Accepting: O Holy Night!

On this fourth and final Sunday of Advent, we are Accepting. The word accept means "to take or receive (something offered) with approval or favor." So, what is being offered to me? Redemption. What am I to receive? Christ the King. Nothing brings coincides with the theme of accepting as the song O Holy Night does. The meaning of the lyrics and the grandeur of the music touched my heart even before I became a Christian. Find your favorite version of O Holy Night. Snuggle up with a warm drink and jammies. Accept what Christ has done, is doing, and will do for you. Accept we have not done all we wanted to do for Christmas. Accept we could never do it all anyway. Accept the joy of the season. Accept that there is bad in the world. Accept that there is good, too. Accept ourselves as incomplete and needy. Accept that we will be fulfilled in Christ. Accept that the world is not as it should be. Accept that it will one day be made right. Accept.



O Holy Night! The stars are brightly shining,
It is the night of the dear Savior's birth.
Long lay the world in sin and error pining.
Till He appeared and the soul felt its worth.
A thrill of hope the weary world rejoices,
For yonder breaks a new and glorious morn.
Fall on your knees! Oh, hear the angel voices!
O night divine, the night when Christ was born;
O night, O Holy Night, O night divine!
O night, O Holy Night, O night divine!

Led by the light of faith serenely beaming,
With glowing hearts by His cradle we stand.
O'er the world a star is sweetly gleaming,
Now come the wisemen from out of the Orient land.
The King of kings lay thus lowly manger;
In all our trials born to be our friends.
He knows our need, our weakness is no stranger,
Behold your King! Before Him lowly bend!
Behold your King! Before Him lowly bend!

Truly He taught us to love one another,
His law is love and His gospel is peace.
Chains shall he break, for the slave is our brother.
And in His name all oppression shall cease.
Sweet hymns of joy in grateful chorus raise we,
With all our hearts we praise His holy name.
Christ is the Lord! Then ever, ever praise we,
His power and glory ever more proclaim!
His power and glory ever more proclaim!

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Memorial of Genocide

Background: In 1975 Pol Pot and the communist party Khmer Rouge came to power. The face they put on for the world was one of an ideal communist society, but the truth behind the mask was one of terror, mistrust, and murder. For four years, Cambodia endured and struggled for survival. Help came in the form of an invasion by the Vietnamese army, and the world was made aware of the millions of deaths that had been ignored, denied, or unheard. It is estimated that approximately 2 million people died directly from the genocide and another million died from the forced famine. The world had seen genocide before but not one committed against a group's own people group. This is thirty years later.... On Tuesday, my second day here, we visited Tuol Sleng or S-21. This was a high school that the Khmer Rouge used as a torture center where people accused of committing crimes against the party would be taken before they were executed. Only 7 out of 17,000-20,000 people survived. The compound is ...
Read more

Week One

We have been in the country a little over a week, returned to normal sleep patterns after jet lag, and already experienced some different ministries. It was a very hard first week. I experienced some culture stress as Cambodia is nothing like I imagined or expected. I will record more of my cultural observations and struggles on this blog in the next few days as I journal about them. I also had a hard week physically. Not with stomach problems as many might suppose, although my stomach is adjusting as well, but with a really bad heat rash that was all over my back, arms, and thighs. It has taken a few days but is now starting to clear up. Two main things I learned from this week are 1.) God is the only Sustainer and 2.) this trip is not going to be anything like my trip to Japan. Week 2 has begun and everything looks brighter. Monday we started teaching summer school at Logos International School. I thought I was going to be teaching art for two weeks, but after a visit to the school l...
Read more

Language of Remembering

Image
In my post "Ebensee" I mentioned that I have been reading for my PhD while travelling to different places in Austria. As I was on the train to Ebensee, I was reading Dirk Lange's Trauma Recalled: Liturgy, Disruption, and Theology . The focus of this book is how. How do you put a traumatic event into words? How do you describe it? How do you recall it? How do you remember it and bring it about in repetition? He writes, "What does it mean to witness or remember an event when the truth of the event cannot be represented?" (69). This reading set me up for what I was about to experience in at the former concentration camp location in Ebensee. Not much remains of the camp. There is the main entrance, the now cemetery which was and is the location of mass graves, and the tunnels in the mountains about a 5 minute walk away. The town has built up and on the camp. As I was walking around I thought back on Lange. How does one remember, continue to remember, when living amo...
Read more