Today is the first Sunday in Advent this year. This is how we celebrated.
First, we all stopped what we were doing and came together. This is sometimes the hardest and yet most important thing about family worship: stopping what we're doing and coming together to worship together.
Read John 1:1-9
In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning.
Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made. In him was life, and that life was the light of men. The light shines in the darkness, but the darkness has not understood it.
There came a man who was sent from God; his name was John. He came as a witness to testify concerning that light, so that through him all men might believe. He himself was not the light; he came only as a witness to the light. The true light that gives light to every man was coming into the world.
Then we talked a little bit about why we're celebrating Advent. We talked a bit about what a humbug I can be and why it is important to prepare for the coming celebration. We didn't get real deep here. I read the portion of a Christmas Carol where Jacob shows up and talks about his chains:
"You are fettered", said Scrooge, trembling. "Tell me why?"
"I wear the chain I forged in life", replied the Ghost. "I made it link by link, and yard by yard; I girded it on of my own free will, and of my own free will I wore it. Is its pattern strange to you?"
Scrooge trembled more and more.
"Or would you know", pursued the Ghost, "the weight and length of the strong coil you bear yourself? It was full as heavy and as long as this, seven Christmas Eves ago. You have laboured on it, since. It is a ponderous chain!"
And of course we had to hear the obligatory "We're Marley and Marley" song from the Muppet Christmas Carol and that gave us a chance to talk about those chains.
Then we sang three verses of O come, O come, Emmanuel and talked about why Emmanuel is one of my favorite words of the Bible: God with us. Think of the imagery—there's a lot of power there.
O come, O come, Emmanuel,
And ransom captive Israel,
That mourns in lonely exile here
Until the Son of God appear.Rejoice! Rejoice! Emmanuel
shall come to thee, O Israel.
We sang from some old cast-off hymnals we've collected over the years. The youngest son is the choir-master and he studies these while the others are doing school.
During the hymn, the youngest daughter decided to gargle, dribble and spill her drink, to the amusement of her siblings. It wasn't the holiest time of the evening but I managed to laugh and keep singing.
Somewhere in this time we lit the first candle on our Advent wreath (more about this later, if you're interested). Of course we had troubles with the lighter. The oldest doesn't know how to flick-the-bic just yet. And we laughed and kept on.
For the days this week, we'll likely choose one or two hymns from either side of O come, O come, Emmanuel and light the candle before dinner or in between the hymns. Or we'll forget to light it at all. The point is not to have a perfect family worship service. The point is to have one at all. Please note that we didn't get all deeply theological during this time. We touched on some biblical truths, a bit of doctrine, some scripture and sang a song. Nothing fancy. We worshiped our God as a family. That's it.
See you tomorrow.
