Let us this year not get caught up in the noise and easy consumer joy of the Christmas around us. In Advent we anticipate Jesus. We anticipate healing. We sit in lament, repentance, and hope for true healing. The light will dawn from on high to guide our feet in the way of peace (Luke 1:78-79).

God in Jesus Christ crucified mingles with what is most shameful to us, and this mingling is a stumbling block, foolishness and weakness to those who are perishing, but it’s God’s power, wisdom and salvation to those who believe.

Recently, the youth put together a great service of music and sharing. During our sermon time, Aaron Sharp, Ezra Muthiah, and Alyssa Tipton all offered some reflections on Luke 2:41-52 and what Pasadena Mennonite means to them.

Osheta shared with us about subversive joy. Not a saccharine, everything is fine, ignore our suffering joy, but a joy that is an act of defiance against the forces of despair in our world. Give it a listen!

This week we celebrated Bread for the World Sunday, and David Gist talked to us about love. Specifically, that in love there is no fear. What are the things that we fear that keep us from love? Jesus comes to send away fear, we no longer fear our neighbor, whatever their race, immigration status, politics, etc. And more than that, we turn the other way to love and act for our neighbor.

Mennonites claim to be a people of peace. But what does it mean to be a people of peace? Though, through time, the notion of “peace” that Mennonites have embraced has shifted, at no point was peace ever simply relegated to an inner-heart peace that did not impact the way one existed in the world.

Jesus washes his disciples’ feet. And he even washes the feet of the one who would betray him because Jesus washes feet indiscriminately. He serves all indiscriminately. Are there people in our community whose feet you do not want to wash? Are they your Judas? Do you not agree with their “lifestyle”? Or do you simply not wish to place yourself in such an intimate relationship with another? Similarly, do you seek to avoid having your feet washed? Why?

This week, in our series, we shifted from our focus on community to a focus on mission, but this shift begins with a bit of a bridge idea. How do we, as a church, embrace our commitment to welcome and create space for whomever is next to partner with us on our common mission, our common journey behind Jesus?

What does it mean to be people of God’s covenant love, and God’s truth? Our aim is not simply to be “truthful” but to be people that radiate God’s truth, being, and covenant love.

This week we talked about holiness as a movement, as an encounter, as a way of being that we are growing into and being transformed into, we even talked about holiness as an aroma (thanks Rob!), and we also talked about holiness as a process of our being and becoming God's children. That is, in learning to love as God loves, God who send rain on the just and the unjust.