Friday, December 9, 2011

22nd Annual Live Nativity

Join us tomorrow and Sunday, Dec . 10 & 11 for our annual Live Nativity, 4:30 - 8:00 pm
Admission is FREE!  Refreshments are served.  We are handicap accessible.

Every 15 minutes or so, a continuous reading of the Nativity story is revealed beneath a deep starry night sky over a stable in Bethlehem.  Angels will announce the birth of the Savior.  Shepherds and kings will travel to Bethlehem to find the new infant king.  What will you find there?

It’s easy to feel lost at this time of year.  Aside from being overwhelmed by all the secularism that drowns out the whole reason we celebrate Christmas at all, recent years have battered our sense of direction, leaving us wondering if we are on the right path, feeling lost.

But… Because we are children of God, we have been given the greatest gift of all time - the gift of Jesus, God’s Son, our Savior.  Because of this gift, we have hope.  And that hope shines like a Star over a stable in Bethlehem.

In the stable, you will find what your heart seeks.  In an infant king, God’s Son born in a stable, we meet the Good Shepherd who guides our ways and shows us the path to a relationship with God that is full of peace and joy and love.  In this stable we find that we are not lost, but found, loved and cherished…because we, too, are children of God, the sheep of His fold.

The wise men appeared to King Herod and asked, “Where is He who has been born King? For we saw His star and have come to worship Him.”   Even the wise men were searching for something…someone…that would answer their prayers and guide their paths.  They found Him in the stable.

At Easter, we look within the empty tomb, feeling lost, knowing that our Lord has died.  But the angels ask, “Whom do you seek?  He is not here, He is risen!”  In the Easter Resurrection our feeling of being lost is replaced with the joy of being found, claimed by God and deemed worthy of His love.

Be like sheep, follow the sound of your Shepherd’s voice and wander into the stable.  Grasp the gift within… the love of God incarnate in His Son, Jesus, Immanuel, God with us.  Our God is a God of abundance, and there is love and hope enough for all the lost and all the found.  

See you in the stable.   Baaaa-baaaa-baaa.

St. Andrew Lutheran Church
335 Reynolds Ave.
Parsippany, NJ  07054
(973) 887-6713

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