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Words for the Beginning: Hope is Worth the Risk
by Amy Norton-Benfield, December 19, 2024
Advent marks the beginning of the liturgical year, and this Advent, our aptly-named worship curriculum invites us to explore “Words for the Beginning: Advent Reminders for New Seasons.” From December 1st through January 5th, we’ll dive into the themes of blessing, companionship, risky hope, abiding love, holy laughter, crooked roads and a whole lot more!
As we hurtle towards Christmas, we reflect on all that it took to get us to this point, and what I’m coming up with is ‘a whole lot of hope.’ And hope isn’t anything to scoff at, though it’s easy to give hope a bad rap. Hope can encourage us to take important risks, like how Mary risked her body to bear a son who will become the hope of her people. Or how Joseph, knowing that quietly breaking off his engagement would be the safer choice, risks ridicule, exposure, and who-knows-what-else by choosing to stay with Mary, by choosing hope. Our A Sanctified Art curriculum reminds us that it can feel safer and easier to be a cynic, but the world doesn’t need more cynics. It needs people who say, “it can be better,” and make it so.
On Sunday, we’ll join together to tell this sacred story of risky hope, and we need your help to do it!
Throughout the worship service, we’ll be creating a giant, church-wide nativity scene, so we’re inviting each person to bring something to lend to the scene: a stuffed animal, a Lego person, a figure from a household nativity set, a clothes-pin doll, a sheep ornament, you-name-it!
We’ll need items to represent shepherds, animals, angels, magi, more animals, babies Jesus (like attorneys general), Marys and Josephs and more – nothing is too big, too small, or too obscure to fit into the stable on this special occasion!
See you at the manger,
Amy
Christmas Eve
6:15pm – 6:50ish: Pajama (and hot chocolate) story time for children in the Parlor
6:30pm: Concert prelude in the Sanctuary
7:00pm: A Festival of Lessons and Carols in the Sanctuary
Image credit: Magnify, by Hannah Garrity, Inspired by Ecclesiastes 4:9-12. Acrylic painting with mixed media on canvas. © a sanctified art | sanctifiedart.org
