Carol Sing and Tree Lighting

Saturday, December 03, 2005

Last night was a wonderful evening! Yesterday had been a busy day and about 6:00 p.m. I found myself slumped down in front of a toasty fire listening to the evening news. A few more minutes there and I would have been in dream land with visions of sugar plums dancing in my head. "It's time to get ready to go" I heard my wife's voice coming out of my head fog. We got dressed, drove the 8 minutes to the church building. We met with about 1500 worshippers, a 100 voice choir and a full orchestra. We have been going to carol singings for years. They have always been fun. This year was different. Last night was a special time of worship. When it was time to start I was still tired and kinda slumped on the pew. The worship leader asked us to stand and sing and sing we did. It was when I felt the tears in the corner of my eyes that I knew this carol sing was going to be different. On Sunday mornings the worship leader, the choir, the preacher, all the up-front leaders are all well rehearsed. There are three services following one after another. Each one containing about 2,000 people. Everything has to move with precision and it does. But it never seems hurried or manipulated. Last night nobody had rehearsed! It was just a congregation that had come together to worship. After an hour we left the sanctuary and went outside to surround a huge, beautiful Christmas tree. As we stood with candles lifted in the air, singing Silent Night, the tree lights were turned on. Driving home I was no longer tired. I had been refreshed physically and spiritually. As I reflected back on the evening I could remember that years ago I would not have worshipped with those people. In fact, I would have judged them and consigned them to hell. Why? What horrible sins had they committed? Why instead of singing acappella there was a full orchestra. That's it! Hard to believe, isn't it? As we stood outside with candles held high singing Silent Night (Acappella) I looked down into the eyes of the little grey haired lady that a few minutes before had passed her lighted candle over to light my candle and I was ashamed that I d have ever judged this worshipper. I also thought back to the worship in the sanctuary. A young lady wearing a bright red sweater, with beautiful blond hair stood in the pulpit and read from Luke 2. She read with great passion and then she invited us to come and kneel at the front and pray. People from all over the building went forward to pray or be prayed for. I read somewhere years ago that there is a broken heart on every pew. We sung carols, read Scripture, prayed and drew closer to God. I went to bed refreshed asking God to forgive me for my ignorance and asking him to strengthen me to be able to be gracious to others as He has extended His grace to me.