A NOTE FROM PASTOR MARGE
Life can be pretty chaotic sometimes and nothing makes that chaos/unrest worse than the Christmas season, can I get an Amen? There’s just so much to do this time of year. There’s Christmas shopping, parties to attend, events to go to, family gatherings, holiday cooking and shopping, decorating, and I could go on and on. Not to mention nothing highlights pain, especially good old family pain, like Christmas time. Maybe your dear family member just died and this is the first Christmas you are going to spend without that person. That’s unrest. Or maybe you experienced abuse by a certain family member in your childhood and now you have to be around them at Christmas. That’s unrest too. The prophet Isaiah in Isaiah 9:6 proclaimed that a child would be born, a son given to us and he would be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace. But as we look around at our world today, it’s not looking super peaceful. Where is our Prince of Peace in the midst of wars and fighting and violence and stress? Earlier in the book of Isaiah, Isaiah relays a message he has received from God and it’s a message of peace. Isaiah is relaying this message to the people of Judah and Jerusalem during a time of extreme unrest, as they faced repeated threats from their larger surrounding nations. The people of Judah had allowed idols to captivate their attention and although they were doing well economically, a spirit of dissatisfaction overwhelmed the land. God’s chosen people were no longer worshipping the one true God and were facing serious threats from their more powerful neighbors. Talk about unrest. So, although Isaiah proclaims a message where the world is free from war, pain, violence, persecution, false idols, and death, the question the people of Judah and Jerusalem and, certainly us today, becomes, how can we turn our current unrest into peace? The answer? It starts with the reason for this season. It starts with the Prince of Peace, our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.
— Pastor Marge
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