Nick@Light - h2o devos loc 120612

+Nicholas, 343+

 

These days of winter have come to bury you


No sign of spring and no promise to carry you


No flowers blooming in your window sill


And the beat of your heart is too still…


And the beat of your heart is too still… Oh sing

Chorus
:

Joy joy joy in the morning


Joy joy in the afternoon


Joy joy joy for the child is born


This night the promise is given to you

Sing Joy by Peter Mayer

The Rev. Dr. Mitri Raheb, Pastor of Christmas Lutheran Church, Bethlehem, Palestine preached at our church last night. It was a holy moment. If you click HERE for the 75 second YouTube video (recorded last year), you’ll get a sense of what he shared with us. 

“Hope is what we do” Just think about that, “Hope is what we do!”

On this wonderful day commemorating St. Nicholas, Bishop of Myra (more info HERE), we take time to reflect on Peter’s brilliant song, Sing Joy.

I like to think of this song as an invitation to get in touch with ourselves. The song begins in a rough and tough place. And that place doesn’t seem like "it’s beginning to feel like Christmas.” In fact, as opposed to being real presence and incarnational-the Word becoming flesh, it feels like real absence and no bodily reality. So, this isn’t some kind of Mary Poppins, Easter Bunny, Santa Claus stuff, this is reality theology, people who are hurting, souls that have been bruised and faith which is just about worn out.

And yet, in all of that, there is the call by the singer to Sing Joy.

So, sisters and brothers, I encourage you to take a JOYBREAK today.  Set aside two minutes and let the following passage speak to you soul,

“Sing for joy, O heavens, and exult, O earth;

break forth, O mountains, into singing!

For the LORD has comforted his people,

and will have compassion on his suffering ones.” Isaiah 49:13

And you just gotta laugh when you think about St. Nick on rollerblades. I think it’s Nick@Light, a time to give thanks for the reflection of love and grace that he radiated during his outreach to people at the margins.

In the words of Pastor Mitri Raheb, “Hope is what we do.”

Sing JOY!

rtg