Good morning church family,

It doesn’t take much for a class of seventh-grade students to turn into a jumble of sleepwalking moon bats. It takes even less when those same students are just one ring-of-the-bell away from embarking on their Christmas break. On this particular final school-day of December, the transmogrification was brought about by the presence of risers in the school gym. The students had filed into the large gymnasium following their lunch of pizza, crinkle-cut fries, apple slices, and candy canes when they saw the three-tiered semi-circle risers placed just in front of the basketball goal at the far end of the hardwood court. For the last couple of months, all the Crosby Middle School students had spent their chorus period learning a number of Christmas carols and classics ahead of the annual holiday concert held on the Friday before break. Those chorus periods had been held in Mrs. Swicker’s music room. To say that the vast majority of Crosby kids – especially Crosby boys – were unenthused during these chorus periods would be a very kind understatement. But despite the fact that most of her pupils behaved like uncooperative hostages, Mrs. Swicker had still managed to prepare a fair program with a serviceable choir to perform it. But now, as the students assembled for the dress rehearsal before the concert later that evening, the moon bats, with bellies full of pizza and peppermint, were disorganizing themselves on, around, and underneath the risers.

Mrs. Swicker, the school’s chorus teacher, would have attempted to bring the chaos into order but she needed to manage her own chaos first. A slight, middle-aged woman wearing a smart skirt, tight-fitting silk blouse, and high-heeled shoes, Amanda Swicker was simultaneously trying to set up a conductor’s stand, arrange her music, turn the sound system on, and ward off a cadre of high-strung overachievers who were shadowing her every move.

“Okay! Okay everyone,” Mrs. Swicker boomed; speaking into a hot mic. “Please. Would everyone please find a place on the risers? Let’s have the eighth-graders on the top two platforms and the seventh-graders on the bottom two. Don’t worry about it all making sense right away – I’ll move everyone around once I can see how everything looks.”

Mrs. Swicker needn’t have worried that any of her students were concerned with things making sense. They weren’t. But with the help of a couple of classroom aids and multiple threats of holiday homework, the group finally took their places and stood at reasonable attention. Mrs. Swicker wasted no time in firing up the accompaniment tracks that would carry the choir through the program as a cruise ship might carry landlubbers across the Atlantic.

For a public school located in a very progressive part of Tacoma, Washington, the song selections for the holiday program were remarkably sacred. Of course, the majority of the songs were radio favorites; things like Jingle Bells and Rockin’ Around the Christmas Tree. But just about every other song throughout the program seemed to have something to do with Jesus. The kids had spent months singing Go Tell it on the Mountain, God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen, Joy to the World, and O Little Town of Bethlehem. No one seemed to be offended at the mention of Jesus but no one seemed very moved by it either.

“Well, okay everybody,” Mrs. Swicker said after the choir had run through the entire program of songs while only stopping a handful of times for direction, “that’s not half-bad. Please try and watch me at the beginning and end of every song. Some of you were jumping the gun on some of those songs and some of you were holding notes at the end like opera singers. Not a good look or a good sound. And whatever you do, try and blend your voices together with the other ones singing around you. No one should be able to hear any of us singing but only hear all of us. Comprende?” Mrs. Swicker tapped the top of her music stand with her pencil. “Alright, in just a minute I’ll give you some final instructions on how we’re going to enter into the auditorium tonight and how we’re going to exit. I’ll also be giving you some reminders about how to dress and,” shooting a look over at a motley bunch of seventh-grade boys, “how not to dress.” Impish laughs bubbled up from the boys in the lower risers and a gust of sighs descended from the risers above where girls with arms crossed rolled their eyes. “Now, are there any questions?”

Isabella Carpenter raised her hand. “Do you know where our parents are going to be sitting? Will they be able to see us from here?”

“Yes, Isabella. Don’t worry – everyone will be able to see you. Anyone else?”

Cassidy Paradis raised her hand. “Did you want me to sing the mezzo-soprano part on Joy to the World? It’s no problem. I know the music.”

“No, Cassidy,” Mrs. Swicker said; beginning to look a little defeated. “Please just sing the melody with everyone else. Thank you. Okay, are there any more questions?”

It was then that Kegan, a chubby, somewhat cerebral kid who had a Vulcan manner of talking, raised his hand. “Maybe I should have asked this a long time ago but I didn’t think about it until you told us to try and smile while we’re singing. I have no idea who this Jesus is or who the ‘dear Christ’ is who’s supposed to ‘enter in’.”

Mrs. Swicker folded her arms and cocked her head in earnest consideration. She knew Kegan wasn’t grandstanding or clowning and deserved a thoughtful answer. The question had turned the room unusually quiet. “Jesus was a Jewish messianic figure,” Mrs. Swicker began; her speech careful and halting. “He lived back during the Roman Empire, I believe. Think of him as a symbol of good triumphing over evil; or at least wanting to. Jesus is something like a promise of all that’s good with mankind and the world.”

“So, these songs are Jewish then?” Kegan answered sincerely.

“You know, Kegan,” Mrs. Swicker said; looking to quickly put a bow on this topic, “I’m not really, entirely sure, but…”

“I’m pretty sure,” Kegan interrupted his teacher, “that Christmas is a Christian holiday.”

