?

December 18, 2021 The Rev. Erik Parker 1 Comment

The world has changed (again) this week.

It feels strange to be looking back on the beginning of this pandemic like it was in the ancient past, but I have found my thoughts drawn there this week.

My first clear pandemic memory is from January of 2020. I was attending the Alberta Synod Study Conference in Canmore, AB. Each night as we flipped on the TV before bed, the news kept talking about this Novel Coronavirus. I knew that I should be paying more attention to this, but the things happening more immediately around me pushed those thoughts away. It was still 6 weeks before that fateful week in March when the whole world changed.

Back in mid-November when Omicron was identified as a variant of concern, I had a similar feeling to the one I did in that hotel room in Canmore.

And this week has felt an awful lot like March 2020. When things that seemed to be on certain footing just a few days ago have become shifting sand.

I am sure there are many who are wondering about Christmas. Some might be hoping that we may be able to hold on and still get our in-person gatherings with family or at church. Others are probably already adjusting plans, and re-thinking things that felt set in stone for weeks or even months.

With the new public health orders that arrived Friday afternoon, we know that as of today, our capacity will be limited to 50%. For this reason we will be adding a second service at 4PM in order to spread out our attendance and to keep from having to turn folks away.

We are committed to keeping everyone as safe as possible at Sherwood Park. And in addition to the extra 4PM service, online services continue to be available no matter what.

This pandemic has again certainly put a damper on the season. I also suspect that the new year will bring a challenging time and things might feel like they are going back to those early days of the pandemic.

But we have been here before. We have weathered this storm before. And this time we know how to make things work.

And remember that first Christmas had a number of bumps along the way as well: government required travel, full inns, mangers for beds. And yet the Angels still appeared, a crowd still gathered even if in an unconventional way and the Christ-child was still born.