Wednesday, December 30^th,  2020
A weekday e-mailer from
Matt Matthews
 
On the Sixth Day of Christmas . . . 
 
To Members and Friends of 
First Presbyterian Church
Champaign, Illinois
  
* * *
 
Charles Wesley Bartlett’s
Bleak Midwinter
 
A Story by Matt Matthews
for the Sixth Day of Christmas 
 
                  Charles Wesley Bartlett climbed into his yellow Lamborghini and strapped in. The 12-cylinder engine purred when he turned the key. The road rose up as he accelerated. He took the corners hard. The moon brimmed full, as with silver tears. Winter leaves skittered across the empty black top. Wind lashed at defenseless trees. 
                  Charles Wesley Bartlett didn’t have a Lamborghini. He was 13-years-old. But he did have an imagination. And, as he grinded away at the peddles of his mountain bike, he liked imagining that he was caressing the responsive gas pedal of an expensive car. Ah, the feel of speed in a warm, low-slung racer, the glow of a custom dashboard, and the smell of new leather. 
                  No imagination was necessary for the cold. It was Christmas Eve and bitter. While there was no snow on the narrow, twisting two-lane, the ground had been frozen solid for weeks. As he peddled into numbing wind, he had wished that he had worn gloves. Water from his runny nose had frozen into sharp fangs. Cars zipped past barely missing his handlebars. The swoosh of passing traffic amplified the wind for a few mean seconds. His chapped lips and face stung. It hurt to breath. A smile would crack his skin into a thousand pieces. 
                  But he sang. He sang to warm up. It wasn’t working, but he sang anyway. He sang the harmonies of the carols his school chorus had presented at their Winter Concert a week before Christmas. Harmony was difficult, however, without someone singing the melody. As hard as he tried, he couldn’t find his part without hearing the soprano line and the other parts. A choir sings together, his chorus director was fond of saying. Nobody goes it alone.
                  That’s basically what his mom had said yesterday when she forced him to go to the homeless shelter. Their church was serving dinner for Christmas week and Charles’ middle school church youth group was supposed to help with Thursday’s dinner. He didn’t want to go. It was the eve before Christmas Eve and he wanted to stay home and relax. The word relax pushed one of his mother’s several buttons. She put her left hand on her hip, and when she did that, he knew he was in trouble.
                  “You go because you’re part of a group and you support what that group does even when it’s not convenient,” she said. She lectured about commitment and follow-through.
                  “You are part of our church family,” she had said. She was on a roll. She had a way of looking beyond him when she got into mother-mode, like she was on a stage and she was talking to hundreds of people sitting directly behind him. “Our church family is committed to certain, basic things. Helping others is one of those things,” she said. “The youth group has signed up to help and you are a part of that group. They are not complete without you; and, might I add, you are not complete without them.”
                  Charles felt complete, he said weakly, but there was no use arguing with his mother when she had her hand on her hip.
                  His real excuse for not wanting to go to the shelter with the youth group was that he wanted to go to the movies with his friend Cal. But Carol Bartlett insisted that the movie could wait. When Charles insisted that the homeless could wait, he realized how stupid that sounded, and so he went with the youth group on their mission of mercy even though he didn’t want to go.
                  There were 45 men at the shelter. Some sat chatting in groups of two or three. One cluster played dominos. Their weathered, gnarled hands looked like the shells of ancient turtles. Most sat alone or worked by themselves staking out their sleeping places along the perimeter of the room. Charles approached these solitary men and offered to bring them a styrofoam cup of coffee. They were politely appreciative, but not interested. At eight, they shuffled through the dinner line. By 10 o’clock lights were out and many of them went instantly to sleep, snoring on half-inch foam pads spread around the fellowship hall floor.
                  The room smelled of cigarettes, Brunswick stew, evergreen from table decorations, coffee, and dirty socks. The fellowship hall was muggy with sudden sleep and whispers and the muted sounds of pots being washed in the adjacent kitchen. Charles felt small and lonely, and felt smaller still when he tried to put himself in these men’s shoes. He couldn’t believe he had argued about coming. It was right to be here, but he never wanted to come back, no offense to the men who had no choice. His mother was right, as usual, but he still wished she made a greater effort to understand him even when he was wrong. He couldn’t help what he felt, and, sometimes, she cared more for her principles than she did for her son.
