Worship Service for 12/24/2023

Advent is the season of waiting! Soon and very soon our waiting and planning for Christmas celebrations will come to their close, and we will rejoice in Christ’s coming to save us. Such waiting and planning for Christmas can also guide us as we prepare for Christ’s final advent, His ultimate coming, when He returns on the Last Day. Until that glorious Day, when all portions of God’s plan for our salvation will be accomplished, we are blessed with the peace “which surpasses all understanding” (Philippians 4:7). Such peace is an amazing gift that the Lord gave to the virgin Mary, the mother of our Lord, when she received God’s Word from the angel Gabriel and then carried our salvation in her womb, delivering Jesus into the world. “Let it be to me according to your word,” she said (Luke 1:38). May we say the same as we gather this day and, like Mary, receive the peace that God alone can give.