Dear Friends,

Confession: I love an “excessive” Christmas tree. Meaning, I like a Christmas tree that’s so full of ornaments that you can’t quite see the tree itself. Every branch needs at least one ornament and I think most branches should hold multiple ornaments! In another direction, Christmas tree excess means that ornaments don’t necessarily need to be “Christmas-y” in order to go on the tree. There’s a set of Alice in Wonderland characters on our tree, also a set of miniature Jane Austen novels. The perfect tree reflects the past, the present and the future; it’s somehow a scrapbook and, I don’t know, a compass, maybe, pointing to the manger and beyond? (Hmm. I think I just found my sermon right there!)

Once upon a time I was a Noah’s Ark collector, so there are several arks in our Christmas ornament collection. (The photo grounding this blog entry is from someone else, but I do have that same ornament in my collection!) If I’ve ever thought about why there are several arks on our Christmas tree, I suppose I would’ve said, “Because people gave them to me when that was a thing I collected!”

This coming Sunday’s text is a reminder that there’s more going on than that: Noah - and even more so, other people in the days of Noah - have a clear role in Advent. While Noah was preparing for the flood that was coming, Jesus says people were “eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage” rather than getting ready for what was ahead. That didn’t work so well back in the days of Noah, huh? (And if that doesn’t make sense, take a look at Genesis 6.)

It’s gonna be a little different, hanging those arks on the tree this year: A little less, “aww how cute!!!” and maybe a little more, “am I getting ready for the right thing?”

Happy Advent?

See you Sunday.

Peace,

Lisa

Photo by Robert Thiemann on Unsplash