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Rev Paige’s Corner: Where Christmas Comes
I was watching the Rachel Maddow show last week – a news commentary show on MS Now. And in her introduction, the host began to explain about the tradition in some churches like ours to have a Blue Christmas service. She did a pretty decent job of explaining the theology and practice of what is sometimes called Blue Christmas or Longest Night worship, but I found myself wondering why she was sharing. And then she talked about a clergy group in Portland Oregon who organized a Blue Christmas service and held it outside the walls of an immigrant detention center in their community. In a local paper, a participant reflected: “I think a lot of the folks that are being detained — I can speak for the Latino community — most of them are people of faith,” Al Nodarse said. “We want them to know that they are being heard, that we are thinking about them, that we are praying for them.”
Our Blue Christmas worship often focuses on our individual griefs and pains, but this story made me think about the broader reality that we are living in and the challenges and pains we are facing as communities.
And the truth is that when we look at the Christmas story, it seems to me that is what it is about. One of my favorite authors expressed it this way:
The Risk of Birth
by Madeleine L'Engle
This is no time for a child to be born,
With the earth betrayed by war & hate
And a comet slashing the sky to warn
That time runs out & the sun burns late.
That was no time for a child to be born,
In a land in the crushing grip of Rome;
Honor & truth were trampled to scorn—
Yet here did the Savior make His home.
When is the time for love to be born?
The inn is full on the planet earth,
And by a comet the sky is torn—
Yet Love still takes the risk of birth.
As Christmas draws close, know that I am keeping you in my prayers and hoping that Christmas is born into our midst this year in meaningful ways.
Blessings!
Rev Paige Besse-Rankin
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