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I will sing for joy in God, explode in praise from deep in my soul! He dressed me up in a suit of salvation, he outfitted me in a robe of righteousness, as a bridegroom who puts on a tuxedo and a bride a jeweled tiara. For as the earth bursts with spring wildflowers, and as a garden cascades with blossoms, so the Master, God, brings righteousness into full bloom and puts praise on display before the nations. – ISAIAH 61:10-11 (MSG)

We have a massive advent calendar. It’s wall-sized — no less than eight feet square. It’s the artful combination of a silk-screened Christmas tree on a cotton sheet from IKEA with homemade pocketed enhancements courtesy of Pinterest (the “craft-cult”). Each morning, as you might expect, there are little treats in the calendar pockets and a Bible verse detailing a part of the Christmas story. Yesterday, I had to navigate through this most awkward of all Christmas verses: “But [Joseph] did not consummate their marriage until she gave birth to a son…” I read it quickly so as not to welcome any questions about the significance of what Joseph didn’t do from my eight year old daughter. Rather, mostly out of fearful parenting, I admit, I put the emphasis on what Joseph did do: “And he gave him the name Jesus.”

The name “Jesus” means, roughly, “God rescues.” People at the time of Jesus’ birth were longing for a rescue. They had known captivity and pain. Their parents had known it. Along with their parents’ parents’ parents and so on…  They had felt the sting of cruel and selfish dictators. They were trapped. In exile, God’s people cried out for a time when God’s rescue would arrive. They were certain when God did show up, it would look like a cosmic display of military power. At the outset of God’s rescue, the whole world would be forcibly and rightly reset — the way God intended it. They waited and waited. They were the people of the first advent. Finally, God’s rescue did arrive, but in a surprisingly unmilitary, unsophisticated, gradeurless package — a baby.

But, in all fairness, maybe it (God’s rescue plan) didn’t work. The world isn’t exactly a shining example of peace and harmony, after all. It’s as if God, through Jesus, started a project He decided not to finish. Surely, there have been great things that have happened:  addictions have been broken, greed can mysteriously become generosity, anger curiously can become compassion, backbiting can morph into affirmation, and all the “-isms” that divide people are occasionally overcome in Jesus. But, the world is still the world — often cruel and heartless.

So, we wait. We’ve been waiting. In waiting, we’re no different than the people longing for God’s rescue operation to begin in Jesus. We’re in a different kind of exile. But, we’re longing nonetheless. We’re advent people, advent for the second time. We’re waiting for the day when God completes the work He started as He “brings righteousness into full bloom.” That day will come. It will come when Jesus returns to complete the work He started.

So, how do people-in-waiting live? We live, as one scholar puts it, “in anticipation of God’s intended future.” We get to proclaim God’s good (unfinished) work by living in the reality that will one day be. We are the people of God’s future-world now: compassionate, joyful, selfless, courageous, righteous, peaceful, and clothed in love. That’s how we wait during the season of Advent.

This Sunday, we’ll take a look at the single most important definer of Jesus’ mission on earth in our current message series, “CHRISTMAS IS _________.” We’ll talk about the most compelling feature of Jesus’ ministry. If you’ve been thinking about bringing friends to church, this Sunday, will be ideal. I can’t wait to meet the friends and neighbors you bring.

See you Sunday,
Jeff

Viejo Elementary Christmas Store
Saturday, December 13, 10-1p, Children’s Theater at MCMV
In our continued partnership with Viejo Elementary, we’ll be hosting a Christmas store for families in need. Come serve with us as a store volunteer or in our other stations: gift wrapping, Santa Claus, snacks & crafts.

Find out more at celebratedifferently.org Questions? Contact Maher.