                  Charles was still in a funk the next night when his family got home from the 5:30 Christmas Eve service at their church. The Christmas story always filled him with a lonely gladness. For some reason, being with his family only added to the lonely feeling.
                  Both sisters were home with their husbands and their small house was stuffed. Late the night before they had ordered pizza with double anchovies. Charles hated anchovies. It didn’t help that his explosion with his mom about the shelter hadn’t cooled off yet. He was still mad at her and he hated feeling that way especially on Christmas Eve. His dad was too busy trying to impress Charles’ brother-in-laws to mediate. Besides, David Bartlett knew better than to take anyone’s side but his wife’s. It was no accident that Charles’ parents were still married after 31 years.
                  The family milled around elbow to elbow in the kitchen, grazing through the refrigerator. The big meal was noon on Christmas day. On Christmas Eve nibbling was the custom. His dad sat at the dining room table doling out slices of leftover, cold pizza. The anchovies clotted on the cheese like congealed guts. A brother-in-law dozed at the table while absently scratching his back with a fork he had been using to eat a bowl of ice cream.
                  When his sisters pulled out the Scrabble game, reluctant husbands put on their best game faces. Charles took some pleasure knowing he wasn’t the only one suffering. Carol Bartlett sat next to her husband. Charles stood at the doorway between the kitchen and dining room. They offered him a spot at the table, but he would have had to be on a team by himself and, besides, Scrabble made him feel unintelligent.
                  He felt like the odd man out. The house was burning up. His thin sister complained about being cold. His pregnant sister peeled off clothes like she was at the beach. Her red face looked waxy. Charles decided that the odd man out should go for a bicycle ride.
                  “It’s dangerous on a cold night like this,” his mom said distractedly, sorting her letter tiles. She had an X, two Bs, three Is and an E.
                  “It’s not dangerous, Mom,” Charles said heading down the stairs to the garage. “I’m just going for a little spin. I won’t be gone long.”
                  “It’s cold out,” his dad said.
                  “Yeah,” Charles answered, “but it’s not that cold.”
                  Except that it was. His hands had become smooth marble fused around the handlebars, and the headwind across the open field immediately froze his face. He decided that when he got to the park, he’d cut through the woods on the walking trail which emptied out onto less traveled back roads. Sheets of ice glazed the road. The grass was frozen sharp and white. Headlights from oncoming cars blinded him. He hugged the white line at the edge of the road as best he could, but he had to weave around pot holes and patches of gravel along the narrow shoulder. His glasses kept slipping down his frozen nose. He peddled as fast as he could with rubbery legs. 
                  The manger had a way of interrupting his thoughts. When he was younger, he felt wonder and happiness. Now he felt duty. Who would fetch fresh hay for the manger? Mary and Joseph needed fresh water. Mary needed rest. Charles was inclined to help. The players at that nativity seemed alone and Charles imagined providing helpful companionship. Joseph leading that donkey to Bethlehem on such an unsteady path could use a hand. No help could relieve poor Mary being jostled on that beast of burden. Charles’ pregnant sister was 24-years-old and all she could ever talk about was indigestion and her aching lower back. Once, his brother-in-law Walt rolled his eyes and groaned to Charles, “Don’t ever get a girl pregnant.” She hit him for that, and she was strong. Pregnancy made his sister twice as big, but not only in terms of size, but might. Her glare was bigger. She breathed bigger. She had become a force. Charles couldn’t explain it.
                  Charles stopped at the top of the hill to wipe his nose with fingers stiffened by cold, hard as glass. Ordinarily, the steep hill would be fun to race down, but it seemed steeper tonight, the blacktop blacker, the on-coming headlights more distracting. He thought about where he was headed. He could ride to his church about a mile away and turn around in the parking lot. He knew some kids who lived off this road, but it was Christmas Eve and nobody would want him stopping by for a visit tonight. Everybody is supposed to have something worthwhile to do on Christmas Eve. Aimless bike rides didn’t count. He didn’t know where to go. 
                  The wooded park sprawled out below. The woods would be warmer. Trees would block the wind. Charles pushed off, took a few sore strokes on the pedals, and soared down the hill. The wind caught his loose-fitting jacket like a kite.
