Sunday, December 25, 2011

The First Christmas

"God shrank himself down into a little baby."

That's more or less verbatim, from the St. Matthew Lutheran Church Christmas Eve service at 7:30 PM, on Cascade Road, Grand Rapids, Michigan.

We also had a remote-controlled flying shark, a children's message, a sermon, the Lord's Supper, and a candlelight closing, which the choir absolutely slaughtered. You had to sing along really loudly just in self defense against "Peace, Peace" because there was no peace.

Thank God there wasn't a baptism, too, and a wedding thrown in or we would have been watching Albert Finney in Scrooge (1970) and eating pizza at midnight.

It reminded me of the time in Colorado we heard a sermon in a Lutheran church which likened the incarnation to a space shuttle launch: "Jesus blasted off the throne of God and came to earth."

"Honey, God shrank himself!"