Advent is wonky this year. This season of quiet preparation for the “arrival of God” is always 4 Sundays. But this year, the final Sunday of Advent, December 24th, is Christmas Eve! We will be blending Advent 4 with our celebration of Christmas.
Our theme this year at NDPC is Christmas in the Four Gospels. Each of the 4 Sundays in Advent, we’ll be looking at the Christmas story according to each one of the gospel writers. They each tell the story in shockingly different ways—and one of them, Mark, doesn’t tell it at all. I want us to look at each one, in turn, and explore the particulars of their unique tellings.
The Rev. Cynthia Campbell, imagines the gospels as “houses”—each one with a distinctly different architectural style and feel… and she invites us to walk around in each of those houses during the Advent season. With that image in mind, we have replaced the traditional Advent wreath in the sanctuary with a door. Each Sunday, we will light a lantern to hang near the door–we keep our lamps “trimmed and burning” as we wait for Christ’s arrival.
We begin this Sunday with the Christmas story according to Matthew.