A German Lutheran theologian named Dietrich Bonhoeffer once wrote that “Celebrating Advent means being able to wait. Waiting is an art that our impatient age has forgotten. It wants to break open the ripe fruit when it has hardly finished planting the shoot. But all too often…the fruit that seemed so precious is still green on the inside.
Whoever does not know the austere blessedness of waiting—that is, of hopefully doing without—will never experience the full blessing of fulfillment.” (Letter from prison to Maria von Wedemeyer, December 13,1943).
I am convinced Bonhoeffer had it right. Christmas is so much greater and deeper than a glimpse of holiday magic that for a moment outshines the pain and disorder of the world. Instead, Christmas is a sincere reckoning that our world was and is in need of a Savior. Our Christmas hope lies in Jesus having been sent to our world exactly as it is, in order to reconcile it with the world it will become: one in which God’s will is fully done “on earth as it is in heaven.” As we’ve been suggesting along our Advent journey this year, that includes both promise and challenge for the webs of relationships that comprise our own lives.
This newsletter shares a variety of ways to observe the ripening of the fruit, as Bonhoeffer put it, as we celebrate the Nativity of our Lord. There is just too much for any one of us to take in, but we hope that some or perhaps even one of these opportunities will help you “experience the full blessing of fulfillment” that is God-with-us, Emmanuel!
It is truly our privilege to share in ministry with you, our Williamsburg UMC family of faith. Along with our able, dedicated lay leadership and staff, we are blessed to partner with you in bearing God's glad tidings of great joy to our community and God’s world.
A blessed and merry Christmas to you and yours!
~ Pastor Dave
