Last Sunday was the final day of Advent and next Sunday is Epiphany, which means…This Sunday, December 29th, is the only Sunday we get during Christmastide. 

(No, Christmastide isn’t something you spilled on your purposefully-ugly sweater. It’s the official, churchy name of the Christmas season. You know, that thing that lasts for 12 days. Don’t worry, no collection of birds are involved in this worship service.) 

In other words, this Sunday, December 29th, is a day for us to say: 

“We’re in church and we’re singing…we’re in church and we’re SIIINGIIING!!” 

Because that’s what we do during Christmas to celebrate Incarnation, God’s ultimate act of solidarity with humanity: we sing! 

Oh sure, we will pray, light candles, read scripture, and Pastor Dave will talk a very little bit (What? It’s not impossible for him to talk only a little. It’s Christmas: it’s a time of miracles!)…but, mostly, this Sunday, December 29th, at our one and only worship gathering at 10:00 a.m., we will sing. 

We’ve picked a couple Christmas songs that we missed last week and we’ll leave plenty of time for a hymn sing. That’s right, a time where you, the congregation, get to play hymnal DJ and pick what we sing! 

Christmas songs, like all our songs, are full of theological statements. We’ll let them do most of the talking in our now annual tradition of Homily and Hymns. But we will also take a few moments to consider that harrowing story from the Gospel of Matthew, in a segment Pastor Dave calls, “Sing We Now of Christmas, Vol. 4” OR “Why So Serious?”