tree, then suddenly it was decorated and full of light. Wrapping paper and parties sprang out of nowhere! If I happened to be living somewhere where it snowed, and it snowed, my heart and soul were transported to Bedford Falls.
Growing up, Christmas was more about the Season than a Savior. I knew people celebrated Christmas because it marked the birth of Jesus 2000 years earlier. For me, that event was very much in the past and had little to do with my present celebrations. My first two Christmases as a young married woman still held that wonder of the season feeling. Everything felt magical, even though I was broke and we had about five ornaments for a 7-foot tree, which I was confident would fit in our tiny house. My hubby and I spent our entire paycheck, all $300 of it, buying gifts for each other! I laughed when my baby daughter ate the paper, and I was thrilled to have two households to visit. The gifts were not the main event; it was still the cookies and movies and now a growing family. In July of 1996, my husband and I moved to Minnesota. We had no family or friends there, which was unheard of in both of our families. Why we would choose to move to a place where we knew no one at all was beyond their thinking. As December drew near that year, I was confused that the wonder of the season was not sweeping me off of my feet. We even had snow, and lots of it! I was at a loss as to why this Christmas felt so flat and unmagical. We dragged home a tree and set it up, no feels. I bought a million pounds of butter ready to make cookies, not a blip on the feeling meter. I looked around my little apartment, and saw my 18-month-old daughter playing on the floor. The realization hit me like a truck. If there was to be that wonder of the season feeling, I, as the mom, had to create it. I am pretty sure I sobbed myself to sleep that night. My childhood was officially over; the full weight of adulthood had fallen on me. I laugh about it now, considering that marriage and motherhood had not brought on the same weight as that moment. Up until that day, I still lived between the world of girlhood and womanhood. I was faced with the choice to create wonder for my children or not to. So, the next morning I woke up, got out the butter, and put on some Christmas music. About two batches in, I realized my mom’s cookie recipes were not producing the numerous cookie tins of my childhood. I was trying to create wonder, but “good lord, did it really cost this much to make cookies?” I found that I hated every 10-12 minutes of the cookie timer. I asked myself, “What the heck am I doing?” That’s when the truck backed up and hit me again. The whole story of Christmas flooded my mind. I saw a young couple desperately looking for a room, and being rejected over and over! A shabby stable and two parents trying to figure out what to do with this Child called Emmanuel, God with Us. Shepherds running into town to find this baby they were told about, and see if it was all true. A star shining out in the darkness over some backwater town long ago. I was faced with a choice again. I could go on creating small batches of wonder with my pricey butter, or I could sit in awe of something truly wonderful. I glanced over at my little girl eating a cookie, and all of the emotion of the Story flooded my heart. Everything changed in that moment. My celebration had real meaning, and I wanted to share that wonder with my daughter. I looked at my meager batches of cookies that would be eaten and gone. My sparsely decorated tree would soon be taken to the dumpster, and the small box of baubles would be stuffed in the back of the closet. Those were temporary and things I had to create. The reason for the celebration was not dependent on me for creation; all I needed to do was soak it all in. It is all too easy to get caught up in the rush of creating wonder around our holidays. The price of butter may rise and fall, and the movies get cheesier every year. For me, it's the Christmas of 1996 that sits in my mind as the most difficult and the most beautiful Christmas I have experienced. The season had finally become secondary, and the wonder of a Savior became the celebration. In His Name, Bonnie
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As many of you know, this poem from T.S. Eliot is one of my favorites. It has become a tradition to share it with you each Advent season, and I see no reason why this year should be any different. Every Advent, we return to familiar images: soft starlight over Bethlehem, shepherds in quiet fields, and wise travelers journeying from afar. We picture the Magi with their gifts, their camels, their noble procession coming to worship the newborn Jesus. But Eliot refuses to let us keep the story in the realm of comfort and nostalgia. His poem is gritty, disorienting, and unsettling—because genuine encounters with Christ often are. Eliot imagines the Magi looking back on their journey years later. What they remember is not a picturesque nativity scene but difficulty: “A cold coming we had of it… the very dead of winter… the camels galled… the towns unfriendly… the cities hostile.” Nothing about this pilgrimage was easy. They left behind comfort, predictability, and the symbols of their old way of life (“summer palaces… silken girls bringing sherbet”). They traded ease for uncertainty, luxury for cold nights, and social status for a journey that others ridiculed as folly. Yet they kept going—drawn by something they could not fully name. When they finally arrived at the place where the Christ child was, Eliot refuses to romanticize the moment. The Magi found what they were looking for—“it was (you might say) satisfactory”—but the encounter left them changed in a way they