                  He could not conjure warm thoughts. Cold and danger made his mind race. He wondered if cold speeds everything up before it freezes everything. He wondered how Mary, the mother of God, might compare with his sister Sarah, the mother of indigestion. Sarah still worked at the bank even though the baby was due any day. Charles pictured her on a donkey on the way across uneven roads to Bethlehem. Joseph would have to leadthat donkey gently, or else. Charles wondered if Mary whined as much as his sister did, if pregnancy made her bigger. Whine might not be the right word. Charles didn’t mean to judge. He had never been pregnant.
                  Getting colder and colder, blurring to ice, he was flying now. He couldn’t feel his hands or face. They no longer tingled. His shirt had become untucked and freezing air snaked up his bare back. At the edge of the park, he leaned in the direction of the trail. The bike shuttered as he aimed for the path. Wind raked through his hair, his clothes flapping like some torn sail. He didn’t see the black ice and went down fast and hard, the entrance to the path shooting past. His numb body took the pavement as he felt himself letting go, the bike clanking away from him, airborne for a moment, flipping, hitting the blacktop with sparks, then darting into the woods. Gravel spit up behind him as he slid across the narrow shoulder of the road, into the ditch, which swallowed him like a nonchalant whale.
                  Everything went from slow motion to perfect stillness. The night became quiet. He felt no pain, nothing, and all he could see were the dark trees leaning over him, and beyond their empty branches, stars.
                  The last time he had been this cold was after they took his tonsils out. 
                  He was six and he remembered that he could not stop shaking. When he shook, it made his throat hurt more. He tried not to cry but he guessed he did because his mother kept wiping at his face. His dad paced around them alternately patting his head and his wife’s. His dad wore the face of someone trying to be brave and only partially succeeding, which made Charles feel colder. The bright light in the recovery room hung like a winter moon, cool, bright, white. The polished floors shined like an ice rink. When the nurse asked him how he felt—which he thought was a stupid question—he couldn’t speak. He tried, but no words came out. He couldn’t distinguish the surgery from the cold. Both hurt. Both seemed a cruel trauma.
                  The nurse handed him a popsicle and he remembered dropping it because his hands were shaking so badly. She came back with something better. A blanket. She wrapped it around him. It was a heated blanket. That was the best feeling he had ever had. Whenever he felt bad since, he’d think back to that moment of absolute comfort when he first got warm after they took his tonsils out.
                  As he lay crumpled at the edge of those ambivalent woods, he thought of that warm blanket, dreamed of that comfort. That split second of peace was followed by the alarming ache of cold and the realization he needed to get help or he’d be in trouble. If he crawled out onto the street, he would get hit by a car. If he crawled into the woods he could pass out and freeze to death. The leaves in the ditch broke his fall, as did the crust of ice that had covered the ditch like bubble wrap. The ice had shattered, but his bones, apparently, had not. Everything hurt, but he could still move.
                  He hiked himself up and lay back onto the bank of ditch. His glasses had stayed on his head in the fall but his helmet had popped off and was gone. He had trouble adjusting the glasses with frozen hands. The berm of the ditch protected him from the wind. He worked his legs and his arms. It was too dark to see if the palms of his hands were bleeding. Frozen skin and peeling skin might feel the same.
                  He looked up into the night sky and thought again of that manger. It may have been a crude setting, but he was certain Jesus was warm. A heated blanket made a soft cocoon. The hay was warm. Mary’s and Joseph’s bodies were warm. Perhaps there was a fire. Perhaps the presence of animals added a muggy, animal warmth as from the sleeping men at the shelter. Or, maybe it was 75-degrees outside. He had never been to Bethlehem. Whatever the temperature, Charles felt certain that Jesus was warm on that night and, right now, that was important to know. At least somebody was where they belonged.
                  The manger interrupted his thoughts like this every Christmas, and tonight the interruption was a welcome respite from his freezing body hardening in the cold. He wished he had worn gloves because his hands were so, so cold. He held them close to his cheeks and could feel gravel embedded in his palms. It hurt. Light-headed, he looked up to the trees. One of them began to speak.
 
