“ Again I assure you that if two of you agree on earth about anything you ask, then my Father who is in heaven will do it for you. For where two or three are gathered in my name, I’m there with them.” Matthew 18:19-20 CEB It seemed like a normal Tuesday filled with meetings and planning. The morning was going along as planned and anticipated. There was an appointment that was coming at noon that I really was looking forward to. As the time approached I got in the car and headed across town to the meeting place we had agreed upon. As I got closer I truly found myself looking forward to being there. I was looking forward to the people I would be with, the conversation we would have, and the time we would spend together. As I arrived and headed into the restaurant I reflected on why I was looking forward to this time. It was a time to meet with my brothers in Christ. Men who I have journeyed with, many for a very long time. The meeting was with my clergy covenant group and I looked forward to meeting with my fellow pastors who have been supporting me and I them. I was struck by the importance of this particular day and why I was looking forward to it so much. Then the verse for this week rang through my mind, “For where two or three are gathered in my name, I’m there with them.” I was excited about being with my covenant brothers because of this promise. We would have a sense of comradery, fellowship, worship, and God’s presence (even at the Top Golf restaurant). Nobody can relate to what it means to be a pastor like another pastor. I was looking forward to being in the very presence of God with these men as we discussed what God was doing in our life and ministry. I love being with these men and I love the promise of “I’m there!” I believe it is the same whenever two or three or more disciples of Jesus Christ gather in Christ’s name. God is there. What a powerful picture that is! Believers gathering together in Jesus’ name and the Savior is right there with them. This, in fact, is the power of Life Groups. We gather together in Jesus’ name for many different reasons; bible study, prayer, fun, running, kayaking, quilting, and so many other reasons. No matter the reason, when we gather in Jesus’ name the promise is “I’m there!” Just the act of gathering in his name is an act of worship. We are stating in whose name we are gathering and everything about that gathering is for God’s glory. There is power in that. This passage gained new meaning for me in 2014 in Zambia. Two of the pastors from the US and all of the pastors from Zambia closed every prayer with the phrase, “In the name of Jesus.” I asked why they said this and why every time. Their answer was, in part, this passage of Scripture. There are many times in The Gospels where Jesus says if you do something in his name it will be accomplished. The truth is there is power in the name of Jesus. Philippians 2 says that at the name of Jesus every knee will bow and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord. There is true power in the name of Jesus when three or more are gathered in Jesus’ name. The challenge for all of us is to do everything we do in the name of Jesus. This is especially true of Life Groups gathering in the name of Jesus. When we gather together as a Life Group we worship because the presence of Christ himself is there with us. We all need to live into this reality in our life. The power of followers of Jesus Christ centering their lives on loving God and loving neighbor in groups of two or more gathering in the name of Jesus. This Sunday we will conclude the message series Life Groups. I will be discussing more about why we all need a Life Group and how important it is to gather together in the name of Jesus. I look forward to sharing this with you Sunday. It’s an exciting time to be a part of St. Andrew’s. The best is yet to come. I can’t wait to see you in church!

