Month: December 2023

Lighting of the Christ Candle 2023

by Steve Harsh, posted in Advent, Christmas

December nights are the longest and darkest of the year in our part of the world.  It is a good night to light candles.  Tonight the waiting and hoping of Advent gives way to the celebration of a miracle birth.  It happened over 2000 years ago, but we still marvel at the simplicity and mystery it has held for believers throughout the ages. 

Christmas is more than just a miracle birth story. 

It is about the birth of hope, [light one candle]

And Peace [light 2nd candle],

And Joy [light 3rd candle],

And Love  [light 4th candle].

These four candles stand in a circle that, like God’s love, has no beginning and no end.  Now on this Holy night we light the tallest and brightest candle, the Christ candle, to celebrate the wonderful birth of our Savior and Messiah.  

[Light the Christ Candle]

The Christ Candle is not like those we put on our birthday cakes.  We do not blow this candle out.  Instead from it we will light our own candles to symbolize the light of the world that glows in the hearts of all who follow Jesus.  

Some may ask why we light candles when the darkness is so deep.  Can our tiny flames really make a difference?  Hear this response from theologian Howard Thurman:

“I will light Candles this Christmas,

Candles of Joy despite all the sadness. 

Candles of hope where despair keeps watch. 

Candles of courage for fears ever present,

Candles of peace for tempest-tossed days,

Candles of grace to ease heavy burdens,

Candles of love to inspire all my living,

Candles that will burn all year long.”

Please pray with me:  O Holy One, rekindle that kind of flame in each of us, the kind that burns all year long. We light candles because we can and we must.  Christ came to teach us we are the light of the world, and to honor this Holy infant, our savior, we hold our candles high to witness to the world that the forces of darkness will not prevail.  For this very night in 2023 a Savior is born again wherever meek souls will receive him.  Come, Lord Jesus, come; we pray in your Holy name, Amen

Northwest UMC, Columbus, OH; December 24, 2023

Advent 4, 2023: Love

by Steve Harsh, posted in Advent

We have made our way this Advent from prophesy and promise to stand now on the cusp of fulfillment.  This very night we will celebrate again the birth of love incarnate in the form of a helpless infant.  Like that baby, love is vulnerable.  Both require careful nurture and handling.  Love is a gift entrusted to common people like Mary and Joseph, like you and me.  Of all the gifts we may give or receive this week, none is more precious than the simple gift of love.  That is what inspired St. Paul to write: “And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.”

God’s love is a spirit that requires embodiment to become real.  God’s love must become flesh to dwell among us.  At Bethlehem that love came to life in the infant Jesus.  Today, if we are open to the mystery, it can come to life in you and me as the church, the body of Christ.  We can be the light of the world because of Christmas. So today we live between the warm feeling of God’s love and the choice to put that sentiment into concrete action.   We humbly receive God’s most precious gift as we light the 4th candle of Advent, the Candle of Love. 

[Light the 4th Candle]

Please pray with me as I share this Advent prayer from Kate Bowler and Jessica Richie from their book, “The Lives We Actually Have:”

God, we are waiting for love,

not the simple kind or the sweep-you-off-your-feet kind,

but the absurd kind.

The kind wrapped in rags, resting in a bucket of animal feed.

Love enough to save us all.

Blessed are we who look for Love,

deeper, fuller, truer—than we have ever known,

than we could have ever hoped for.

Blessed are we who seek you,

the light that dawned so long ago in that dark stable.

Love given.                                                    

Love received.

Dear God, Hold us in that love these last few hours of Advent till that love is born again in our hearts this very night. Amen

Northwest UMC, Columbus, OH; December 24, 2023

Advent 3, 2023: Joy

by Steve Harsh, posted in Uncategorized

“Joy to the world!”  It is so easy to sing those familiar words but so much harder to feel truly joyful.  Our world is so full of discord.  We live in the tension between joy and sadness.  Our emotions ricochet from merriment to melancholy in the blink of an eye depending on what thought or memory is currently playing on the screen in our minds.  We bounce from tears of joy to pangs of grief at unexpected moments. 