                  “You look like a train wreck,” an old voice said. 
                  It wasn’t a tree doing the talking. It was a man whose red cheeks and wild, white beard filled his vision.
                  “I was ambulating through the park, heard this God-awful crash, and came-a-running,” the man said. He stooped, and carefully hopped into the ditch and stood bent over hands on knees, looking down on Charles.
                  “Your bike is 25 yards down the hill, in the woods. Were you clipped by a car?”
                  Charles couldn’t immediately speak. He tried, but no words came out. When he could utter something, he said, “You look like Santa Claus.”
                  “I get that all the time,” the old man said. “Especially this time of year. But I’m not Santa Claus. My friends call me Baskets.”
                  The old man reached out a hand. 
                  “Can you stand up?”
                  Charles grabbed the man’s gloved hand then let go with a shot of pain. He could not grip anything without pain. Charles clutched his hands to his chest. The man grabbed his coat at the shoulders then heaved him up. They both lost their balance on the muddy ice, flailed the air, and collapsed.
                  The man began crying, quietly at first and then with gusts and heaves. Charles mumbled an apology and scrambled quickly around on all fours in front of the man and put his numb hands gingerly on the man’s shoulders.
                  “I’m fine, I’m fine,” the old man said between heavy sighs.
                  His face was wet with tears, but he wasn’t crying. He was laughing.
                  “These woods always surprise me,” he said. He leaned his back against the bank and stretched his long legs out in front of him. He patted the ground next to him, and Charles scooted down in the same way. 
                  “I took my dog for a walk every night in these woods. When it’s late, the traffic dies down. People go inside. When it’s cold, the sky is clear and the stars seem to shine brighter.”
                   “What happened to your dog?” Charles asked.
                  “Died three years ago,” Baskets said. “Wife died two years ago, too. Sounds like a bad country song, I know, but it’s true. You ought to call me Mister Bojangles.”
                  Charles didn’t know who Mister Bojangles was. 
                  The silence seemed perfect except for the sound of their breathing and the slight whoosh of wind in the trees. A car made an urgent hiss as it approached from down the road, from the hill below.
                  “Dogs and wives die, son, that’s the way it is.”
                  The car was zooming closer. 
                  “You all alone at Christmas?” Charles asked the old man.
                  “I’m no more alone than you,” the man said, “out riding a bike in the cold on Christmas Eve all by yourself. That sounds pretty lonely to me.”
                  “I have family at home,” Charles said. “I’m anything but alone.”
                  “Fooled me,” Baskets said.
                  Baskets looked straight ahead, beyond the toes of his shoes to the tree trunks clustered around. Charles studied his profile. 
                  “But you,” Charles asked, “do you have family at home or not?”
                  “Nope,” the man said. “I do not. I don’t have potted plants. I don’t even have a Christmas tree.” He made a sweeping gesture with both arms toward the sky. “These,” he said, “are my string of lights. Why should I lose my religion stringing tree lights when all I have to do is come outside and look up? I’ve always liked Christmas, but I never liked putting up decorations. The wife always made me do it, and I obliged, but—” 
                  The old man’s voice trailed off. He looked at Charles. “I’m not as dumb as I look,” the man said. “Why string lights when God already has?”
                  Charles smiled and cocked his head back up to the stars. “If you ask me, we’re both pretty dumb to be sitting in a ditch on the coldest night of the year.” 
                  The car sped by above the ditch spitting shards of ice and muck, around the curve, then up the hill. 
                  “You’re the first bike wreck victim I’ve ever discovered in these woods,” Baskets said. “If we can get ourselves out of this blame ditch, we’ll walk to the other side of the park to my house. It’s not far. I’ll drive you home.”
                  “That would be great,” Charles said, “but I can ride my bike.”                
                  “Not unless you got an extra front wheel,” the man said. “Let’s get you up.”
                  “I’m fine,” Charles said too quickly. His legs were stiff with exertion and cold. He protected his hands as he stood. “I’m on my way to the shelter.”
                  “Downtown? I can get you there,” Baskets said. ”Do your parents know you’re going to the shelter? On a bicycle? On Christmas Eve?”
                  “Not exactly,” Charles said, “but neither did I when I started out on my ride.”
                  The man looked out over the road and beyond to the empty field. “One day that field will be filled with houses,” the man said. “Mark my words. Won’t be any nature left in this world.” He shook his head. “I’m beginning to sound like a John Prine song.” He looked to Charles. “Before your time, I guess,” he added.
                   Charles noticed his right pants leg was ripped at the knee. He leaned forward to tie his converse high tops. His lower back ached a little. His fingers barely moved. He thought of his swollen, uncomfortable sister making the lonely passage to childbirth. He thought again of the punishing ride on a donkey to Bethlehem. He thought of that warm blanket after they took his tonsils.
                  “You can go with me, if you want,” Charles said. “To the shelter.” The man looked at Charles and didn’t say anything. “I’m going because I went last night and I didn’t want to be there. I hated it.”
                  “And?” Baskets prodded.
                  “And it’s Christmas, and we’re all in this together, and no one should be alone, not tonight, not on Christmas Eve, and we aren’t complete without each other. Some of them will recognize me from last night. I’ll just say hey, and Merry Christmas. Won’t take long.”
                  “And,” the old man asked, “maybe you feel a little guilty about last night?”
                  Yes, Charles felt guilty. He felt duty, too. Like he had a small part to play that was his to play. He felt responsible for saying hello, for reaching out. It was something he had to do, and he should have done a better job of it last night. Yes, he felt guilt.
                  Charles also felt physical pain. But he felt some gladness. He was not lost anymore. And he didn’t feel lonely. He was standing here in a ditch with a man who looked like Santa Claus, two lonely people having made a connection. His bike might be in pieces, but his bones were not, even after a spectacular wreck going as fast as a Lamborghini. And he had a destination in mind. He knew where he was going. He’d be home in time for a second round of Scrabble.
                  The woods were quiet. A perfect string of lights hung in the night sky. A midnight journey to Bethlehem, a warm stable, a pregnancy brought to term, a soft manger, and a safe delivery. And thousands of years later, this perfect night. This wasn’t the route he would have predicted when he set out, but it got him exactly where he needed to be.
                  It hurt to smile, so he tried not to. His chapped lips cracked in the cold. Charles and Baskets might have been the only two people at the bottom of that hill who noticed how bright the stars were at the top of that sky. That distant light was bright enough to illumine their way through the woods to Basket’s car. Stopping at the shelter wouldn’t take long. In the scheme of things, it was right on the way. And when he got home, he’d have a neighbor to introduce and a story to tell, after his mother hugged him, and, hand on hip, said I told you so about a bike ride on a night like this being so dangerous. It wasn’t dangerous, Charles would say. I just slipped on some ice. 
                  No big deal.                  
 