“Then make me truly happy by agreeing wholeheartedly with each other, loving one another, and working together with one mind and purpose.” Philippians 2:2 NLT As I drive around the county and state I marvel at the amount of construction that seems to always be going on. I don’t marvel because it is ongoing, I do so because I have always been amazed at the coordination it takes to accomplish road work. There are sometimes hundreds of people working on the same project widening a road or adding an entirely new road. The work stretches over many miles with many different segments of the project happening at once. The fact that it all comes together when the project is finished amazes me. All of the pieces came together and the finished product works. That is quite an accomplishment. Have you ever thought of the church in this way? There are many different parts involved in being an effective church. The church needs to be able to equip and empower its members to do ministry. The church needs to invite and engage guests to be a part of the overall mission. The church needs to raise up children and students in the faith. The church needs to lead everyone to experience God’s grace through a growing relationship with Jesus Christ. The work of the church has many segments all happening at once. When it all comes together and the church is fulfilling God’s mission there is nothing like it in all the world. This is one of the reasons we are putting a renewed emphasis on Life Groups. When people are serving together through their Life Groups some amazing stuff happens. Throughout the life of St. Andrew’s this has been the case. There have been groups of people who served on mission trips for building houses, disaster relief, and assisting our mission partners in the local communities we serve. Within the church we have had Life Groups serve at events like Trunk or Treat, Pumpkin Patch, VBS, Dover Elementary, and so much more. A Life Group serving together is an awesome way for the group to connect in Christian community and build the kingdom of God here on earth. Paul wrote in the second chapter of Philippians that to be like Christ is to agree with each other wholeheartedly, love one another, and work together with one mind and purpose. It is our prayer that our church and, especially, our Life Groups will do just this. The more we join together in a spirit of unity to serve each other and the community, the more we resemble Christ. I pray that you will be considering joining a Life Group, if you are not already a part of one. I pray that we will all find ways of working together through our Life Groups to serve. Serving together creates Christian community. This Sunday we will continue the message series Life Groups. I will be discussing more about why we all need a Life Group and how important it is to serve together. I look forward to sharing this with you Sunday. It’s an exciting time to be a part of St. Andrew’s. The best is yet to come. I can’t wait to see you in church!

"Then your faith will grow strong in the truth you were taught, and you will overflow with thankfulness." [Colossians 2:7] In the Old Testament there is a story where God calls Gideon to do something pretty unreal. Gideon is going into battle against the enemy and God tells him he has too many soldiers. At first Gideon had almost 32,000 warriors prepared to go to battle. Gideon heard God's re proof and allowed anyone who wanted to leave to do so. 22,000 men went home leaving around 10,000 warriors. God told Gideon it was still too many. Finally, Gideon got the number from 32,000 to 300 and God told him this was the right number of warriors. God did this so that when the Israelites were successful it would be obvious that God had helped them win the battle. The number 300 is still a fairly large group of people. However, it is exponentially smaller than 32,000. What God was telling Gideon is the smaller the number the more he would need to rely on and focus on God. As we continue to explore the importance of Life Groups, I believe this is a lesson that still applies. We may not be going to battle with an enemy, but we are fighting our way through the ups and downs of life. We believe Life Groups are the best environment for Christian growth and fellowship. In a church the size of St. Andrew's we must reduce the number of people to a much smaller number in order to experience true Christian community. A Life Group suggests 6-8 people who are willing to go through all of life's ups and downs with you. Life Groups offer Gideon size support through the battles of life. In the verse above from Colossians God says that one of the results of your small band of supporters will be an overflow of gratitude in your life. Through Life Groups we grow stronger in the truth of our faith. Because of the love, support, encouragement, and accountability of our Life Group members we become increasingly grateful for the way God works in our life through them. We see God in them and grow in our faith with them. I experienced this growth in overflowing gratitude this week. My mom had surgery yesterday. Our family was all there to support her through a very difficult time for her. In the waiting room while she was I surgery members of her Life Group came to support her by being there for my dad. They surrounded him and loved him and let him know they were in the fight with him. My dad, and family, were overflowing with gratitude for these folks who are connected with my parents in Christian community through their Life Group. We grow closer to Christ when we are surrounded by fellow believers. I look forward to continuing the discussion with you this Sunday. I love being your pastor and I can't wait to see you in church.

