In September I had an awful thought: Even if we are back in the church on Christmas Eve, we won’t be able to sing.
It broke my heart.
After all this year has brought forth, has there ever been a year when we needed to sing Jesus into being on this earth more than in this moment?
I was reminded of the song “We Need a Little Christmas,” which says: “We need a little Christmas, right this very minute.” The song is from the musical “Mame,” when Mame begins to decorate her house just a week after Thanksgiving Day because a financial crisis has hit her (and many others as it was the Great Depression). This premature (for the time) decorating is accompanied by her singing that they need a little Christmas right then in that moment. It simply cannot wait.
That song has been playing in my head since September and has since inspired my planning for Advent. I am typically a stickler for celebrating Advent and not jumping right into Christmas in worship. We sing Advent hymns and focus on the waiting and anticipation. This year amid rising COVID-19 numbers, worship still being all virtual. Now after all that has happened in our world and our lives, I have found myself feeling a little more lax about the blending of Christmas into Advent. We do, after all, need a little Christmas.
This Advent we need:
A little hope.
A little peace.
A little joy.
A little love.
As such, we are exploring what it means to have faithful hope in tumultuous times.
How bold must we be to search for peace amidst our volatile world?
What could we possibly find to be joyful about as illness takes our loved ones and keeps us apart?
Where might we find a little love this Advent?
Through Scripture and song around our dining room tables or pajama clad in our comfy beds on cold mornings, we are going to go boldly in search of what we need.
Maybe, just maybe, we may find ourselves outside masked, distanced and surrounding fire pits on Christmas Eve singing that hope, peace, joy and love into being once more.
