December Newsletter
2021
IN DEFENSE OF HEROD
Bet you didn’t expect my newsletter to start with that title! Most of us are intimately familiar with the Christmas story. Even those of us who are unchurched or not Christian are familiar with the Christmas narrative that the Bible gives us. We remember the angels, the Magi, the shepherds, Joseph’s doubt, and Mary’s faith. It is one of the most moving stories for us. So much so that we put on plays every year in churches all over the world that retell that story. We make movies which cost millions of dollars to tell the story. We do this for good reason. We do this to remember the birth of Christ and what it foretold about his death and resurrection. To remind ourselves and others of the God who “became flesh and made his dwelling among us.” (John 1:14) What could be more important than that? Nothing. But every story needs a villain, and Herod fills that role.
In many ways Herod is the perfect villain. If you just look at the biblical narrative itself, Herod does not come off as a good guy. Rightly so. Instead of being excited about the birth of a possible messiah, Herod instead is scared of what Jesus represents. He feigns worship and secretly plots murder against Jesus. Unfortunately for Herod, God intervenes and Jesus and his parents are protected. However, Herod follows through on his murderous intent. Matthew tells us, “When Herod realized that he had been outwitted by the Magi, he was furious, and he gave orders to kill all the boys in Bethlehem and its vicinity who were two years old and under, in accordance with the time he had learned from the Magi.” (Matthew 2:16) When making movies there are basically two groups of people that a villain can kill that will get the audience to hate them: dogs and kids. Herod solidly puts himself in the villain camp by killing many innocent boys in order to hold onto his power.
When we read stories, we often identify with certain people in the story. I would hazard a guess that if we all sat down and read the Christmas narratives from Matthew and Luke together and I asked, “who do you identify with in the story?” Most of us would probably choose basically everyone, but Herod. Personally, I identify a lot with the Magi and their erudite disposition, and how their scholarly pursuits led them to faith in Christ. I bet we would have been great friends. I am going to make the case, though, that while we may kick Herod off to the side, we have more in common with him than we might care to admit. Like Herod, we do not honor Jesus as we should and we fight against his rule over our lives.
Now I actually have no intention of defending Herod. The title was mostly for clickbait, but I am here to remind us that as much as Herod may turn us off, we are not so different. In the Psalms we are reminded “The Lord looks down from heaven on all mankind to see if there are any who understand, any who seek God. All have turned away, all have become corrupt; there is no one who does good, not even one.” (Psalm 14:2-3)
During the Christmas season we often forget our fealty to God and the teachings of Christ. We let other things distract us and make those things more important than our honor and worship of God. Some of us may be on better behavior in order to score some presents, but once the time of merriment has passed, we return right back to our sinful ways. Often struggling against God’s sovereignty over our lives. Like Herod, we fight against God’s claims on us and the things we like. We may (hopefully) not murder a bunch of kids in order to preserve it, but we should never undersell our own sin and depravity. This can range from embarrassment about sharing our beliefs, to actively disregarding or twisting God’s word. When we sin, we are trying to take the rightful place of God, and that is bad. Thank God that is not the whole story!
The miracle of Christmas is that it ultimately leads to the cross. The cross takes us, who all looked like Herod in God’s eyes, and washes us clean so that God only sees the righteousness of Jesus. That is what is so exciting and merry about Christmas and we should revel in that! We should cast away Herod and revile him, but remember that we were once like him and praise God that, through the cross, we are not like that anymore.
CHRISTMAS EVE
CANDLELIGHT SERVICE
Join us Christmas Eve at 10:00pm for our Candlelight Service. We will celebrate the birth of Christ through Carols and Scripture.
PAJAMA SERVICE
Join us at 7:00pm for our Pajama Service. This child friendly service is perfect for families in which we will celebrate the birth of Christ through our five senses, while wearing our pajamas. Although we allow those who are vaccinated to go maskless and request unvaccinated to where a mask, we are requesting that at the pajama service, all families where a mask, regardless of vaccination status.
LET’S TALK STEWARDSHIP
As we enter the new year, we are entering a year of blessings. The greatest of these blessings is that, after many faithful years, we have finally paid off the Nehemiah loan that we took out for the renovating of our church. The walls have been repaired and we have the right to celebrate this tremendous achievement. On behalf of all of the pastors who have been here since the loan was taken out, I congratulate you all, and am incredibly thankful for the conviction all of you have shown towards the work of the church and the spreading of the Gospel. However, our work is never done. We have many things that we want to do as a church. Namely, get the word out about Jesus. This is our most important mission. It is the one we are given by Christ himself at the end of the gospel of Matthew. This work can be hindered though when we have to divert funds from things that are important to the work of the church, and use them instead to repair our building. Not that repairing our building is not important, it very much is! But the building serves as our base where we join together and bolster ourselves to get back out there in the mission field.
To that end, we are going to be begin a new stewardship season focused on rebuilding our Facilities Improvement Fund (FIF). We will use this season for the renewing of our commitment to the work of Christ. For it is never done. As we go through January. We will look at a piece of scripture every day to remind us of what God has called us to do. Use this time to write this scripture down, and commit it to your heart. I hope you join me in doing this and that we can remember that God’s words last forever and are as true for our church today as it will be for tomorrow.
WHAT IS PER CAPITA?
The beginning of the year is also when we renew our commitment to the church through our per capita. The per capita is the fee the church pays to our denomination in order to cover the costs of our denomination. This year it is set at $40 per member. This can go towards providing grants for our church and others who need it. Help to send those who want to be ministers to seminary. There is a common good that we are able to achieve by giving. With our help our denomination will help to build the kingdom of God on Earth. That is the greater vision of our per capita giving. I understand that may not be a good enough reason for some of us to pay. After all, we may disagree with the stances of our denomination. I concur, I don’t agree with everything our denomination does as well. However, the per capita is paid whether we want it or not. CPC will pay for you even if you don’t. This is true for everyone who is a member. If you want to help us in our ministry, one of the easiest ways to do that is to pay your per capita. I, Pastor George, don’t need to pay per capita because I am not a member of our church. However, I am proud of our church’s history of faithfulness in this ministry. To show my appreciation towards this I will be giving $80 towards our per capita collection. If you are unable to pay due to pressing financial circumstances, that is fine, but for those of you who can I challenge you to pay it forward. You can use the initial offering envelope in your box of offering envelopes. This will not only help us to grow the kingdom of God here on Earth, but free our church up to manifest this better in our community.
WORSHIP & ADULT STUDY
Set your alarms earlier. Worship will begin at 10:00am Sunday mornings beginning January 16th. Following worship we will have our Christian Education program. Read more about it below.
ALL IN THE FAMILY
On January 16th we are beginning our new Sunday education time after church. Our first class is a class we have entitled “All in the Family.” We often like to say that “our church feels like a family,” but what does that actually mean? In a culture as individualistic as our own, do we actually feel like a family? Is it even possible? In this class we are going to examine what the Bible has to say about being in a family through the lens of popular culture, and see what God requires of us.
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