Messiah begins its Advent midweek prayer services on Wednesday, December 2nd; two identical services will be held that day at 11:00 am & 7:00 pm. The 7:00 pm service is scheduled to be livestreamed at www.youtube.com/messiahgr, our website and our Facebook page.

Our Advent and Christmas theme is “The Everlasting Light,” which is inspired by Isaiah 60 and beautifully summarized by Phillips Brooks’s hymn “O Little Town of Bethlehem” (LSB 361). Brooks’s masterpiece beautifully describes Bethlehem on a December night. The hymn moves back and forth from a description of Christmas to the meaning of Christmas.

The series begins with brightness and beauty bursting forth. It all comes from the prophet Isaiah’s clarion call, “Arise, shine, for your light has come”. We desperately need this jolt of joy. Why? Our world is filled with dark streets—streets leading to despair and death. We know what it’s like to live on streets like those.

Isaiah continues, “And the glory of the LORD has risen upon you”. Divine glory, in Jesus, conquers our darkness, our every darkness, even the darkness of death. Why? Christ faced His own dead-end street called Calvary, but He rose again on the third day. In Holy Baptism, God calls us out of darkness and into His glorious light. The upshot? Phillips Brooks tells us: “Yet in thy dark streets shineth the everlasting light. The hopes and fears of all the years are met in thee tonight” (Psalm 27; Isaiah 60:1-3; 2 Corinthians 4:1-6; Luke 2:25-32)