“I will send my messenger, who will prepare the way before me…”  MALACHI 3:1 (NIV)

On Friday, immediately after I reset our house from Thanksgiving chaos, folding up card tables, taking out bags of trash, reassembling our sectional, and vacuuming whatever bits of food our labradoodle missed in his efforts to join his family in giving thanks, Amanda asked me to “take down the Christmas stuff from the garage.” Very few things in my life somehow manage to remove joy faster for me than that phrase. I don’t really know why. Maybe it has something to do with standing atop a teetering ladder and reaching into the allergen laced dusty confines of the loft space above the car. Maybe it has something to do with untangling the seemingly unending and impossibly entangled strands of Christmas lights. Maybe it has to do with the discovery that because I broke a bunch of ornaments, glass figurines, or snowflakes either in the previous year’s taking down or in the putting-back-up process, we’ll need to buy more Christmas stuff (Yes, this is about spending money. Yes, I know this is the principal issue facing Ebenezer Scrooge. Bah.).

Christmas takes so much preparation. The exterior of our house is a modest homage to Clark Griswold. We have inflatable eight foot tall figures in our backyard so that we (read: Amanda) can enjoy the lights from inside our house. Along the bannister is a series of homemade construction paper holly leaves and paper chains counting the days until Christmas. Our house is prepared. I’m not sure I am. But, our house is ready to “receive her king.” I have not yet found a way to celebrate. Christmas, thus far, is mostly about more work around the house. Bah.

I need something to get me started at leaning toward celebrating Jesus. The Bible talks about people getting ready for God’s message. I think Amanda and our kids are there. But, I need something that might help me to “prepare him room.” I need the joy that is evidenced in our eight foot Christmas tree (that I insisted be purchased at Costco — it’s the cheapest there is) in all its illuminated regalia. Maybe my heart leading up to Christmas really is “two sizes too small.”

Celebration may be hard for me to come by, but it is what I need. I know it. So, I’m going big. This Sunday night, Mariners MV will host our church’s annual tree lighting in such a contagious and unambiguously joyful way, that my heart (and many others like mine) might be rightly aimed at Christmas — at Jesus. Every year, this event marks the beginning of Christmas for me, personally. It prepares me. I’m not sure whether it’s the ten tons of real snow, the potluck-style chili bar (please contact Kim Alexander if you’d like to contribute your own crock-pot), the live music, our version of the 12-Days of Christmas, or in meeting all the people you’ve invited. But, each year, without fail, my own heart is jump-started into a Jesus-oriented Christmas. I won’t miss it. I need it. I’ll be there on the patio at 5p, chili in hand, getting ready for Christmas.

See you Sunday,
Jeff

Festivities and family fun begins on the patio with a sled run, chili bar, hot cocoa, photo booth, and more. Program in the Worship Center. Bring your favorite pot of homemade chili, help with the photo booth, snow play, or fill in where needed and make this event all it can be for our community. More info, here.

Sun, Dec 7, Festivities begin at 5p
Program at 6p, Mission Viejo Campus, free

Contact Kim to volunteer and to let her know if you’ll be bringing chili.

For a special treat you won’t want to miss download WHAM CITY LIGHTS from the app store before you come!

Think about this. Wrap your minds around it. This is serious business, rebels. Take it to heart. Remember your history, your long and rich history. I am God, the only God you’ve had or ever will have —  incomparable, irreplaceable…
ISAIAH 46:8-9 (MSG)

Try this brief thought experiment: Think about your earliest memory. What’s that thing you remember that precedes any other memory? Where does your own history begin its first-person narrative? Give yourself 10 seconds. Go.

You gave up after 2 seconds, didn’t you? Pretty tough to do, right? Even with more time, you’d probably not do all that much better. I don’t know how anyone is supposed to do this kind of thing. Unless there was something either epiphanal or catastrophic about your first memory, the odds that you remember it outright are likely to be pretty low. Memory apparently requires some kind of stimulus to access it. We need cues. We need a kind of spark to untether the bits of our storied past held within our minds.

Try it this way: What is the fondest memory you have of your grandfather? Describe the first wedding you ever attended. Whenever you needed to escape, where did you go? What was your first trip on a rollercoaster like? In a time of crisis, who was the first person you would turn to as a child? These questions are complicated, but they’re answerable. Most memories need prompts. In many cases, they need the help of other people to get the mental ball rolling.

