St Stephens Episcopal Church

Information may not be reliable

I regret to inform you that a fire broke out in St Stephen's office-wing kitchenette. Thanks be to God there was no one in the office at the time and no one was hurt. There is significant interior damage to the offices, powder room, kitchenette and entry hallway. The church proper and the hall have smoke damage.
As a consequence of the fire, preschool is closed until after the Thanksgiving break. The fire inspector is allowing us to use the church proper for worship, but Sunday School, Coffee Hour, Hall Rentals and social affairs are on hold pending restoration and repairs.
The fire was discovered by our preschool staff. The students had gone home and the staff were cleaning up when Tammy saw smoke. She checked that Jan and I were out of the building and called 911. They evacuated, cleared the parking lot of vehicles for the fire equipment and called me. They did good! There are challenges in this process of recovery. I have no doubt that working together we will prevail.

We have come to the turning of the year. The season of Advent is the beginning of the church’s liturgical year. Its four Sundays have a “shape” that recurs every year. It is a shape that leads us from the procession of ordinary Sundays to a sense of expectancy: Jesus is coming! Get ready! Prepare the way of the Lord! This sense of expectation is more than just 4 blue candles marking a countdown to Christmas. It begins with the right here, right now reality that Jesus is coming back in glory. Time and space as we know it will be transformed and the Communion of Saints will be united around one table, one banquet. No longer will those who have gone before surround us as a great cloud of witnesses be cheering us on in the race. We will have finished the race and joined them in wearing the crown of victory that never fades away.
The end of time as we know it is both far away and right in our faces. It is far away in the sense that there are no mile markers that tell us we’re almost done, (except perhaps signing up for Medicare….) The very routine of daily life can fool us into thinking we’ve got all the time in the world. Truth is, we do have all the time we need to be where God calls us to be and do what God calls us to do, if we keep going. The other side is the end of time is right up in our faces. We never know when Jesus is coming. >From a practical perspective, as individuals, it doesn’t matter much whether we’re called home one at a time or as the gathered throng at the end of time. We never know the fragility of human life and our need to be ready. Toujours Prêt! Always Ready!
The second and third weeks of Advent are always John the Baptist weeks. They are always about preparing the way for Jesus in the concrete circumstances where we find ourselves. “Are you the one who is to come, or do we look for another?” John asks that question on our behalf, so that we can see that it is answered for all who encounter Jesus, no matter how hidden Jesus may be in their lives.
The final week of Advent is always about Jesus coming into the world. Each year we read the Biblical preparations for God coming into the world in Jesus’ birth. In a sense, the preparations God made for Jesus coming at the first Christmas are necessary for Jesus’ birth in every heart that receives him. Jesus is coming. Prepare the way of the Lord.
Over the next weeks, we are preparing the way of the Lord in his mission to transform lives. We are preparing the way for our own whole-hearted participation in that mission. We recover the sense of importance that Jesus arrival brings to that work and the sense of urgency his return demands. We prepare the way for Jesus presence to be credible and real in the lives of his followers, beginning with we ourselves. We prepare the way for Jesus to be birthed anew in the hearts of those who love him, restored in the hearts of those who have lost their way and newly born in the in the lives of those who do not yet know his embrace.
It’s Advent. Jesus is coming. Prepare the way of the Lord! What an adventure it is that we are privileged to be part of.

P.S. Pre-Christmas Pot Luck will be held on Saturday, 12/4/10 @ 5PM at the Schoolhouse Senior Center, 600 Swarthmore Avenue, Folsom, PA 19033

Pre-Christmas Pot Luck will be held on Saturday, 12/4/10 @ 5PM at the Schoolhouse Senior Center, 600 Swarthmore Avenue, Folsom, PA 19033