It’s been quite a ride for the LEA team in the last couple of weeks. To set the scene, LEA is (usually) five people in one corner of the LCA churchwide office in (usually) North Adelaide. We have
- welcomed an incoming Director of Formation, Sue Kupke;
- learned that some of our colleagues in the churchwide office won’t be continuing with us as part of a restructure;
- sent out starter packs of Free to Flourish that make you confident about embracing the future just looking at the cards;
- heard the news the building we are in is being placed on the market opening up exciting possibilities of more fit-for-purpose premises and a ceiling that doesn’t drop plaster on my desk;
- started recruiting for a Christian Studies Curriculum Framework Review Project Officer to manage the long-awaited review next year; and
- mailed out the Worship and Devotions Guides to support the spiritual life of our schools and ECSs. Phew…
Highs and lows, comings and goings, celebrating and grieving the past while embracing the future with hope and confidence. A bit of a holiday will be welcome.
I had planned a holiday to Jordan and Israel during the Christmas holidays, now I am only going to Jordan. Israel is cancelled. It feels like peace is cancelled. But this is the season of advent with one of the weeks (and, as I mentioned last year, candles) being about peace. We will sing carols about ‘peace on earth’. What peace?
The first Christmas night would not have been one of peace and quiet. There were animals in a stable bellowing, bleating and shuffling about; a young woman groaning in labour pains (do we really think she didn’t?). Then a host of angels starts singing away and a bunch of shepherds show up. All a bit of a chaotic, noisy mess really.
And among it all is a baby. Needy, helpless, fragile, human, humbled. Why?
From Martin Luther’s Christmas Book:
“Behold Christ lying in the lap of his young mother, still a virgin. What can be sweeter than the Babe, what more lovely than the mother! What fairer than her youth! What more gracious than her virginity! Look at the Child, knowing nothing. Yet all that is belongs to him, that your conscience should not fear but take comfort in him. Doubt nothing. Watch him springing in the lap of the maiden. Laugh with him. Look upon this Lord of Peace and your spirit will be at peace. See how God invites you in many ways. He places before you a Babe with whom you may take refuge. You cannot fear him, for nothing is more appealing to man than a babe. Are you affrighted? Then come to him, lying in the lap of the fairest and sweetest maid. You will see how great is the divine goodness, which seeks above all else that you should not despair. Trust him! Trust him! Here is the Child in whom is salvation. To me there is no greater consolation given to mankind than this, that Christ became man, a child, a babe, playing in the lap and at the breasts of his most gracious mother. Who is there whom this sight would not comfort? Now is overcome the power of sin, death, hell, conscience, and guilt, if you come to this gurgling Babe and believe that he is come, not to judge you, but to save.”
He is come to save. That is our peace.
I pray you have a blessed, restful, gurgling Christmas.
Lisa