Title: The Song of Zechariah
Scripture: Luke 1:57-80
Speaker: Bill Gorman, BillG@ChristCommunityKC.org

Have yourself a merry little Christmas / Let your heart be light / Next year all our troubles will be out of sight

"To practice Advent is to lean into an almost cosmic ache: our deep, wordless desire for things to be made right and the incompleteness we find in the meantime. We dwell in a world still racked with conflict, violence, suffering, darkness. Advent holds space for our grief, and it reminds us that all of us, in one way or another, are not only wounded by the evil in the world but are also wielders of it, contributing our own moments of unkindness or impatience or selfishness…. The believer and atheist alike can agree that there is an undeniable brokenness to the world, a sickness that needs remedy.

I do not want to be the Grinch tsk-tsking anyone for decorating the tree early or firing up “Jingle Bell Rock” before the 25th. I’m all for happiness, joy, eggnog, corny sweaters and parties, but to rush into Christmas without first taking time to collectively acknowledge the sorrow in the world and in our own lives seems like an inebriated and overstuffed practice of denial."
- Tish Harrison Warren

>> A Fearless Inventory of the Darkness:
- The first is the darkness of silence
- We face the darkness of enemies
- There is also the darkness of sin

If only there were evil people somewhere insidiously committing evil deeds, and it were necessary only to separate them from the rest of us and destroy them. But the line dividing good and evil cuts through the heart of every human being. And who is willing to destroy a piece of his own heart? —Alexander Solzhenitsyn

>> The Sunrise of Salvation
- The first is the light of the word
- The light of God’s mercy

“You know how it is when some great king enters a large city and dwells in one of its houses; because of his dwelling in that single house, the whole city is honored, and enemies and robbers cease to molest it. Even so is it with the King of all; He has come into our country and dwelt in one body amidst the many, and in consequence the designs of the enemy against mankind have been foiled and the corruption of death, which formerly held them in its power, has simply ceased to be. For the human race would have perished utterly had not the Lord and Savior of all the Son of God, come among us to put an end to death.” ― Athanasius of Alexandria, On The Incarnation