Yes, life is messy, but in the midst of it all we still pause to light a candle of Joy, the third candle of Advent.  In word and the magic of music we dare to proclaim a message of Hope, Peace and Joy to a weary world starving for the Good News that God is still with us. 

[Light 3rd Candle]

Please pray with me:

Dear God, remind us again that Jesus didn’t come into a Hallmark Christmas world, but a messy one where Herod killed babies and the Holy family became refugees.  Assure us again today that we can find a source of deep joy in this dark, cold season because the everlasting message of Christmas is that you are always with us, in the best of times and the worst of times, the happy and the horrible; and everything in between. 

We pray that this Advent season will prepare us for living between a promise and the coming of God’s kingdom, between corruption and justice for all; so that our tears will turn to rejoicing and our souls and our lives will magnify the Lord in all we think, say, and do.  Amen

Northwest UMC, Columbus, OH,

2nd Sunday of Advent 2023

by Steve Harsh, posted in Advent
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Ever since the angels proclaimed their message of “peace on earth” to the shepherds of Bethlehem our weary world has lived between that promise of peace and humankind’s warring madness.  It seems we have waited so very long for peace. Our patience wears thin and our hope is challenged, but we are reminded by Scripture that “our time is not God’s time.”  Our perspective is limited and brief, but God’s is infinite and eternal. 

Being patient while we wait is so hard for us finite humans.  2000 years since Jesus’ birth we are still longing for fulfillment of God’s promise, even as we prepare our hearts again for the miracle of Christmas.   We give thanks for God’s grace and patience with all of His fallible children.  We humans still live caught between peace on one hand and fear on the other because of our own love of power and our human weaknesses. 

But even if it seems foolish by the world’s standards, here and now today we still dare to light this candle of peace, the second candle of Advent.  This candle is far more than wax and a wick; it is a witness to the world that God’s promise of a peace that surpasses all understanding is still trustworthy and true. 

[Light candle]

Please pray with me as I share this prayer from Kate Bowler and Jessica Ritchie, from their book, “The Lives We Actually Have:”

Come, Lord, that we might see you, move with you, keep pace with you.

Blessed are we who ask that this Advent          

we might dwell together quietly in our homes.

Come, Lord, that we might be for others the peace they cannot find.

Blessed are we who look to you and say, God, truly, we are troubled and afraid.

Come govern our hearts and calm our fears.

Oh Prince of Peace, still our restless selves, calm our anxious hearts,

quiet our busy minds.

Hear our prayers O Holy One, which we offer in the name of Jesus Christ, the Prince of Peace.  Amen

Northwest UMC, Columbus, OH, December 10, 2023

An Eye for An Eye?

by Steve Harsh, posted in Christian Discipleship, Faith and Politics, spiritual discipline

Ever since October 7 I have been pondering the irony of the Israeli response to the horrific massacre of 1200 Israelis by Hamas.  One of the most familiar tenets of the Hebrew law found in Leviticus says, “Anyone who maims another shall suffer the same injury in return: fracture for fracture, eye for eye, tooth for tooth; the injury inflicted is the injury to be suffered.” (24:19-20). I learned two things about that Scripture in seminary: 1) It is very similar to another ancient law, The Code of Hammurabi, a Babylonian King in the 1700’s BCE, and 2) both the Code of Hammurabi and the Hebrew law were meant not to justify revenge but to limit the amount of revenge one could seek for an offense to an equitable amount.  So, for example, if someone poked out one of my eyes I could not in return poke out both of his or hers. 