“Let us hold tightly without wavering to the hope we affirm, for God can be trusted to keep his promise. Let us think of ways to motivate one another to acts of love and good works. And let us not neglect our meeting together, as some people do, but to encourage one another.” [Hebrews 10:23-25a] It all started with a t-shirt. My husband and I, then in our mid-20s, were walking out of the sanctuary one Sunday morning and noticed that a man ahead of us was wearing a t-shirt emblazoned with a Virginia Tech logo. The man was also in his 20s, a rare sight enough in church; but, the logo on the shirt from my husband’s university gave us the nudge to talk to the man. What started as a conversation on the lawn at church quickly morphed into a lunch invitation, and then gathering to watch Hokie sports. Within a couple of weeks, we and our new best friend were having lunch together after church most Sundays and, as we were standing talking on the lawn one Sunday, we saw another couple in their 20s, so we invited them to join us at lunch. We all started attending a weekly evening Bible study together at the church, and then going out to dinner together afterwards. Soon, a woman in her 20s showed up at church and we invited her to join us, and then her husband joined us once he was back in town from a business trip. Finally, another man in his 20s joined us; he was often in town on business for a few weeks at a time, away from his young family and was glad to have a community away from home. This small group of eight people became our dearest friends, closest confidants, dedicated prayer partners, and boy, did we have a lot of laughs. And food. A LOT of food. I have such tender memories of this time with our small group in our early marriage. We navigated so many big life events, difficult trials, and significant transitions together. We felt so known and loved and supported by these friends. We are spread all over the country now, but the women, especially, still keep in touch. I can pick up the phone and call the ladies and no time has passed. We share such a deep understanding because of our shared history; but, more than that, we share deep understanding because we recognize that we are all part of the same Big Story. The story of a God who loved his people so much that he didn’t leave us to figure out how to follow enough rules to reconcile ourselves to himself. Instead, God sent his Son, Jesus, to live among us, in community, to set an example of how we should minister to one another. God loved – and loves! – us so much that he sent his Son to rescue us, not to condemn us. Jesus didn’t leave us alone, either: he sent his Holy Spirit to be with us to move among us and unite us in community, to keep us living out God’s kingdom, here on Earth. In community we support and encourage each other, and we keep each other accountable to our shared story: that we are beloved people, rescued and redeemed, and out of our deep gratitude we serve, we learn, and we ever seek a closer relationship with our Savior. Come continue this conversation about community with me this Sunday in worship. See you in church!

“Which of you who has a friend will go to him at midnight and say to him, ‘Friend, lend me three loaves; for a friend of mine has arrived on a journey, and I have nothing to set before him’?” Luke 11:5-6 (RSV) It may seem like a simple invention, but it can be extremely helpful. It is not often that we consider something so small as being crucial to our safety and security. Franz Laibace applied for a patent for this device believing it to provide a protective measure for a homeowner or business owner. It was designed to offer the ability to know who is at the door without actually opening the door. I cannot even imagine having a front door without one of these devices. The device is, of course, the peephole. The invention of the peephole was a simple, but very important invention to help us know who is at the door. It is important to know who is at the door. How many of us would be willing to open the door at midnight without knowing who was at the door? I don’t think that many, if not any, of us would do so in this day and age. In fact, a lot of us would not only need to look through the peephole but also turn on the lights, turn off the alarm, and silence the dog before we would open the door. It may seem like the only consideration we may have would be the safety of ourselves, our home, or our family. I think there is also at least one other consideration we should have when considering who is at the door. In his sermon, "A Knock At Midnight," Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. considers the fact that we need to consider who is at the door at midnight. The main idea of his sermon is that the person who is knocking at the door is someone in need. You know that you are in need, perhaps desperate need, if you are willing to go to your neighbor’s house at midnight and knock on their door. In the parable of Jesus there is a definite sense of urgency to the need. Not only is it midnight, but the person who is knocking continues to knock persistently. Jesus even says it is not his request nor his friendship that the person inside responds to, it is his persistence. Those who are in desperate need tend to knock louder and longer than those who are not in need. The question for us in this parable is do we know who is at the door? Dr. King reminded folks in 1963 that it was midnight in many areas of the world, especially race relations. It is still midnight in many areas of our world today. There are those in desperate need who continue to knock at the door of the church in the midnight hour of our society. Do we as a church, and as individuals, know who is at the door? These are the folks who are in need and are left outside of society and the church at the midnight hour to knock at the door. They knock because they are in need. They knock because they are asking for help. They knock because they are in search of hope. These are our neighbors who are looking for us to be their neighbor. Jesus is sharing this parable to demonstrate the power of persistent prayer for sure. Jesus is also demonstrating what it means to be a neighbor and respond to the needs of a friend (neighbor). A neighbor puts others first, losing themselves in the priority of service. A neighbor also notices who is at the door and what their need is and is willing to respond, if for no other reason than their persistence. A neighbor determines to make sure that no one is left outside the door at midnight, turned away without their needs being met. Jesus goes on to say that God, the Father, would never do that to us. We should never do that to our neighbor. This Sunday we will continue the message series My Neighbor. We will be discussing more about who our neighbor is and how we can know who is at the door. I can’t wait to share this with you Sunday. There are great things coming for St. Andrew’s in 2017 and it’s an exciting time. The best is yet to come. I can’t wait to see you in church!

