Blue Christmas

This afternoon several of our local churches came together at St. Paul's UCC in Birdsboro to offer our community a Blue Christmas Service.  It was a quiet, somber, liturgical time for all who gathered who were grieving, hurting, or in any way feeling the weight of Christmas instead of the joy. I pray all who came left uplifted.

We offered a few Blue Christmas Services at Hope Church over the years. I had heard of them back at Wesley Seminary in my summer Course Of Study days and always said that if the Lord blessed us with a church building of our own this would be one of the 'new' services I would like to start.

I had no personal reasons to feel the need of a Blue Service myself, but by the time we did have our own building (2003) I had led too many funerals and been part of too many breaking relationships not to know it would be needed.  At first, they were well received, with twenty or so coming out annually.  then fifteen, then ten, and finally, two.  And those two pretty much came because they wanted to support the four or so of us who were offering the service.  That was three years ago.  This was the first chance I had to participate in a Blue Christmas Service since then.  And I discovered something which I shared with all gathered as I introduced our communion together.

Just being there this afternoon, in a service that honestly was not my style (Taize music, written liturgies and prayers) I found myself drawn to God and to the memories of so many who I have known but can no longer see in this world.  Of course, those of my own family, but a pastor gets so intimately involved with the families of those she or he buries. And as I led our Eucharist I felt the presence of all those who have gone before.

This was not a heavy presence, but a restful one.  I felt the peace of those I was pretty sure knew the Lord when they had died,  I felt my peace for those I could not be more sure of, that I had indeed done all I could for them and their families to be sure they had a chance to really know the Lord before they died. 

We had a death in a close family of the church this week.  And a suicide attempt by one of our young twenty-somethings. The grief these events bring, especially in such a contrasting time that should be all joy, is heart-breaking.

But today I was glad to feel restfully at peace with God, for those families and all the others I know and have known. Thank you Jesus, for taking the burdens each of us choose to give up, and for the best rest of all  when we do.

-Ken