Jesus came along 3000 years after Hammurabi and 1400 years after Moses and raised the bar to a whole new level in the Sermon on the Mount where he says, “You have heard that it was said, ‘An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.’ But I say to you: Do not resist an evildoer. But if anyone strikes you on the right cheek, turn the other also,and if anyone wants to sue you and take your shirt, give your coat as well,and if anyone forces you to go one mile, go also the second mile.Give to the one who asks of you, and do not refuse anyone who wants to borrow from you.“You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’  But I say to you: Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you,” (Matthew 5:38-43).

Now, I’m not expecting the Israelis to live up to Jesus’ ethics.  I can’t, and I’m not sure anyone but Jesus could ever do that.  But it seems like not killing your enemy’s innocent women and children might be a start.  And it does seem fair to hold the Israelis to their own Scriptural standards.  At last count the Israelis have killed 16000 Palestinians in Gaza.   That’s more than 10 for every Israeli killed on 10/7.  That’s a lot more than “an eye for an eye.”

I understand the horror of that dark day.  No, I don’t.  Thank God, I have never experienced anything like it.  I was even far removed from any personal suffering on 9/11.  So, I know I have no right to judge.  I don’t know what I would do in the Israeli shoes.  Nor do I have any idea how I would survive the God awful inhumane conditions the people of Gaza have been living under for the last 60 days.  I just know the insane suffering I see on my TV screen has got to stop.  Not just because it is morally unjustifiable but mostly because it is just plain counterproductive.

War and killing have never solved anything.  If the Israelis could actually eliminate Hamas and terrorism by use of force there might be an argument for their military campaign.  But it won’t work.  The anger being fanned in the Muslim world by the war in Gaza will produce far more terrorists can ever kill.  If history has taught us anything it is that revenge only begets more violence in return.  That’s the point of Jesus’ teaching above about turning the other cheek.  To resist the natural human urge to strike back in anger, as impossible as that seems, is the only way the cycle of violence can ever be stopped in its tracks. 

As progressive as it was in the days of Hammurabi, as Gandhi once pointed out, “An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth just creates a world of blind, toothless people.”

I know that too criticize Israel opens me to charges of antisemitism, but I assure you I am not anti-Semitic.  I am a Christian nurtured in the Judeo-Christian tradition.  Jesus was a Jew.  I am constantly challenged and inspired by the Hebrew prophets.  I grieve for the hostages still in captivity, for the suffering of the Jewish people throughout history and on 10/7, but the killing needs to stop; the suffering of the people of Gaza must stop. 

December 5, 2023

Advent I 2023: Hope

by Steve Harsh, posted in Advent, hope

Today is the first Sunday in the season of Advent.  It is a time of preparing our hearts to receive once more God’s promise of healing for our broken world.  Advent is a season of waiting and hoping for what is already but not yet.  It is a time of living in between – between promise and fulfillment, between hope for and receiving.  

This Advent it is harder than usual to be people of hope. The skies over the Holy Land are full of rockets and bombs instead of an angel chorus. We live between Christmas carols on the airways and horrific images of war on our news feeds.

But here, even in this time between hope and despair, we gather to reaffirm our faith in the eternal light that cannot be extinguished by any amount of human sin and suffering. As people of faith have done for hundreds of years we claim the gift of hope once more by lighting the first candle of Advent.

[Light Candle]

Please pray with me as I share this Advent prayer from Kate Bowler and Jessica Ritchie, from their book, “The Lives We Actually Have:”

“God, these are darkening days, with little hope in sight.

Help us in our fear and exhaustion. Anchor us in hope.  Bless us who cry out: ‘Oh God, why does the bad always seem to win?

When will good prevail?

We know you are good, but we see so little goodness.’

God, show us your heart, how you seek out the broken.

Lift us on your shoulders and carry us home—no matter how strong we think we are.

God, seek us out, and find us, we your tired people, and lead us out to where hope lies. where your kingdom will come and your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.

Fill us with your courage. Calm us with your love. Fortify us with your hope.”

We pray in the name of the One we Hope for who already walks with us every day. Amen

Northwest UMC, Columbus, Ohio, December 3, 2023