"For the entire law is fulfilled in keeping this one command: Love your neighbor as yourself." Galatians 5:14 One of the most difficult classes I took in college was biblical Greek. Learning an ancient (dead) language is difficult in that no one really speaks dead languages. So it's not like you can strike up a conversation in the local Greek restaurant. What made the course difficult to me was all of the declensions and memorization. First year Greek was easily the most difficult class I have ever taken, short of Algebra, and there were two more years of it. I wished there had been one formula that could have been used to figure out and use the whole language. It would have been a lot easier. Maybe that's why I love Jesus' great commandment so much. Love God and love your neighbor. All of the commandments are fulfilled in these two commands. I love this because it is easy to remember, not because it is easy to do. Living out these commands in our everyday life is challenging to say the least. But the clarion call for our life is to love God and love our neighbor. Paul is writing to the church in Galatia and reminding them what it means to love God and love others. He recounts for them the words of Jesus. Love your neighbor as yourself. He then tells them that there is a battle going on within them that works to prevent them from doing just that. This battle makes the command a little more complicated. In essence the battle is between our bent toward our own selfish desires and the Holy Spirit's leading. In order to love God and neighbor we only need to die to self. Once we are willing to put aside our own selfish desires we are able to fully love God and love neighbor as Jesus commands. I look forward to exploring this with you this Sunday as we continue the series "My Neighbor." I can't wait to share more with you about how we can love our neighbor. I look forward to seeing you at church.

“But he wanted to justify himself, so he asked Jesus, ‘And who is my neighbor?'” Luke 10:29 (NIV) In school we learn that good communication at least answers the questions who, what, when, where, and why. People need to know these answers at the very least in order to feel well informed and in the loop. They are good questions to answer. Well, it turns out they are pretty good questions to answer in our faith and theology. It is important to know what we belief and why. It is important to know when God calls us or moves in human history. When God calls us into action it is good to know where God is asking us to serve. But the most important question in our faith and theology is arguably WHO. It is extremely important to know who God is. Who is this God we serve? What are God’s attributes? These are the characteristics that let us know who God is. We need to know Who Jesus is and why we should follow this person’s life and teaching and place all our trust in him. The who question is very, very important to our faith and the practice of our faith. In the Scripture passage above, Jesus has been asked by an expert in the law what he must do to inherit eternal life. Jesus answers that he must love God with everything and love his neighbor the same way he is loved by God. So the expert pushes Jesus a little further and asks, “Who is my neighbor?” The question of who is very important. He knew who God is. He may have, presumably, even known who his neighbor was. The expert is getting a little snarky with Jesus in order to paint Jesus into a corner and give himself wiggle room with the law. So Jesus tells him a story. In the story some “experts” in the law, a priest and a Levite, see a man who has been beaten and left for dead. Each of them passed the man by on the other side of the road. These experts in the law and the ways of the temple sacrificial system both fail to help. Perhaps because it would cause them to be ceremonially unclean. Perhaps because helping would jeopardize their social and religious status. But the ones who should know what to do fail to do anything. To them the who didn’t matter as much as their own needs and status. As the story continues, a Samaritan comes along. The New Living Translation translates verse 33 as “Then a despised Samaritan came along.” This Samaritan