If I started to tell you about my grandfather, for example, your own image of your grandfather would almost instantly materialize from out of the cloudiness of your own memory: I can recall how he whistled in nearly every story he told. He used a little toothy s-sounding high pitched tone in much the same way a written word might be underlined or bolded. So if something was amazing or unique, he’d say, “How ‘bout that!?” followed by his trademark downward sliding tooth-whistle tone. He always called me “chief.” He talked about tackling any of life’s challenges using the same expression he’d use to describe the joy of eating something delicious: “That’ll put hair on your teeth!” (This was his variation on the idea of hair sprouting on my young chest. I guess he liked whales with their “hairy” baleen filter-laden mouths and felt hairy teeth to be an apt marker of manhood). Now, think about your grandfather. Positive or negative, he is already taking shape in your mind.

This is why some stories need to be shared publicly. We talk about our histories because, as one writer put it, “in our most individual, we are our most universal.” God is constantly inviting his people to recall their history. He tells them, time and time again, to not let slip from their collective memories, the story of His rescue. He tells them that there is a reason to be thankful. Circumstances might overwhelm us. People are bound to let us down. We’re bound to let them down, too. We get sick. We get better. We get sick again. In the end, we discover the one “incomparable, irreplaceable” is God himself.

Tonight, Wednesday night (11/26) at 6:30p, at our Thanksgiving [Eve] service, we’ll share about our gratitude for the work of God in our lives. People will speak into a microphone and in 30 seconds, they’ll give voice to a piece of their history — our history. Even the most hardened of us will hear the stories of other people and their reasons for finding thankfulness. In their story we’ll remember “the only God [we’ve] ever had.” We’ll find hope in their words. Eventually, their gratitude can become ours, and our gratitude can become theirs. Come and celebrate together.

See you tonight,
Jeff

Join us for a time of giving thanks, reflecting on the year, and worshiping God together. Visit the website for info.

Thanksgiving Service
Wednesday, November 26, 6:30p, at MCMV
Childcare for infant through age 5

Enter his gates with thanksgiving and his courts with praise; give thanks to him and praise his name. PSALM 100:4

Everything requires a password. Now, we’re being asked to utilize a “pass-phrase.” Presumably, the pass phrase gives us all another layer of security. We’re supposed to frequently change our passwords. I do (allegedly). Experts tell us not to use the same one in different places. We’re told that every password (or pass-phrase) ought to be memorable, but not predictable. So we create lists (old fashioned-written-on-a-post-it and taped to the underside of a desk kind of lists) of pen and pencil to help us remember how we gain entry into the cyber-vault holding our most valuable stuff.

I forget my passwords all the time. My passwords are neither memorable, nor predictable. I spend a disproportionate amount of time trying to gain access to my things, rather than actually interacting with them. The greatest and most valuable things are always insulated by passwords. God is no different.

The password into God’s presence — beyond “his gates” and into “his courts” is memorable and not predictable. It has the power to turn the wanderer’s heart back home. It’s a phrase we use often. We say it to the barista, the anonymous door-holder, and to dear friends. We wave it to strangers who let us merge in traffic.  We try to mean it when we say it… mostly. We expect to hear it from other people. We tell people to “lighten up” with they don’t hear it from us. We demand it from our kids and apologize for them when they don’t deliver under the pressure of our watchful eyes. While there’s no room for magic in following Jesus, this phrase gets pretty close to having surprising soul-impacting and mystical properties.

Thank you.

Entering into God’s presence — that inexplicable nearness of God necessitates a password. Put another way, it is our ability to give thanks that not only grants us access, but ushers us into God’s presence.

We’ll gather this coming week and we’ll make a point of being grateful. Sure, Thanksgiving is in danger of being subsumed by the shopping melee that follows it. But, we’ll be glad we paused and said “thanks.” Somehow we know it. Thankfulness matters. Gratefulness to God repairs our broken-down soul.

This week, as we wrap up our OBSESSED series, we’ll spend some time orienting our hearts toward gratitude. For the beleaguered and tired, for the lonely and lost, for the bitter and exasperated, for the close to Jesus and the far from Him, and for the joyful and the generous, we could all use a refresher on thankfulness.

See you Sunday,
Jeff