Preparing for Christmas Eve, 12/24/11

Well, last week ended up pretty busy and I didn't get a blog post up, what with school wrapping up for the holidays, among other things. But here we go - we're into the home stretch in our Advent celebration as a church body.

I hope you're planning on being a part of corporate worship Christmas eve, and Christmas morning. It absolutely might clash with our family "plans" to gather to worship as a church Christmas morning; but if we really believe that Christmas is all about Jesus, then what a great opportunity to have a regularly scheduled church gathering fall on Christmas day. You can also think about it this way: this year is also an interesting test of what you and I value most in our families. We'll surely choose to spend our time Christmas morning doing whatever is most sacred to us. If you have a chance, Zac Hicks, a worship and music director I respect very much, wrote a great blog post here. He has some great challenges for us as we think through the decision of whether or not to participate in corporate worship Christmas morning. We can't be legalistic either way on the decision, and if you miss, I hope it's for good reasons. But hopefully we'll see you there.

All that to say, Christmas eve will be a relatively short, hour-long gathering. Jordan will preach briefly from John 1, and I can't think of a better passage for a Christmas worship-time. God's Word became flesh; the light of God came to dwell with men, and the darkness did not overcome it; Christ brought light and life into our sin-darkened world, and all of us who believe in Christ are given the right to become children of God through Jesus.

The Order of Service

We'll sing together about this theme of God's Son taking on flesh and coming to dwell among us, to save us from our sin. The following is a brief explanation of our Christmas Eve gathering. The way we order a gathering often says as much about what we're doing as the actual content of songs we choose, so this year we're trying to be purposeful in reflecting what Christmas is all about in the song order.

Here's the thought-process of the night: we'll start off the service in a minor key, congregational sing of the first verse and chorus of "O Come O Come Emmanuel." With this song we express the longing of God's people for a Savior, that was promised by God from the time of man's first fall into sin.

Then we'll drop out of the minor key into "Angels We Have Heard On High" as a response, sounding the word with the angels that the Savior has come at last. The chorus sings, "Gloria, in excelsis Deo," which is Latin for "Glory to God in the highest." In the first 2 songs we express the longing of God's people, and God's gracious response.

We'll continue to work our way deeper into who Christ is, and what His incarnation really means, singing "Hark the Herald Angels Sing" just before Jordan preaches, and concluding the night with "Joy to the World." The goal of of the whole night is to present Christ as clearly as possible, and move systematically through a reflection on the glory of Christmas. Again, the themes in our songs will go from longing for salvation, to completion of it in Jesus Christ.

There will be a few more songs in between, with a possible appearance by the kids' choir, and you just have to come Saturday night to find out about everything. The service starts at 5:00 PM on Christmas Eve. Hope to see you there!