might have known a little about the Jewish laws and traditions, but nothing like the experts who had passed by. Despite his lack of knowledge in the law…the Samaritan sees the WHO in need. It says he took pity on him and bandaged his wounds, poured oil on them, and took him to get help. The story Jesus tells the man is one of a despised Samaritan having compassion for another human being and going out of his way to help. It is the story of one person who is willing to help another person who is in need. So Jesus asks the expert who was this man’s neighbor? Of course, the man says it was the one who had mercy on him (he cannot even bring himself to say the name Samaritan. Jesus responds, “Go and do likewise.” This is the part I cannot wait to share with you this Sunday. I’ll give you a little sneak peak, though. Jesus is telling the expert in the law to put the WHO ahead of the what, when, where, or why! The who is always more important that the rest. This Sunday we will start a new message series My Neighbor. We will be discussing more about who our neighbor is and how we can be the neighbor Jesus describes. I can’t wait to share this with you Sunday. There are great things coming for St. Andrew’s in 2017 and it’s an exciting time. The best is yet to come. I can’t wait to see you in church!

“No, this is the covenant that I will make with the people of Israel after that time, declares the Lord. I will put my instructions within them and engrave them on their hearts. I will be their God, and they will be my people.” Jeremiah 31:33 (CEB) One of the gifts I received this Christmas was an engraved metal tumbler made by a company named RTIC. It is one of the specialty tumblers that keeps things cool, or hot, far longer than I ever imagined possible. The engraving on the tumbler is simply “PT.” As I mentioned in one of my messages recently, this is one of the names I am known by around St. Andrew’s and The Florida Conference. I love the gift and I love even more that it is engraved with these letters. It means that I am the owner of the tumbler and no one else should use it. But to me it also means a lot more. I also love this gift because of the givers. My wife and daughters gave me the tumbler for Christmas. I not only love the tumbler because of what is engraved on the outside. I love the tumbler because what is engraved on the outside represents the ones who had it engraved. This is what makes it special to me. The thought of going the extra step of having the gift personalized means that there is something special about me to my family. It means that there is something they love about the name by which I am known. It adds to the gift and makes it that much more meaningful to me. The Scripture verse above is from The Book of Jeremiah. Jeremiah the prophet is told by God that there will be a new covenant with the people of Israel. God will no longer write his laws on tablets of stone. God says the laws will be within them, engraved on their hearts. How amazing it that? God’s instructions for the people of Israel would be internalized as a unique engraving upon their hearts. Just as my example above, even more so, what is engraved is God’s very own instructions. What makes these instructions so special is the One who is doing the engraving. God sees every person in Israel as important and engraves on each individual heart the instructions God has for them. In our experience God engraves the same instructions on our heart in the indwelling presence of the Holy Spirit. God the Father has created us in the image of God (Imago Dei), Jesus Christ the Son has saved us from our sin, and the Holy Spirit comforts and guides us in the ways of God. We still have these instructions within us and engraved on our hearts. We can know how to follow God fully and how to obey God’s instructions because of the Holy Spirit indwelling in the heart of every follower. This Sunday we will be discussing the message Servant Leadership. I believe that this principle of an engraved heart is crucial to being a servant leader. I can’t wait to share this with you Sunday. There are great things coming for St. Andrew’s in 2017 and it’s an exciting time. The best is yet to come. I can’t wait to see you in church!

