Christmas Eve

At 6pm on December 24th, First Pres will host its annual Christmas Eve candlelight service. This family-friendly service will feature a brief children's time. No prior preparation is necessary; all children will be invited up to participate.

For the second year we will offer electronic candles as an option, so please let an usher know if you prefer an electronic or traditional candle. We will light the CHRIST candle and sing Silent Night in our festival of the lights. Come join us and invite your friends!

Sports Club Christmas Party

First Pres Sports Club hosted their annual Christmas Party today. 98 children received books, crafts, Bibles, and a Christmas gift. Lunch for kids and their parents was provided. Special thanks to our church and community volunteers, Toys for Tots, Literacy Council Norristown, and so many others for their help with making this event a success!

From Your Pastor

To the First Presbyterian Church family,

Last Sunday we celebrated Christ the King Sunday, and this means we are now beginning our long journey through the church seasons, starting with Advent. I’ve talked about this in past correspondences (click here for more on the church seasons and here for the Lectionary and its suggested scriptures) but once again, the overall point is following the journey of God’s people and their redeemer, Jesus Christ. So please be ready for more columns on this early next year as we look to Lent and Easter. But Advent is special in its own right, bringing us the expectation of God’s people that He would do something, and He did! On Christmas Eve we'll celebrate the birth of the long-promised Messiah and redeemer of the world with another great candlelight service. Before that however, let us pause and take in the next 4 Sundays of Advent, and the expectation and anticipation that comes with them.

In a sense we are still living in that Old Testament expectation that God would do something – and in the meantime we are doing what we can under human agency. We do not lose sight of our blessings, including the secular holiday of Thanksgiving a few days ago, which has always been my personal favorite of the "man-made" holidays. (Others might prefer Mother's/Father's days or Valentine's, but I've always liked Thanksgiving more!) But as with Lent, Advent is a season of balance: Understanding that Jesus has already come and God has acted decisively but still awaiting the full inauguration of Jesus' Kingdom with His second coming. We see that we are on the path to victory and indeed victorious in many senses right now, but still awaiting the final victory. Looking forward to the light of Christmas Eve/Day, but as with Easter, we must also embrace the season of waiting, including some darkness, that leads up to that.

As I preached last Sunday, the ancients had a better sense than we do of believing in their King despite not seeing Him. While many of us will never meet a president or even a congressperson, we do see them on our screens constantly and are updated all the time on what they're doing, especially now in the age of social media. Many ancients lived their entire lives with little to no news of the king, much less his appearance, but they still believed in the king and his rule. They had lives to lead and work to do, but the rule of the king was always something in which they could take hope, provided of course, this was a good King who kept His promises. Which then brings us back to a common theme of Advent . . . do we believe in Jesus and that God's promises are fulfilled in Him? Is He your King, trusted while not currently seen? Indeed, the royal theme was most often associated with the colors of purple or blue. Precisely why our church uses the same purple paraments for both Advent and Lent, and why now many Christian traditions use blue for Advent, which has the added significance of the blue sky dawning after a long night of waiting.

So over the 4 Sundays enjoy putting up the tree, the red & green tinsel, and all the Christmas pageantry, but please also try to see the royal purples and the blue sky just dawning . . . with the light of our King Jesus Christ.

Revelation 22:20

~Pastor Peter Martin