“Well, certainly Christmas is Christian, Kegan. You’re certainly right about that.” Mrs. Swicker lowered her voice an octave and spoke in a summary tone. “But none of these songs have anything to do with religion for us. These are just some traditional folk songs that we’ve chosen for their beautiful music and uplifting lyrics. If you’re having trouble smiling as you sing, just replace Jesus in your mind with whatever warm and sweet thing you love and find hope in.”

Mrs. Swicker, who had a soft spot in her heart for Kegan, looked over at the young man and dared a follow-up by giving a knowing nod. “Okay?” she asked.

“I guess so, Mrs. Swicker,” Kegan answered, plunging his hands in his pockets; only just then noticing that everyone was looking at him. “I just think it’s strange. Why a religion would make such a big deal about a little baby.”

“I guess I don’t really know,” Mrs. Swicker said, cocking her head again. “Perhaps it’s something to look into.”

“Maybe I will,” Kegan said under his breath and mostly to himself. “It might be nice to have a real reason to smile.”

We’re looking forward to gathering together tomorrow to sing and celebrate the good news that we know and believe with all our heart! Our light hearts are a triumph of Heaven. But the heavy hearts of our neighbors are the charge of Heaven for our lives. What a great and joyous work it is to go and tell the good news to others. We are blessed! May the Lord, mighty God, bless and continue to keep us!

• Pastor Tate

Good morning church family,

Societies produce many points of tension for the people living in the honeycombed communities they create. Take the time we spend in public bathrooms, elevators, and waiting rooms, for instance. Complete strangers forced into tight, confined spaces are left with the difficult decision of either entering into pained conversation with one another or enduring some of the most awkward silence imaginable. I mean, what exactly does one man relieving himself say to another man doing the same or what do we say to one another as we collectively stare at the digital display on the elevator, waiting for our floor number to ding? Or, to mention another tension; how about four-way stops? Of course, there are rules to govern these traffic conventions but absent a uniformed enforcement agent of some kind, the vigilantes are left to employ nods, waves, flashing headlights, and cold stares to keep everything moving in an orderly fashion. And providing one more example; we all appreciate it when a stranger holds a door for us – but not when we’re twenty or thirty paces from that door. In those instances, we try declining with an aw-shucks wave of the hand but quickly hang our heads and do a half-jog to the door while the stranger stares smilingly at our awkward progress. It’s brutal.

Now none of the above examples represent any profound stresses in our lives nor are they illustrative of any real hardship we must endure, but instead are just little tensions for us to experience and study. There’s a lot that we might learn about human nature and the way we’ve been designed by God when we ponder on them a bit. I got to thinking about this recently when I was reading Paul’s letter to the believers in Ephesus. A part of the following passage jumped out at me: “But God, who is rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us, even when we were dead in trespasses, made us alive together with Christ (by grace you have been saved), and raised us up together, and made us sit together in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus…” (Ephesians 2:4-6)

What struck me was that last part about Christ making his followers “sit together in the heavenly places”. I think we all understand the odd tension that’s created when a person in your company is standing while you and everyone else present is seated. You can picture it – you’re dining out with some friends when someone you know comes over to your table to say “hi”. Unless the exchange is very brief, you will feel the need to either have the person sit at your table with you or you will feel compelled to stand with him during the dialogue. The conversation is bound to be pained otherwise. You feel the same sort of thing when someone comes and stands by your desk while you’re in your chair at work or when someone drops by your house for a visit and proceeds to just stand there in your living room while you and everyone else is seated on couches and recliners. I get a keen sense of this phenomenon whenever I go and visit someone in the hospital. One of the most important things for me to do in order for the visit to have any chance of being a blessing, is to find some place to have a seat when I enter the patient’s room. Every moment that I remain standing in a moment like that, a palpable tension builds in the room until I either beg an early exit or finally have a seat. Why is that? Well, as social conventions go, sitting is certainly a more casual, unhurried, and open-ended manner of relating than standing seems to be. When someone opts not to sit down but to remain standing, he’s putting the whole exchange on a timer; the conversational equivalent of leaving the car running. But to sit down is to communicate a certain commitment to the time and place; it’s a decision to fellowship with another in whatever is going on. Sitting down somewhere with someone says “I’m with you in what’s going on here”, “I would like to belong here”, and “I’m in no rush to be somewhere else”.

Too many of us (myself included) leave the car running, so to speak, when we come to worship or when we sit to read the Bible or volunteer in some Gospel effort. We come into the Lord’s presence and He offers us a seat but we dip our heads, shove our hands in our coat pockets, and kindly decline. “We can only stay a minute,” we tell Him and then proceed to half-heartedly lean against the door jamb or anxiously shift our weight from foot to foot. We’re there with the Lord in what’s going on but, then again, we’re really not.

But praise the Lord – because of His great love for us and His mercy, He won’t let us stay in that cagey state for long but instead gives us new life and raises us up to where He sits. He lifts us out of all the worries, concerns, and entanglements that make our eyes dart about and which keep our souls shifty that He might bless us with Heaven’s perspective of things. The Lord lightens our hearts, lifts our heads, and causes us to want to dwell with Him. He makes it so we want to take off our coat, have a seat, and stay a while.

So, what do you say? Will you pull up a chair?

The Lord’s invited all of us to His house on Sunday morning! He has something to give us, something to tell us, and something for us to do. It’s going to be so good for all of us to be together with Him then and throughout the week. Isn’t it grand to be a Christian! May the Lord, mighty God, bless and continue to keep us!

–        Pastor Tate