“What this means is that those who become Christians become new persons. They are not the same anymore, for the old life is gone. A new life has begun.” 2 Corinthians 5:17 (NLT) I love the reality of a New Year beginning. It is the time when one year has finished and put in the books. You can close the door on the old year and swing wide the door of the New Year and the clean slate that it represents. The fears and failures of the old year make way to the hopes and dreams of the New Year. I truly love the New Year coming and all the opportunities and possibilities it brings. I hope that you are able to look at the New Year with hope and promise. The start of a New Year always reminds me of the words The Apostle Paul wrote in his second letter to the church at Corinth. He told them that everything that Christ had done for them means that they have a new beginning. They are absolutely not the same anymore. Their new life has begun. What an awesome reality in our faith life. When we receive God’s gift of grace by placing faith in Jesus Christ as the Lord and Savior of our life, we are made new. The old is gone, G-O-N-E, and we are made new. I have shared that this Scripture absolutely is what happened to me. I was made new. It wasn’t just that some of my behaviors changed, I changed. I was a new person with a new outlook and a new heart. My new life meant that I saw people differently and treated people differently. I was able to see people the way Jesus saw them. That new life has been growing and evolving and maturing for over 30 years now. What a life it has been. I believe that when we place our faith in Jesus Christ that we are made new, or at least renewed, daily. It is a choice we make every single day to follow Jesus. When we confess our sins and follow Jesus fully, our sins are forgiven and we are made new. It is not necessary to our salvation to have a conversion experience over and over again. However, we can be made new by the confessing of our sins daily. God is faithful to forgive our sins when we confess them. This is a constant renewal and restoration process. New life comes and we are able to live in the new life Christ gives us. In the New Year as you make your resolutions I want to encourage you to commit to daily renewal time. Commit to every morning confessing the sins of the previous day, recommitting your life to Christ, and living for Christ fully. I believe that if we will all do this every day we will experience the hope and promise of new life every day. We will be new people living fully for Christ 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, and 365 days a year. Let’s see what that does to our life, our family, our church, and our community. Let the new begin every day in the New Year. This Sunday we will have ONE service at 10:00AM. Susan Lewis will deliver the message Why Our Resolutions Never Stick from Colossians 3:1-17. I can’t wait to hear what Sue has to say about this and I hope you will be there too. I wish you all a blessed New Year. This is an exciting time of new beginnings at St. Andrew’s. I can’t wait to see you in church!

"Glory to God in the highest heaven, and peace on earth to all whom God favors." Luke 2:14 (NLT) While in the airport waiting for our flight home from New York our family had a celebrity sighting. We were sitting in the area at the gate waiting for boarding to begin when a crowd of people headed toward us. There were people surrounding a young couple who were walking very fast, as if to try and outpace the crowd. As the crowd came closer we were able to make out who the couple was. It was wrestler and actor John Cena and his girlfriend. People were going crazy trying to see them and potentially talk to them and get their autograph. It was a pretty wild scene in the airport and all because of a person who has been on television. Now before I get too spiritual on you…I can understand why people would get excited about seeing a celebrity. I have been excited to see certain famous people in my life as well. After all, we watch them in the public eye, on the big screen, on television shows and we enjoy their work. We may even develop a certain attachment to them because of who we perceive them to be. We might think they are a good person who is generous and kind, funny and likable. It is admittedly pretty cool to meet someone who is famous and talented. So I am not saying there is anything wrong with the scene we experienced in the airport. What we soon found out is that John Cena and his girlfriends were on the same flight to Tampa that we were on. So the buzz continued for the duration of the flight until we all went our separate ways after landing in Tampa. This story came to mind as I was envisioning the night Christ was born. Stay with me here. There were shepherds out in the fields watching over their flocks in the still of the night. There were people getting ready for bed, or already asleep, at the inn in Bethlehem. There was an inn keeper who was closing the books on a good night, all of his rooms were taken. It was a sleepy night with all the normalcy of a fairly typical night in and around Bethlehem. Nothing