The Christmas Eve We’ll Never Forget
While they were there, the time came for the baby to be born, and she gave birth to her firstborn, a son. She wrapped him in cloths and placed him in a manger, because there was no guest room available for them. –Luke 2:6-7
One of the hardest seasons of my (Pastor Dave) ministry at ZUMC came in 2020, when the COVID pandemic forced us to close our church doors. Over the course of that year, we found creative ways to stay connected to one another, one of which was offering “services on the lawn” throughout the summer where people could see one another and sing & pray together while still social distancing.
That fall, we reopened the church doors on Sunday morning, and people tentatively began returning to worship. But then as the holidays approached, a spike in COVID cases forced us to make the difficult decision to close the church building for Christmas. Drawing on our “service on the lawn” model from the summer, we came up with the idea of doing a short service of lessons and carols on the steps in front of the church. We hoped (if the weather cooperated) to even light candles together as we sang “Silent Night.”
The weather, though, did not cooperate. December 23rd was a mild winter day, but the bottom dropped out on Christmas Eve. The worst part was a strong, bitter wind that cut right through you, no matter how tightly you bundled up! Those of us in church leadership despaired—we figured we’d be lucky to get a small handful of people to join in worship that night. We were blown away to find a couple hundred people who gathered on the church lawn that night to celebrate Jesus’ birth in what was one of the coldest—and shortest—Christmas services we’ll ever experience!
Perhaps we heard the story of Jesus’ birth that night in a way that we’d never heard it before. It certainly brought comfort to remember the difficult conditions into which Jesus was born. It helped us to remember that, even in the midst of a very hard year, God’s light was still present among us, and the darkness will never be able to extinguish it.
Heidi Watson was one of those present at that Christmas Eve service, and she offers this brief but heartfelt remembrance of the blessing we found in being together:
On Christmas Eve, 2020, with freezing weather and wind gusts of 32 mph, brave people, some in wheelchairs and rollators, showed up to celebrate Christmas outdoors! We sang hymns while the musicians valiantly tried to keep their sheet music in place. Young and old raised our voices together to praise the Lord and to celebrate the birth of Jesus!
--Heidi Watson