Have you already made your plans to attend Sunday evening’s Christmas Concert? We will hear the rich voices of the choirs of Park and First Presbyterian Churches along with brass, woodwinds, and percussion. The final piece of the concert will be the magnificent Dream Isaiah Saw – alone worth the trip out on a cold winter’s evening. Sunday evening, 7:00 p.m., in our Sanctuary.

Among the familiar carols we will hear on Sunday evening is “God Rest Ye Merry, Gentlemen.”
“God rest ye merry, gentlemen, let nothing you dismay,
Remember Christ our Savior was born on Christmas Day;
To save us all from Satan’s power when we were gone astray.”

Have you ever thought about the comma in the title and the first line of the hymn? For years I never noticed and just assumed that the punctuation would be “God rest ye, merry gentlemen…” for this is certainly a season when merry gentlefolk should rest easy. But what a difference the comma makes when we come to understand that merry does not modify gentlemen, but the rest God gives.

Few of us are merry all the time; when dependent on the passing circumstances of our lives, we can’t be. God’s rest is not reserved for the merry, thank God. God gives the gentlefolk he loves a merry rest – a pleasant, peaceful rest.

Come to the concert on Sunday evening. It will be a time of merry rest in the midst of a busy season.

I love the way Graças led us in “Go Tell It On the Mountain” last Sunday. “Over the hills and everywhere,” we sang. I’d encourage you to tell your friends and neighbors, over the hills and everywhere, about our Christmas celebration here at Park. Of course, Sunday’s concert, and then two wonderful Christmas Eve Services. The 7:00 p.m. service will feature a delightful retelling of the old story by the children of the Sunday School; it’s going to be great! At 11:00 we will gather to usher in the Day of Joy with bells, choir, candlelight, lessons and carols in a service that is deep and beautiful. Maybe you’ll want to come to both services! Invite your friends!

Finally, at Wednesday’s Men’s Breakfast, Ed Shephard shared with us from Jonathan Edward’s “Resolutions.” Edwards, of course, is the greatest theologian and thinker of Colonial America. The Resolutions are seventy “resolveds” that Edwards made as a young man and then followed throughout his life. Here’s a sampling that spoke to me:
6. Resolved, to live with all my might, while I do live.
17. Resolved, that I will live so as I shall wish I had done when I come to die.
28. Resolved, to study the Scriptures so steadily, constantly and frequently, as that I may find, and plainly perceive myself to grow in the knowledge of the same.
41. Resolved, to ask myself at the end of every day, week, month and year, wherein I could possibly in any respect have done better.
42. Resolved, frequently to renew the dedication of myself to God, which was made at my baptism; which I solemnly renewed, when I was received into the communion of the church; and which I have solemnly re-made this twelfth day of January, 1723.
52. I frequently hear persons in old age say how they would live, if they were to live their lives over again: Resolved, that I will live just so as I can think I shall wish I had done, supposing I live to old age.
58. Resolved, not only to refrain from an air of dislike, fretfulness, and anger in conversation, but to exhibit an air of love, cheerfulness and benignity.
69. Resolved, always to do that, which I shall wish I had done when I see others do it.
70. Let there be something of benevolence, in all that I speak.

You can read all the resolutions here: The Resolutions

It’s not yet Christmas, but what might you and I resolve to do or not to do in the new year soon approaching? More later.

See you Sunday!