WORTHINGTON UNITED METHODIST CHURCH614-885-5365
December 2008
Alexander Coyle has been my poet of choice for Advent and Christmas since my days in seminary. This Presbyterian pastor is able to put the feeling of the season into words without ever reducing it to sentimentality. He is able to articulate the love and joy that we feel as we look at the Infant Jesus and at the same time articulate the mighty movement of God. The following is one of his poems.
Jesus was a child,
Who breathed and ate
He thought and considered,
But he was also God
Who emptied himself
How he could be human and yet divine,
Nor why he would give up all that made Him God
To redeem our life,
But I think it was because,
Above everything else,
To be God is
To be loving.
A boy-child,
Who was born
And lived
And died.
He was a man
Who was born
And lived
And died.
Who breathed and ate
and walked and wept
and saw and heard
and spoke and slept.
And, like other men,
and saw and heard
and spoke and slept.
He thought and considered,
imagined and understood,
hoped and remembered,
loved and had compassion.
He was a man.
hoped and remembered,
loved and had compassion.
But he was also God
Who emptied himself
of power and wisdom,
of infinity and eternity,
of glory and majesty
And became one of us
of infinity and eternity,
of glory and majesty
making himself nothing
that we might become something.
I do not know
that we might become something.
How he could be human and yet divine,
Nor why he would give up all that made Him God
To redeem our life,
But I think it was because,
Above everything else,
To be God is
To be loving.
The deepest work of Christmas for us is to make this sort of God visible to a world that does not know or understand this sort of God. And that is why, Friends, it is most important that at Christmas time we recommit ourselves to deeds of daring stewardship and actions that reveal the God "who emptied himself of power and wisdom, of infinity and eternity, of glory and majesty and became one of us, making himself nothing, that we might become something."
For Worthington Church to be in ministry as Worthington Church is called by God to be in ministry, it will take us all leveraging our financial and creative resources in daring ways. Christmas calls us to action.
-Alan
December Happenings
Tuesday, December 2: Charge Conference at Trinity UMCSaturday, December 6: UMW Member Brunch
Sunday, December 7: Church-Wide Zoo Lights Outing
Wednesday, December 10: Taizé Service
Friday, December 12: Family Night: "A Night in Bethlehem"
Sunday, December 13: YF Fundraiser Breakfast with Santa at Champps
Monday, December 15: Red Cross Blood Drive
Sunday, December 21: Special Christmas Music at 9:00 Worship
Wednesday, December 24: Christmas Eve Services at 4:30, 7:00, 9:30 & 11:00
Thursday, December 25: Merry Christmas to all!
Church Office and CPC Closed
Friday, December 26: Church Offic and CPC Closed