The Advent season allows us to prepare for the mystery of Christmas.  We are all on that journey to Bethlehem.  This week we meet Jesus’s parents; Mary his mom, and Joseph his dad.  They were both unaware of the tasks that they would have in this special birth yet they both listened to the angels.  

God could have chosen anyone to give birth to Jesus, but he chose Mary, from   the little village of Nazareth. She wasn't very important, but she was important to God, and he chose her to do the most important thing one could imagine -- he chose her to give birth to his Son.

Now Joseph was a simple carpenter.  He listened to the words of the angel “Get up! Take the Child and His mother and flee to Egypt, and remain there until I tell you; for Herod is going to search for the Child to destroy Him.”  So Joseph got up and took the mother with child while it was still night, and left for Egypt. He remained there until the death of Herod. 

God still chooses unimportant people to perform important tasks.  He has given you and me the task of sharing hope, joy and peace with family, friends and neighbors.  He supports us by offering these words through prophets.  “Now may the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, so that you will abound in hope by the power of the Holy Spirit.”  Romans 15:13
 
Can you imagine a greater gift than “abounding in hope?”  It’s also our task to share that hope, joy, and peace that we have received! This year, as we prepare for the birth of Jesus, let us, like His parents, answer God's call. "I am the Lord's servant; Let it be with me just as you have said."
 
The Sunday School lesson this week includes multiple ways to create a Nativity scene.  Your family can use tissue paper, popsicle sticks, paint, graham crackers, pebbles, wood pallets, finger paint and remember to add that star!  It offered hope back then and it still does today!

​Christmas is so special it takes four weeks to prepare for it; the four Sundays of Advent.  On our first Sunday of Advent we remember our prophets that pointed the way to the birth of the Christ child.   Those prophets came so close to God and God came so close to them that they knew how important it was to show us the way.
 
There were many prophets in the Old Testament.  The people of God followed the sage wisdom of these prophets who fully expected and prepared for the coming of the Christ child.  They helped us prepare and told us what to expect.  They were generally an inspirational teacher. Some of us have had these types of people in our life on earth.  Wise people who taught how to live like Jesus did.  It might have been our grandparents, parents, friends, neighbors or maybe just walking into a Sunday School classroom to learn about Jesus’ life.
 
As we begin to prepare for Christmas let us give thanks for the prophets that came before us!  If that special wise person is still with you on earth, consider sending them a card of thanks.  If that person has joined Jesus in heaven, offer up a prayer of thanksgiving.  These people that came before us inspired us to live a life of faith, hope and love.  We should be forever grateful that they supported us on our faith journey.
 
This week our Sunday School lesson offers crafts to honor the people we have met on our faith journey that brought us closer to God.  We have poems to share, painting to recreate, ornaments to place on a Christmas tree and new prayers to say before we go to bed.

King David wanted to build a beautiful temple for God. But God said, “No David. I want your son to build my temple. Not you!” So when David was approaching the end of his life, his son--- King Solomon promised his father that he would be a temple for God in the Promised Land. After all, it didn’t seem fair that he had a beautiful place to live, but God’s house was just a tent!
 
So King Solomon sent a message to a king in another land to sell him beautiful cedar trees. That king sent workers into the forest to cut some beautiful trees for God’s temple.  King Solomon had workers create stone walls that were four stories tall and the lengths of the walls were 90 feet.  It was a huge beautiful temple for God. 
 
Then King Solomon added all of the elements from the tent that Moses and his people carried on their journey to the Promised Land.  They added the alter of incense, a laver to cleanse before you enter the temple, ten lamp stands and the table of Shewbread.  The last room in the temple was called the holy of holies and only the priest could enter.  That room housed the Ark of the Covenant and within that ark was God’s ten best ways to live (the stone tablet with the Ten Commandments).
 
King David and King Solomon did a lot to honor God.  They gave Christianity a permanent building to celebrate God’s words.  It’s ironic how life ebbs and flows.  Two thousand years later we are still using God’s ten best ways yet we are not in the church building.  We are still celebrating His work and sharing His stories of compassion and love but we’re doing it online.  These rich bible stories remind us that WE are the church and WE can share the good news wherever WE are.  We don’t have to be in the building.
 
Our Sunday School lesson includes many ways to recreate the temple, cedar wood crafts and videos about King Solomon and the temple.  We encourage you to share God’s compassion and grace this week with all you meet regardless if you are in the building, online or outside!  The world needs to feel the hope, joy, peace and love that we experience because of our faith!