OAK HILL CHURCH
  • Home
  • Get Connected
    • Adults >
      • Adult Sunday School
      • Women >
        • WITW Tuesday morning
        • WITW Wednesday
      • Men >
        • softball schedule
      • Primetimers >
        • PrimeTimers Photo Gallery
      • Small Groups
      • Overflowing Hope
    • Kids & Students >
      • Sunday School
      • Kidzone
      • LittleLites
      • Confirmation
      • Youth Group >
        • Interview with Armin
    • Serving >
      • Caregiving Ministry
      • CM Volunteer Registration
      • Oak Hill Food Shelf
      • Welcome Ministry
      • A/V Team
      • Prime Timers Coordinator
  • About
    • Vision and Values
    • What to Expect
    • Staff
  • Calendar
  • Contact Us
    • Prayer
  • GIVING
  • Messages
    • Being Oak Hill
    • The Walk
    • Giving It Up
    • Epiphany: Jesus Revealed
    • Archives >
      • Advent Attitudes
      • Jesus' Way = Different!
      • July& August 2022
      • Standing on God's Promises
      • RUTH
      • 2022 messages
      • Songs of the Season
      • The Lord's Prayer
      • August messages
      • Get Smart
      • Living Hope
      • Come and See
      • The Story of Joseph
      • Pillars
      • Community | Study in Ephesians
    • Oak Hill Podcast

JOY UNLEASHED  |  Hebrews 10.5-10

12/20/2018

0 Comments

 
​My favorite time of the year is Christmas. The music, the smells, the food, the time with family and friends, the lights, the tree, the manger scene, and the snow (still holding out hope for a White Christmas!) The season of Christmas allows me to unlock all of my love for nostalgia that I possess. I welcome the same songs that I listened to in the car on the way home from basketball practice as a kid or Handel’s Messiah blaring through our house. The familiar smells of warm cookies, hot chocolate, scented candles, and a fresh snowfall. The tastes of my mom’s ham balls, my aunt’s caramel corn, and my grandma’s holiday punch. Christmas is a perfect time for both remembering and making memories and I soak it up!
            One of the things about Christmas that I also love is the anticipation for giving and receiving gifts. There is an excitement in the wonder of what could be under the tree or imagining of the face of your loved one as they unwrap that special present from you. I’m getting super pumped just thinking about all that is Christmas! Can you tell?
            I can only imagine the joy and excitement that was taking place in heaven on that night in Bethlehem some two thousand years ago as Mary gave birth to a baby in a stable. It was at that precise moment that the Gift of all Gifts was sent for you and for me. That small child, named Jesus, would grow up and be for us what we could not be on our own. He would live the perfect, sin-free life that we could not, He would die the death that should have been ours, and He would be raised to life conquering both sin and death for you and for me. And all that hope, and expectation, was wrapped up in swaddling clothes on a bed of straw in a manger in a town in the middle of nowhere under the watchful eyes of a rough-looking carpenter, a teenage girl, and some smelly shepherds. But oh, what a gift!
            A common feeling that you and I can have when it comes to responding to gifts, or generosity, or an invitation, expresses itself in two thoughts: “What can I bring?” or “How can I pay you back?” Maybe it’s a Midwest thing, but I know that many of us can struggle with simply being on the receiving end of someone else’s kind gesture. We feel compelled to bring things back to even, we feel like we need to bring something to the table to feel welcomed, we feel like we might be obligated to do something in return for the gift. But the crazy part about this gift that God gives us in His Son is that it is not one of those gifts. This is a no-strings-attached gift. You and I are invited to come and receive…and that’s it.
            This Christmas may each of us be reminded, that we are recipients of the World’s Greatest Invitation and the World’s Most Miraculous Gift. We are invited to come to the stable, to see and remember this holy night that God has set in place generations ago. We are invited to come with our mess, our sin, and our mistakes knowing that this Little One has come to bring us peace with God. We are invited to bring our worries, anxieties, and shortcomings to the straw-stuffed throne of the King of Kings and receive His gift of mercy, forgiveness, and grace. I need to be reminded of that reality this Christmas amidst all of the other joyous and fun-filled memories that are unfolding around me. For to us a child is born, to us a son is given, and the government will be on his shoulders. And he will be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace. (Isaiah 9:6 NIV)
0 Comments



Leave a Reply.

    Author

    Pastor Ben Bigaouette
    ​Associate Pastor

    Picture

    Archives

    March 2020
    February 2020
    January 2020
    December 2019
    November 2019
    October 2019
    September 2019
    August 2019
    July 2019
    May 2019
    April 2019
    March 2019
    February 2019
    January 2019
    December 2018
    November 2018
    October 2018
    September 2018
    August 2018
    July 2018
    June 2018
    May 2018
    April 2018
    March 2018
    February 2018
    December 2017
    November 2017
    October 2017
    September 2017
    August 2017
    July 2017
    June 2017
    May 2017
    April 2017
    March 2017
    February 2017
    December 2016
    November 2016
    October 2016
    September 2016
    August 2016

Contact:


  • Address:  8901 France Ave S
    ​
    Bloomington, MN  55431
  • Phone Number: ​952.881.9486
  • The church office is open T-F from 9am-1pm. ​
  • For additional contact options please visit our contact us page.

Join us:

The Worship service is at 10:30am on Sunday mornings



​

our location: 
 90th & France | Bloomington, MN


Oak Hill Lutheran Brethren Church · Copyright © 2014 · All Rights Reserved 2014
  • Home
  • Get Connected
    • Adults >
      • Adult Sunday School
      • Women >
        • WITW Tuesday morning
        • WITW Wednesday
      • Men >
        • softball schedule
      • Primetimers >
        • PrimeTimers Photo Gallery
      • Small Groups
      • Overflowing Hope
    • Kids & Students >
      • Sunday School
      • Kidzone
      • LittleLites
      • Confirmation
      • Youth Group >
        • Interview with Armin
    • Serving >
      • Caregiving Ministry
      • CM Volunteer Registration
      • Oak Hill Food Shelf
      • Welcome Ministry
      • A/V Team
      • Prime Timers Coordinator
  • About
    • Vision and Values
    • What to Expect
    • Staff
  • Calendar
  • Contact Us
    • Prayer
  • GIVING
  • Messages
    • Being Oak Hill
    • The Walk
    • Giving It Up
    • Epiphany: Jesus Revealed
    • Archives >
      • Advent Attitudes
      • Jesus' Way = Different!
      • July& August 2022
      • Standing on God's Promises
      • RUTH
      • 2022 messages
      • Songs of the Season
      • The Lord's Prayer
      • August messages
      • Get Smart
      • Living Hope
      • Come and See
      • The Story of Joseph
      • Pillars
      • Community | Study in Ephesians
    • Oak Hill Podcast