did not expect. That’s the turning point of the poem. Birth or Death? Looking back, the Magus asks one of the most haunting questions in all of Eliot’s writing: “Were we led all that way for Birth or Death?” Of course, there was a birth—Jesus, the long-awaited King. But this birth brought about the end of the Magi’s old world. They “returned to their places” but found they were “no longer at ease… in the old dispensation.” They no longer fit in the world they once inhabited so confidently. The coming of Christ meant the death of their former way of being. And that is the paradox of Christian faith: To find the One who is Life is also to experience the death of everything that cannot coexist with His kingdom. Advent is not simply preparation for a sweet manger scene; it is a season of holy disruption. It asks us what must end in us so that Christ may be born anew. When Christ Comes, Something Always Changes The Magi’s experience mirrors our own faith journeys. We begin with longing—sometimes even with excitement—but following Christ will eventually lead us into unfamiliar, uncomfortable territory. It may ask us to leave behind habits, priorities, or identities that once felt like home. Sometimes faith feels like traveling through “the very dead of winter.” Sometimes following Jesus means admitting that old securities no longer fit. Sometimes it means recognizing that the world around us clutches its own small gods—and so do we. But the promise is this: Christ meets us at the end of that road. And every encounter with Him brings both a birth and a death—new life emerging even as old patterns fall away. A Journey Worth Taking Again Near the end, the Magus says, “All this was a long time ago… and I would do it again.” Despite the hardship, he would take the journey again. Because once Christ has been found—truly found—there is no going back to life as it was. There is only moving forward into the new world God is bringing. As a church family this Advent, perhaps we are being invited to take the Magi’s journey ourselves—to leave the familiar, follow God’s leading even when it feels like “folly,” and allow Christ to unsettle and reshape us. May we, like the Magi, be courageous enough to follow the star. May we be honest enough to name what must die in us for Christ to be born anew. And may we find, on the other side of the journey, that the One we seek has been seeking us all along. Blessings on your journey, Pastor McLane
Whenever I need deep, philosophical questions answered, I take them to my experts: the 1st Pres PreK-K Sunday School Class. But this one was tricky for even these wise, young sages. Not entirely surprising, they approached this concept from the back door, from their 4-to-6-year lifelong experiences, the opposite side of ‘Yes’: “What does it mean to reply ‘No’?” It seemed that pondering ‘Yes’ caused them to think about answering requests of their parents and what it might mean if they replied in the negative, rather than the affirmative. That’s sort of where our ‘Jesus loves us, Sunday school discussion’ felt a bit anxious (at least for this Oma): responding to a parent’s request with ‘no’ makes parents “get mad”, children “get in trouble”, and this trouble has outcomes, like “having to do push-ups”. (That made me wish my parents had adopted push-ups as the consequence for disobedience — thinking of how much better my health would be today!) As I processed what happened in this flipped-over conversation, I came to realize that, as usual, their wisdom continued to be spot on. I’ll return to their innocent, yet insightful, roundabout processing of ‘yes’ as I close my thoughts. First though, I want to share my reflections on the “Yes” of God; “Yes” as the heart of Advent; and “Yes” as the central feature of our Love First mission. So, let’s start at the beginning. In the beginning … God spoke “Yes” to all of creation, all of life, and all of love.
When I searched ‘Creation is God’s’ “Yes”, the following summary was provided. It is exactly what I’d like to share, so it is simply copied, pasted, and notated:
God’s “Yes” of creation was only the beginning of Love. God desires connection and relationship with all of creation and set in place the perfect plan for Love to continually expand. His grace and ultimate “Yes” are provided in the fulfillment of all His promises through the birth, life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ:
Yet our Creator is not a puppeteer forcing actions onto His creations. Instead, we have a Lord who is a loving parent — a tender Mother, a generous Father — who desires we freely and joyfully offer to reflect the love shone on us by acting in faithful, trusting, and fearless obedience. The most beloved human example of how this life-lived attitude is expressed is the one who offers the “Yes” as the heart of Advent. The mother of Jesus. Mary’s “Yes” is the intersection, the pivot point, of the life of Jesus Christ. The birth of the Savior was reliant on Mary, an engaged, young, and uneducated woman who experienced an angelic visit and was given a seemingly impossible message. Mary is told she has found favor with God, and by the power of the Holy Spirit, she will conceive and bear the Son of God. Yet, for this miracle to come to pass, she must give consent. Mary could have allowed the frightfulness of this supernatural event, or the considerations of the dangerous cultural consequences of choosing to become pregnant, or not knowing what the future would look like, to simply respond, “No”. Yet Mary has lived a faithful life of loving and trusting God for what she needs. God has prepared and encouraged her heart. So, she chooses instead to offer her “Yes” and step forward into this unimaginable role to bear our Lord.