very out of the ordinary at all. It was into this scene that Mary and Joseph came. It was into this scene that everything was turned upside down. It was into this scene that an angel spoke to unexpecting shepherds and choirs of angels sang. It was into this scene that the inn keeper offered unconventional lodging to a young and weary couple. It was into this scene that those sleeping in their comfortable rooms were awoken by the sounds of childbirth in the stable. It was into this scene that God’s Son was born and changed everything. It was into this scene that the shepherds left their flocks and came to see the one who would save them. This is the scene where all came to see the newborn Jesus. The glory of the Lord was present and peace came on earth. There was a divine celebrity in their midst and a crowd began to form for sure. This divine celebrity is the only one worthy of a crowd and commotion. Jesus is the one who deserves all honor, glory, and praise. The One who came to bring us peace is also the one who deserves our praises. It is my prayer that this Christmas you will experience both the glory of God and the peace Christ alone can bring to your life. May you have a divine celebrity sighting in your life this Christmas in the person of Jesus Christ. Tomorrow is Christmas Eve and we will celebrate the birth of Christ together at our 4:30 Family Service; our 6:30 Contemporary Service; our 8:30 Traditional Service with orchestra and choir; and our 11:00 Traditional Service with choir, hand bells, and communion. These are perfect opportunities to invite family, friends, neighbors, and coworkers to experience the love of Christ through worship. Please remember that on Christmas Day and New Year’s Day we will have one service at 10:00AM. I wish you all a very Merry Christmas and a blessed New Year. This is an exciting time of anticipation at St. Andrew’s. I can’t wait to see you in church!

We invite you to experience hope, peace, joy and love with us as we celebrate the birth of Christ. Join us for the Christmas Cantata this Sunday (Dec. 18), Caroling in the Courtyard on Wednesday, December 21, our Christmas Eve Services on December 24 and our Christmas Day Service at 10 a.m. on December 25. This is the perfect opportunity to invite your friends and family- we can't wait to celebrate together!

“The one who is the true light, who gives light to everyone, was coming into the world.” John 1:9 (NLT) Do you remember when it was popular for businesses to use the giant search lights to advertise at night? From miles around you could see the moving beams of the search lights cutting through the darkness of the night sky. If you were curious you would follow the beams of light to their origin to find out about the big deal. The lights were so bright that the closer you got to the lights the bigger and brighter the light became. It was truly impressive to see the power of those giant search lights lighting up the sky. Light has a way of doing that, cutting through the darkness. There is a huge difference between camping in the wilderness on an overcast night and a clear moonlit night. The moon lights up the sky enough to allow you to see thing pretty clearly. I know that if I have to go out in the backyard on a dark overcast night I must have a flashlight. It’s even a little unnerving to walk the grounds of the church at night after all the lights have gone out. You never know what is there since it is hard to see in the dark. We are better able to see in the light of day or a moonlit light. Light exposes what darkness conceals. In the years before the birth of Christ the world was a place of spiritual darkness. God never left and was still active, but it was a time of no prophets and no direct interaction by God with the people of God. This darkness left them crying out for Messiah, a Savior, to rescue them and restore them to God’s favor. Even though they were crying out and seeking this answer from God it was a silent and dark time for them. The answer had not come. When John writes his gospel he begins by telling of how God broke into the darkness. He tells of the light that shines in the darkness. A light that darkness cannot extinguish. A light that shines eternally because it is the true light from God. John says this “true light, who gives light to everyone, was coming into the world.” The long anticipation was about to be over and the Messiah would be born. The light would save those who placed their trust in the Light. Jesus would later say, “I am the light of the world. If you follow me, you won’t be stumbling through the darkness, because you will have the light that leads to life.” This Sunday is the third week of Advent. We will talk about what it means to walk as a child of the light. We will explore what it takes to walk life’s pathways illuminated by the one true light. We will discuss together the power of the one true light that reveals the way to abundant life. I pray that you will experience the light of the world this week and all through Advent and Christmas. This is an exciting time of anticipation at St. Andrew’s. I can’t wait to see you in church!