We celebrate the fourth week of our Advent worship series called Christmas Is Coming by turning to Micah 5.1-5. Our worship series has been rooted in the Hebrew Bible readings from the lectionary (collection of appointed readings) for this season & the fiftieth anniversary of Charles Schulz’s A Charlie Brown Christmas. This will be the final week in our preparation for the coming of Christmas.
Thank you for watching over young mommies & their children in love this Christmas. Your generous and beautiful gifts have been delivered!
We invite all of our readers to use social media this week and next to invite folks to our Candlelight Christmas Eve worship celebrations at 5:00 pm and 11:00 pm. Here is a link to our short video. If you are someone who follows us from afar, please consider the gift of an invitation to worship with you wherever you live on Christmas Eve.
Christmas Is Coming Outline
November 29: Jeremiah 33.14-16 (Hope)
December 6: Malachi 3.1-4 (Love)
December 13: Zephaniah 3.14-20 (Joy)
December 20: Micah 5.1-5a(Peace)
5pm & 11pm Candlelight Christmas Eve: Luke 2
This week we turn from joy to peace as we move into the fourth week of Advent.
“The prophet Micah called the people of Judah to focus hard on finding peace in the midst of the thick and oncoming threat of war and invasion. Like a raging storm, the Assyrian invaders were bearing down on them to sweep them away as God’s instrument of judgment against God’s people. They would dodge that particular fate at the hands of Assyria, but they would not escape the later Babylonian invasion. Like so many of us, the people of Judah made the mistake of thinking that God was far away and not with them as they struggled to be faithful. God would break through their resistance, however, and their walls, both literally and figuratively, would eventually come tumbling down. In the midst of all of this coming doom God offers this message of peace to the people with a promise of presence” (based on commentary on this passage by Leonard Sweet).
Read Micah 5.1-5a.
Reflect on a difficult time in your life when you felt God’s absence. What might you have done differently to feel God’s peaceful presence? How might you take time this week to feel God’s peace coming in the Advent of God’s new reality this Christmas?