P E A C E ,
Matt Matthews
First Presbyterian Church Champaign
A (cool) congregation of the PC(USA)
Church: 217.356.7238; Cell: 864.386.9138
matt@firstpres.church

On the Fourth Day of Christmas
 
Monday, December 28^th, 2020
A weekday e-mailer from
Matt Matthews
 
* * *
 
A Memory of Christmas Eve 2020
by Matt Matthews
 
Our live, in-person Christmas Eve service was perfectly pitiful and oddly beautiful in a Charlie Brown Christmas kind of way.
 
Our neighboring Methodist Church graciously invited us to join them across Church Street at West Side Park. They took the lead in the simple service. A rag-tag two-dozen gathered with only one masked family that I could identify from First Pres. Residents at The Edens looked down upon us from their high rise, westerly windows. Temps sunk into the low teens, and a wind churned cold to bitter. I was tasked to read the nativity in Luke and could barely see the page because my mask so steamed-up my glasses. The service was punctuated by single verses of hymns played from the Methodist church’s carillon. Bells, it turns out, are the perfect cold weather instrument.
 
When it was time to do so, we could not light our candles from the Christ candle because of the wind, then the Christ candle blew out. Somebody said the light of God’s love never goes out, which it doesn’t, but our source of light for the service had, decidedly, abandoned us. Others pulled out industrial-sized fire-starters and began passing around flickers of light in a hodgepodge fashion. Some had battery power candles they clicked on. Soon that hooded and huddled people stood shivering in their pods protecting the fragile glow from lit candles. Part of what made it lovely was that wind, foggy glasses, and cold could not ruin this unscripted bloom of light and companionship. The scene would have made for bad television, but it worked well in real life.
 
This is about the time snow showers began, which made it—and I hesitate to use this adjective, but I will—magical. The most enormous St. Bernard dog was part of the congregation, adding the barest hint of surrealism. This docile creature seemed accustomed to Christmas snow, but this southerner had never once even come close to a white Christmas. The dog, the candles, the steely bells crashing above the treetops, and snow approached the sublime.
 
We took up an offering for a family with four children in the Methodist flock who had gotten burned out of their home early that morning. Picturing them bivouacked at a local hotel with their physical possessions and Christmas plans in ashes got my mind off the cold and compelled me to consider the manger from a different, uninvited angle. This was sobering.
 
