We are in that awkward time of having one foot firmly planted in the new year of 2025, while the other still is in the season of Christmastide. Today is the tenth day of Christmas, and while my wife, Heather didn’t follow the prescription from the song of giving to me “ten lords a leaping,” I am rather grateful as that sounds way too rambunctious for this introvert still recovering from all the Christmas festivities, house guests, and parties! It does cause me to ask, “What do I want most at the start of this new year? Or to frame it in terms of Christmastide, and the many shepherds, animals, angels, and magi who came to the infant Jesus, “How would I like to most come to him today?”
How would you like to find yourself coming to Jesus?
Author Walter Wagnerin pens a fun imaginative prayer exercise for this day in his Advent devotional “Preparing for Jesus”:
Now, O Jesus, yet before the Christmas season is over, I come.
I come to honor you: the baby you at your mother’s knee; the human you, whose flesh is vulnerable to the troubles of this existence; the tender you, whose face reflects the feelings of people around you.
I come to the house where you are. I knock. I find the door unlocked. It swings inward, and at your mother’s nod I enter. In the courtyard I find you grinning, playing. You hold a leather ball stuffed with hair as the earth is stuffed with dirt.
I knee down.
You roll the ball to me.
I roll it back.
You catch it and laugh — and I am transported. You’ve allowed me to play with you, my Lord, and you enjoy the company!
Perhaps when you have a few minutes of time today or tomorrow, you can prayerfully sit again with Wangerin’s reflections and imagine yourself rolling a ball back and forth with the laughing Jesus. Or maybe there’s another way that you hope to, or long to encounter Him. Take note of that, because those longings are part of how God has uniquely created you. leaning into those longings is the first step of growing in intimacy with Jesus as he walks with each of us into this new year.
This Sunday we have a guest preacher, Pastor Peter Chosen, who is one of our mission partners and coms all the way to us from Kenya, Africa. Besides hearing from him on Sunday morning, we have two other ways where you can connect with him and learn more about his ministry that we support as a congregation:
1. Our Global Team is hosting a lunch and presentation with Pastor Chosen immediately after worship on Sunday. You can register for that here.
2. And then on Wednesday morning, Iron Hour will be hosting a similar breakfast and presentation with Pastor Chosen for the men of CCC. RSVP here for Wednesday breakfast.
We hope to see you with the gathered body of Christ this Sunday, and we hope that you can experience a freshness in your relationship with Jesus in 2025!
Blessings to you!
Pastor David
Worship & Communications
CENTENNIAL COVENANT CHURCH