Tag: Christmas

Fourth Sunday of Advent 2025 – Candle of Love

by Steve Harsh, posted in Advent, Christian Discipleship, Christmas, Faith and Values, spiritual discipline

In the beginning, God fell in love with creation, and pronounced it very good.  Like romantic adoration, God’s eternal love is blind to human betrayal, rebellion, and stupidity.  When God’s children ignore the prophets and break every covenant offered to us, God continues to love us like a star-struck lover.

We celebrate Advent and Christmas every year to remind us that God still so loves the whole world that He comes to share the risks and sacrifices of being a vulnerable human being. 

In the dark days of December, when wars and senseless violence dominate the news, God’s love simply grows brighter and stronger.  The Advent candles remind us that we are all created in the image of God, and the essence of our God is unbounded, unconditional love. 

So on this final Sunday of Advent, the circle of the wreath is completed.  We relight the candles of Hope, Peace, and Joy.  And today we light the Candle of Love, because the greatest of these is Love. 

[Light all four candles]

Please join me in the prayer on the screen:

O dear God, lover of our souls, we are undeserving and unworthy of your radical love.  Our souls our willing, but our flesh is weak.  Please sweep us off our feet again in your loving embrace.  Help us to share in your wild and crazy romance with this broken world.  Let these candles rekindle in us the dream of your beloved community, so we can throw open the gates of love to all of your weary, hopeless children.  Remind us once more that the Babe of Bethlehem still calls us to love one another, in the same reckless, unconditional way that you love us.  Amen

Northwest UMC, Columbus, Ohio

Lighting of the Christ Candle

by Steve Harsh, posted in Christmas, prayer

We know the Christmas story so well it doesn’t shock us like it should. God in human form born in a barn! What kind of delivery room is that for a Holy Child?  But that is what happens when we think outside the box like that humble innkeeper in Bethlehem.  He made room when there was no room, and his stable became a home for the Holy. 

All during the four weeks of Advent this year we have been exploring what it means to create a home for the Holy in 2024. We have lit a candle on our Advent Wreath for each of the core values needed to house the Holy: Hope, Peace, Joy, and Love. Those are the necessary human qualities for God to set up camp in our hearts.

Tonight we are adding the final piece of our home for the Holy. As the letter to the Ephesians tells us: “with Christ Jesus himself as the cornerstone; in him the whole structure is joined together and grows into a holy temple in the Lord.”

Christ is the cornerstone who holds any home for the Holy together and preserves it against all threats the forces of evil can muster. The Christ child is born in a stable, not in a mansion or a palace, because God favors the poor and humble over the high and mighty. And the message from Bethlehem is that we can all become a home for the Holy if we make room in our hearts for the strangers and the outsiders in our midst.

And so tonight on this Holy Night we light the Christ Candle to celebrate the coming again of the Light of the World.

Please pray with me:

O God, with grateful hearts we once more give thanks for the gift of a helpless baby who comes to save us from ourselves and from the temptations of the world. He is our cornerstone, the solid foundation upon which we stand when everything else fails us. He will live in our hearts when all the Christmas lights are turned off.  His light will never be out of season. It never burns out or goes dark. Calm our fears on this silent night. Make us brave enough to let Christ into our hearts, that we may all be one small part of his Holy home tonight and forever. Amen

Northwest UMC, Columbus, OH, Christmas Eve 2024

Third Sunday of Advent 2024, Joy

by Steve Harsh, posted in Advent, Christmas

Piece by piece we are building housing for the Holy this Advent season.

On the first Sunday of Advent we laid a foundation of Hope for God’s Holy home. [Relight first candle].

Last Sunday we raised four walls of eternal Peace on that foundation. [Relight second candle].

Today, on this third Sunday, we are adding windows and doors so Joy can shine forth to a world hungering and thirsting for that illusive quality of life that is so much more than happiness.

 Happiness is fleeting; it comes briefly with a moment of success, a random act of kindness, or a surprise visit of a friend. But like the sun setting in the west happiness soon fades away, leaving us longing for more.

 Joy is deeper than happiness, unaffected by external circumstances. Joy is like the calm below the sea. No matter how high the wind blows the waves on the surface of the ocean, the same serenity persists below. The whales and sea turtles swim confidently without fear, and the manatees play together, trusting the water around them to sustain their lives.

 Joy for us is like Jesus calming the storm on the Sea of Galilee. When life threatens to collapse around us from illness, grief, pain, or broken-heartedness, joy is the anchor that steadies and sustains us. Joy cannot be explained or be bought and sold. But those grounded in the eternal God of the entire Cosmos shine with the simple trust that nothing in all creation can extinguish.

Joy is a home for the Holy built on the Rock of Ages, and it is the precious gift of Advent we celebrate today as we light the third candle on our wreath. [Light 3rd candle]

Let us pray:

O Giver of Great Joy, we use these metaphors of things we can see to point toward the Holy mystery we can only glimpse in a mirror dimly. The whole miracle of the your coming in flesh to share our humanity is more than we can begin to understand. We marvel at the meanings revealed to us in the Gospel narratives–how you chose to reveal yourself through common people like an unwed mother, a carpenter, shepherds, and foreign astrologers. It is with those ordinary souls you found a home for the Holy so long ago, and it is through their stories you reveal to us that we can be innkeepers who shelter the strangers today or parents to your sons and daughters right now. During this Advent season help us prepare a place in our own hearts where your Holy Spirit can dwell and bring Joy to your people and to your world. Amen

Northwest UMC, Columbus, Ohio, Advent 2024

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

Incomprehensible Incarnation

by Steve Harsh, posted in Faith and Values, spiritual discipline

Amid the cacophony of the mad world, in the darkest days of the year, in times of personal stress or sorrow, when we most need the peace that passes all human understanding, that’s exactly where God chooses to break into our world. Praying that you will feel that holy presence wherever you need it most this Christmas.