The Second Sunday of Advent=Peace

This morning I was in a rush to get ready for church...haven't been there for two Sundays, and I was anxious to get back to some kind of "normal" routine again!  Also, my hubby was going to be preaching today since our pastor has been on vacation this past week.  So anyway, hubby and I were discussing which Advent Candle would be lit this week...Last week was "Hope".  Some churches use different scriptures and passages about Advent each week, so no two are exactly alike. But I was thinking today would be about Peace...and so hubby was actually preparing his message to include thoughts about how to find peace in a world of turmoil...and of course there is only one answer...through faith in Jesus Christ as our Savior and Lord...by putting our trust in God and not in kings or governments or things of this world...by not being deceived by the things of the world...that is the only way to find peace...put Jesus first in everything, and we will have peace. That's it in a nutshell pretty much.

This is our church's Nativity Scene. 

And this morning in church I was wishing I had taken a picture of our lovely Advent Wreath and candles. But I was in the choir and didn't think to do it. So here is a picture that I did take last year at the lighting of the 2nd candle, and my hubby was the one doing the lighting last year.  It was a special time, and is a special time each week as we light the new candles in anticipation of the Advent of our Lord at Christmas.

Now, I am doing the lazy thing here tonight and am attaching some links to the past few years of posts that I wrote on the second Sunday of Advent.  I hope you will take the time to open these links and read them at your leisure this week...and I pray they will hopefully be a special kind of Advent devotional for you as you read them.  I am also going to go back and re-read them and let God speak to me through His Word.  I hope you will enjoy these...

Link to Previous Post about PEACE=Bethlehem's Candle

Another post about PEACE

Advent Post about the Shepherds

Oh, another wonderful Advent Post!

On another note, yesterday our son Scott came home and he did finally get the many bins of Christmas decorations out of the shed.  Now the house is in a bit of a mess as I start opening the bins and going through them and determining what to set out and what not to display this year. We will probably set up the Christmas tree tomorrow.  We did, however, put out the outdoor Christmas tree and other special decorations for our yard:

It made me happy to come home last evening after spending some time at Dixie Cottage after hours so we could be open during the town's Christmas parade and to see this all lit up in our yard.

Speaking of Dixie Cottage and the parade, oh, you just gotta love a small town! It seems like the whole town came out for the evening parade and the lighting of the Christmas tree and other activities in the old downtown village. 

 Thankfully our store sits right on the edge of all this activity, and so we figured it would be worth our while to have the store open last night...and oh, we are so glad we did!

The store looked so pretty with all the lights on in the windows. That's Ben on the front porch, waiting for the parade to begin!

The High School Marching Band came right by our store on their way to the parade. The young man with the reindeer antlers is a grandson of one of our church friends, so I was happy to get his picture.

Then when it got dark the parade began. It's kind of too dark to make out what most of these floats were about, but it was still a lot of fun.

This one was Smokey the Bear...and all of our fire department trucks were in the parade with lots of lights and sirens...

I think one of these floats had our State Champion High School football team riding! Our little town high school hasn't had a winning year in football in many many years, and this year they went all the way to the top and won the state championship for their division!  So our town was pretty proud of our team!

Anyway, I said it was worth our staying open late for the store...and yes it was!  It had been a rather lackluster week in sales after our big Sip and Shop event a couple of weekends ago. People seemed to be dragging after Thanksgiving and not even bothering to come visit, let alone buy anything. But then last night it seemed like they were coming out of the woodwork! Several big items sold right off the bat...and we ended up with more sales in a couple of hours than we'd had in a week! So yes, it was well worth the staying late and having fun too! 

So, all in all, it's been a good weekend. Thankfully I am finally feeling much much better...I was able to go to church and even out to lunch afterwards...we got some decorating done, and things are looking up at the store.

And it's been a week to watch for and pray for peace...The Prince of Peace...to reign and rule in our lives.

I keep repeating these verses:

Isaiah 9:6-7

6"For unto us a Child is born,

Unto us a Son is given;

And the government will be upon His shoulder.

And His name will be called

Wonderful, Counselor, Mighty God,

Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.

7 Of the increase of His government and peace

There will be no end,

Upon the throne of David and over His kingdom,

To order it and establish it with judgment and justice

From that time forward, even forever.

The zeal of the Lord of hosts will perform this."

Luke 2:14 

14 “Glory to God in the highest,

And on earth peace, goodwill toward men!”