The crowd dispersed quickly after the benediction. On another night in a time unrestrained by pandemic, we would have shared hot cider and chocolate, and warm, glazed buns. Rachel and I chatted briefly with John Hecker and his wife and son, Methodists all; seeing that family brings me a lot of joy because John laughs at all my jokes, which is my way of saying he’s brilliant. He loves affirming our Christian and neighborly kinship while poking fun at our denominational differences. We would like to have lingered, but dark and cold pried us apart. 
 
Rachel and I trudged heads-down and alone to the church to meet Nancy Martin who drove the two large boxes of candles around the block to the alley for us to carry up to the dark Westminster Hall. I broke Covid protocols and gave Nancy a bear hug—possibly the first non-family hug I’ve given in ten months. Life is hollow without human touch, and I feel nearly hollowed out. Rachel and I waved goodbye, and Nancy’s car made no sound rolling away on the snow-padded alley to State Street and home. We loaded the boxes of candles into the church and made sure all were extinguished. Imagine our inadvertently burning down the church. We trudged through the empty parking lot for our car. 
 
Snow brings uncanny silence and plays tricks with sound. I put my arm absently around my wife and she said she loved me. It was the loneliest of walks I’ve ever made on Christmas Eve, but beautiful in its own way, and I felt glad to be loved both by Rachel and the God we had invoked moments earlier in clumsy, heart-felt worship in the snowy park. 
 
I was missing my sons. John Mark, home from college for a week, had burned with fever for six days that broke only on Christmas Eve morning. Our other sons, Benjamin and Joseph, opted to stay put in the Carolinas to avoid the possibility of catching whatever their youngest brother had. It was a wise move, given we didn’t know how long John Mark would be sick, what he had (it wasn’t Covid), and whether he’d pass it along. So, our boys weren’t all at home together. And I sorely felt their absence.
 
Poet Edna St. Vincent Millay says something universal about how we feel when we recall people we miss. I felt rather like what she described, “Where you used to be, there is a hole in the world, which I find myself constantly walking around in the daytime, and falling in at night.”
 
In the short walk to the car I was falling, not with terrified screams but falling, nevertheless, like, perhaps, snow. A quiet, floating free-fall. Unstoppably falling. Snow played its trick on sound, muffling the sparse traffic and the whisk of wind. Rough places were being made smooth by its white dusting. I was falling in those slow-motion steps across the parking lot. Snow was making everything seem new. Feeling empty handed, I was letting go of the Christmas plans I had made, the packages that would go unopened, the hugs that wouldn’t happen, the games around the dining table, the movie binges in the basement, the cooking, the eating, the brisk volksmarsches through the neighborhood. In all our years of marriage we had never been without our nuclear family on Christmas Day. In the beginning that number included only each other, then a succession of cats, then children and a dog. Our three sons. 
 
So, it was a lonely, heavy walk across an abandoned parking lot to the car on Christmas Eve. We circled the hole in the world then walked right in, falling into a new adventure I was reluctant but had no choice but to enter. Those with children know the feeling of having taught children to walk, who now reside down a worm-hole through time, on the other side of the world, looking small and faraway, standing so well on their very own. 
 
Much, much love to you all. 
 
Matt Matthews
Cell: 864.386.9138
Matt@FirstPres.Church

Here are the Advent Readings for December 25 and 26 which will finish up the daily devotions.

Have a Merry Christmas!  Stay safe and stay healthy!!!
The staff at First Presbyterian Church of Champaign

Friday, Christmas Day Luke 24:44-49
On this the day of Jesus’ birth, we recall that in all times and
in all places, he appointed witnesses to tell of his incarnation,
his death and resurrection. We who welcome the infant Jesus
proclaim the saving work of Christ. As we worship at the
manger, prepare us, Lord God, to leave and tell the good
news of great joy for all people. Amen.
Emmanuel, God with us, we rejoice at your birth, we offer
you our gifts without reservation and we rest for a moment in
thanksgiving and peace. As we prepare to be your witnesses,
we seek to always live in hope and act courageously in faith
knowing that there is nothing not taken up and redeemed
through your incarnation. Glory to God in the highest! Jesus
Christ is born this day! Amen.