Though this “Yes” was the most profound for her (and certainly all of humanity), she had a lifelong list of decisions that she needed to continue to choose, affirm, and offer her “Yes”. That’s how it is for all children of God and followers of Jesus Christ.
So, I will return to the start of this narrative, to the ponderings of my mind-bending preschoolers, to share how their thoughts should inspire our Love 1st actions. In their valiant attempt to process my question to them, “What does ‘Yes’ mean?”, they naturally turned to an area of greater experience: “What does ‘No’ mean?”. The nugget they ingeniously seemed to be mining was the concept of ‘obedience’. Saying “Yes” requires the trust and practice of being obedient. They simply defined that from the other side, “What happens when we choose disobedience?” It just took my aged and stiff mind a bit more thinking time to follow the indirect path of their resourceful brainwaves. The Love 1st mission: We love God, others, and our community because God first loved us. This response to God’s love is an act of obedience to the reciprocal nature of love. In this season of Advent as we consider the gifting of Hope, Peace, Joy, and Love, may we be obedient to offering our unique “Yes” in the way Jesus Christ has prepared us. Like Mary, may we find ways to ‘bear our Lord’ in love, before the world. Even if it is only to be open to interruptions of seemingly insignificant opportunities to offer care, kindness, and connection. Peace, Yvette
At 1st Pres, we have the blessing of being an intergenerational church — a community where every age and stage brings something sacred. Children remind us how to marvel. Teens ask brave questions that keep faith honest and growing. Adults carry the everyday challenges and joys that shape our prayers. Older generations offer wisdom rooted in years of walking with God’s faithfulness. Together, we embody the truth at the heart of Advent: God was with us then, and God is with us now. Advent orients us around four anchors — hope, peace, joy, and love — each wrapped in God’s grace and inviting us into a posture of gratitude. Hope breaks into our world like the first candle piercing the darkness. It is not optimism or wishful thinking; it is the grace-filled assurance that God’s light is stronger than any shadow. We give thanks for the ways we see that hope in one another — in a child’s wonder, a volunteer’s kindness, or a simple act of showing up. Peace meets us in the quiet moments and the crowded ones alike. It’s the unearned grace that settles our spirits when life feels chaotic. We learn peace from each other as we worship, pray, and share life across generations. And for this shared peace, we give deep gratitude. Joy bursts forth in music, laughter, and the beautifully unpredictable life of community. Joy is a gift — pure grace — not dependent on circumstances but rooted in Emmanuel, God-with-us. We are grateful for the joy we experience when we gather, messy and marvelous, to celebrate God’s presence. Love is the very heartbeat of Advent. Love is why God came near. Love is why we open our doors, care for one another, and extend welcome to anyone searching for connection. Love is grace in action — and gratitude is our response. This Advent season, we encourage no one to travel alone. Whether you arrive feeling full or fragile, hopeful or worn thin, there is space for you here. Lean into the wonder. Receive grace freely. Let gratitude shape your days. Allow this community to hold you, remind you, and walk beside you. We hope you’ll join us for one of our most cherished traditions: our single worship service at 9:00 am on Sunday, December 14th, when we gather as one church family for the beloved UnPageant. This joyful, spontaneous retelling of the Christmas story is a living picture of grace, gratitude, and the love that unites us across generations. Advent is better together. Come experience the hope, peace, joy, and love that anchor us — and the God who still chooses to dwell with us. In His Name, Kierstie
baking began (spritz, molasses crinkles, bourbon balls). The memories are so sweet. Advent at our church, First Lutheran, was every child’s dream. Fast forward to recent years. Sigh … I’m really not grumpy about this, but ‘Christmas’ starting earlier and earlier makes me just a little sad. Has the real meaning of Christmas been largely lost? But … Advent is a season of hope, peace, joy, and love. It is about anticipating and celebrating the Christ child. So, I need to take off my judgy cape and take a deep breath. And … Maybe visions filled with lights and love, no matter what time of year, are God’s light shining through. It doesn’t matter when.
So let us prepare! In His Name, Janet |
