December 9, 2022

Remembering: The Return of Old Friends

When our children were young we tried to have family devotions regularly on weeknights. We had songs we would sing, a Children’s Bible we would read from, and prayers we would pray. Each night we would begin by lighting a candle and extinguish it when we were done, with our children waiting anxiously for their turn to tend the candle. Except in Advent and Christmas, which were different in special ways. From Advent through the end of Christmas we had a six-sided tower with doors on each side to be opened like any Advent calendar. Behind the doors were “stained-glass” windows illumined by the battery-operated candle inside the tower. There were big doors on the bottom for each Sunday, and smaller doors for each weekday, with each side being one week. In each window was often a “saint,” or sometimes an event, with a Bible verse for that day on the back side of the door. We had an Advent wreath with its 5 candles to light along with special Advent and Christmas songs to sing. And our Advent/Christmas tower went all the way though Christmastide, starting on November 30 and ending on the Sunday after January 6. 

Our Advent devotions were special. But they were a bit challenging. Often we would open a door and not be able to explain who the person was behind the door to our children. Most were familiar, but some were unexpected, like Rosa Parks and Dorothy Day. There were the usual suspects like Andrew and Ambrose, Nicholas and Lucy, Dietrich Bonhoeffer and Thomas Merton, Mary and Joseph. But to explain these people to young children was not easy.

Then I found a book titled Winter Saints written by a children’s author and storyteller and playfully illustrated by an artist. I would read those stories at bedtime to our children, and they delighted us all. Speaking only for myself, these stories made these people seem like friends. I say all of this because some of the most famous saints—and most significant recent Christians—are celebrated in winter. Lucy, of course, is one. I was trying to remember the title of the chapter on Lucy in Winter Saints this past Sunday during Julfest, but could not. Then I found Winter Saints in my yet-to-be-organized office today, and re-read “Lucy the Stubborn Teenager” in it. It brought back fond, warm memories. It was like reconnecting with an old friend.

I imagine for many of you, our Julfest celebration was an experience of recovery and reconnection like that. Although we had an abbreviated Julfest last year, it was not quite the same, I was told. And this year I understood why. After two years of not having this festive celebration, it may feel like renewing an old friendship. And for some of you it may have been doubly so, with the return of an obviously beloved pastor and his wife to our church. This was especially evident in the dinner we had where Steve and Barb Swanson shared the stories of their relationship and their ministries. And this event brought a number of the old friends of our church back home. Reconnections and renewal of relationships are a vital part of our lives and lives of faith. It reminds us of the gifts of our past and invites us to celebrate our present gifts as well, like reuniting with old friends.

So I celebrate the gift of this past weekend by offering one last “thank you” to all who contributed, in small parts and large, to our Julfest this year, as well as our missions dinner Tuesday night. And one last very big thank you to Ann Scranton who pulled it all together, after having kept it alive during the teeth of a pandemic, restored it to its full expression this year. For your six years of service to our church and the community outside our church through your work on Julfest, we thank you. May you have many good memories of your work, even as we have many cherished memories of the fruits of your labors, Ann.

Ann is now passing the mantle on, but “to whom?” has yet to be determined. I am praying for an Isaiah moment in our church, where some of you will come forward and say, “Here I am, send me!” If you are interested in helping with Julfest next year, please contact Ann Scranton or myself. We are actually hoping that more than one person steps forward, as a committee taking on this task is more sustainable than any one person.

It might be easy feel a bit let down after a weekend like we have had, but I would like to remind you that there is more to come. Beyond our worship on the third and fourth Sundays in Advent, we have the string band performing at the Green Lake Pathway of Lights from 6 to 6:30 pm on Saturday, the 10th. Looking ahead we have a Gift Wrapping party on the next Saturday, the 17th, and the next day after worship we have an intergenerational Cocoa & Carols celebration.

Of course, we have our Christmas Eve service at 11:00 pm on the 24th, preceded by caroling at 10:45 pm. On Christmas Sunday we will have worship at the usual time of 10:00 am.

We have much to celebrate from our past and present, with a lot on the horizon to look forward to. Let us continue to journey through Advent in anticipation of what new things God might teach us this season, and what old friends we might recover along the way. 

With the Feast of Lucy of Sicily coming on December 13, I will leave you with a poem written by one winter saint, Thomas Merton, about another, Lucy.

Blessings on you all in this delightful Advent season.

~ Pastor Todd

Lucy, whose day is in our darkest season,
(Although your name is full of light,)
We walkers in the murk and rain of flesh and sense,
Lost in the midnight of our dead world’s winter solstice
Look for the fogs to open on your friendly star.

We have long since cut down the summer of history;
Our cheerful towns have all gone out like fireflies in October.
The fields are flooded and the vines are bare:
How have our long days dwindled, and now the world is frozen!

Locked in the cold jails of our stubborn will,
Oh, hear the shovels growling in the gravel.
This is the way they’ll make our beds for ever,
Ours, whose Decembers have put out the sun:
Doors of whose souls are shut against the summertime!

Martyr, whose short day sees our winter and our Calvary,
Show us some light, who seem forsaken by the sky:
We have so dwelt in darkness that our eyes are screened and dim,
And all but blinded by the weakest ray

Hallow the vespers and December of our life, O martyred Lucy:
Console our solstice with your friendly day.

— Thomas Merton