Flashback to "Those Seventy's" Days...Random Journal Day

(Linking up with my friends at Random Journal DayClick here to join the link up)

Note from the Present:   This past week I have been reminded about our early ministry days and our experience of being in a Christmas Parade with our youth group.  What got me thinking about this was the unusual phenomenon currently taking place in the city of Ocala, where I am presently employed.  The Ocala Annual Christmas Parade will happen tomorrow afternoon.  For the past week (or more) I have been noticing places all along the sides of the streets roped off and lawn chairs tied with ropes, staking out people's vantage points for watching the parade. This is an annual event...people, businesses, groups, anybody interested enough to participate, stake their claims for land all along the parade route way in advance.  Strangely enough, no one dares to move the chairs and ropes from those places.  It's the honor system.  I find it rather intimidating...how does a newcomer find a place to watch the parade pass by?  You have to wait for someone to die and leave their favorite spot to you in their will, I guess.  I've never seen this happen anywhere else...have you? Just wondering...Needless to say, I won't be watching the parade. I'm not high enough up in the city eschelon to rate a vantage point. Not yet...(ha)

So, here is a story from our past from when I wasn't just a spectator in a Christmas parade, but an actual participant, riding through the streets of Orlando, Florida, with thousands of people watching our float floating by!  Read on from my "journal writings" from the mid-1970's. To further set the scene, we had just arrived fresh from Bible College Grad School, where we had actually seriously considered going into foreign missions full time.  But God had other plans for our lives back at home.

December, 1975:

Isaiah 6:8  “Also I heard the voice of the Lord, saying: ‘Whom shall I send, and who will go for Us?’  Then I said, ‘Here am I! Send me.’”

 

So John (my hubby) accepted the call to be the Youth Pastor at a church in Florida, and we happily moved back to our home territory!  It was an exciting time in our lives! After the days of testing and preparation, we were actually going to be entering the ministry!  Our charge was to take a small group of teens, approximately six to ten on the average attendance, and make them grow!  Grow, not only in number, but also most preferably to grow in spirit and the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ!  Not an easy task in the mid-seventies, at the close of the Viet Nam War. There was a lot of unrest, dissatisfaction, and turbulence in our country at that time.  But something interesting was stirring in our nation as well.  As we approached the Bi-Centennial in 1976, there was a new wave of patriotism and a spirit of revival in the hearts of many. 

One of our first assignments was to enter a float in the Orlando Christmas Parade, and the theme for the parade that year interestingly enough was “God Bless America!” A Bible verse that came to our minds was II Chronicles 7:14, which states: 

“If My people who are called by My name will humble themselves, and pray and seek My face, and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin and heal their land.”

 

What better message than this to convey the idea of “God Bless America!”  Since this was a Christmas parade, we sought a way to combine the Christmas message with this message of hope and healing for our land.  So our youth came up with the idea of our float being a live nativity scene, with the banners on the side of the float reading “God Has Blessed America! He Sent His Son!”  Then on the front of the truck was a large wooden open Bible, with the II Chronicles 7:14 verse inscribed upon it. 

As we drove down through the streets of Orlando, we had the “Hallelujah Chorus” and other excerpts of “Handel’s Messiah” and “The King Is Coming”(By Bill Gaither, 1970) playing on a loud speaker. The young people were in their costumes of the Nativity of our Lord, with that powerful message for all to see.  I was riding in the cab of the truck with my husband, and I was watching the faces of the people along the road as they saw our float glide by.  Many people were cheering and clapping and praising God for the positive message it inspired.  I had this vision of being in a parade on the streets of heaven someday, with all the saints of the ages welcoming us into glory. It was such a beautiful dream, and perhaps a glimpse of what that day will truly be like.  I couldn’t help but allow the tears to roll down my cheeks as I thought about our country and the millions of people who still needed to know Jesus, and I knew then that we had made the right choice by serving the Lord in our homeland.  But we sure had our work cut out for us!

Back to the Present:  Sounds like a message that we still need today!  Nothing much has really changed in the past almost 40 years!  

So, do you have any special parade memories that you can share? Or perhaps a time when you participated in a live nativity scene or other special Christmas program? Now would be a good time to take advantage of the many Christmas musicals, plays, and yes, even parades that are available to help ring in the true Spirit of Christmas! 

Merry Christmas to you and yours.