Saturday, December 26, Isaiah 44:6-8
In this Christmas season we witness to incarnation, the birth
of Jesus Christ, Emmanuel, God with us. As you reflect on
this year with all its challenges and changes, where have you
experienced the presence and power of God? How will you
tell this good news to the world?
Emmanuel, as we worship and adore you, we praise God for the
gift of your coming into the world. We see in your incarnation
God’s relentless love and refusal to give up on the goodness
of creation. Make us your witnesses, ready to proclaim your
truth, courageous in our discipleship, humble in our following,
reflections of your light in this God’s beloved world. Amen.

Thursday, December 24^th, 2020
A weekday e-mailer from
Matt Matthews
 
Christmas Eve 2020
 
To Members and Friends of 
First Presbyterian Church
Champaign, Illinois
 
Dear Friends,
 
My Christmas memory follows. But first, two important Christmas Eve announcements (please pay attention, dear readers):
 
1.) Our prerecorded service will be available TODAY at 4 pm at firstpres.live. Please enjoy it at that time or later in the evening whenever you’d like. Would you please consider sharing the link far and wide with everybody on your mailing list, Facebook pages, etc? We all worked hard on it. 
 
2.) Our friends at First United Methodist Church have invited us to an in-person Christmas Eve service beginning at 7 pm at the northeast corner of West Side Park. This brief service will include listening to the carillon at First Methodist and hearing the nativity story from Luke’s gospel. If you feel well, wear your mask, dress warmly, and keep your distance as we gather at the park to bear God’s light to the world! 
 
* * *
 
A Christmas Memory…
 
As soon as I turned sixteen it was my pleasure to drive my grandmother to her Presbyterian church in downtown Newport News. Shipyard cranes stood higher than downtown steeples, and lights over the drydock shone like the conjunction of bright, natal stars. The drive from neighboring Hampton where we lived, took all of fifteen minutes, but downtown Newport News was another world, no longer the vital destination it once was. The Kit Kat Strip Club wasn’t far from her church, which was surrounded by abandoned buildings. 
 
The community exuded social warmth though the cavernous, stone sanctuary felt like a Siberian stable. “Baba” loved showing me off to her friends. I shook a lot of hands on those Christmas eves. I liked being her show-and-tell. She seemed awfully proud of me, but for what I wasn’t sure. I was such an average kid. Each year, I remember Ethel Gildersleeve. I only saw her on Christmases. I thought hers was the coolest name in the world. If Rachel and I had had a daughter, we might have named her after my Baba, Annie. Or, perhaps, after my home state, Virginia. A close third would have been Ethel Gildersleeve.
 
I shouldered next to Baba on a hard pew and we settled down to worship. I don’t remember a single word of those services, though there were a lot of them, but I do remember the candle light, the songs, the rough feel of my grandmother’s bristly coat against my shoulder, the light in her blue eyes, that bowed crowd, the quiet. It was holy, the kind of place at which shepherds or angels might show up any minute. I kept my eyes peeled. 
 
Baba was a complicated woman, and her relationship with my mom, her only daughter, bristled like her winter coat. On those Christmas eves, the relationship was less wrought. I felt a little like her knight getting her to the worship she’d otherwise miss if it weren’t for me and my new driver’s license. Her husband, my Deda, had been dead a decade. I hardly knew him. I hardly knew her, I guess, and I knew nobody except Ethel Gildersleeve in that large congregation filled with friendly people.
 
The counterpoint to this Christmas Eve memory is that of Christmas night at my small home church in Hampton. I don’t remember my parents’ and me attending this evening service when I was a kid because they were too tired on Christmas night. Dad had to go to work early the next day. When I got my license, though, I’d drive across town to Community Presbyterian. 
 
I knew everybody there, and though I had come alone and sat alone among people who had changed my diapers and told me about Jesus, they didn’t allow me to stay alone for long. When we’d come up for communion in family groups, whatever family sat on my row adopted me. I was a Lane, a Bowman, a Schiller, a Stewart in subsequent years. This experience helped define what “communion” and “church” and “family” really was.
 
In some profound ways my whole life’s work has been creating spaces where others can experience church the ways I have. And my whole life I’ve been craning my neck to get a better view of where our Christian journey began, a manger tucked in the sanctuary provided by the slightest stable beneath a silent night filled with stars. 
 
The Psalmist’s song still causes my pulse to race: “I was glad when they said to me, ‘Let us go to the house of the Lord.’” (Matt Matthews)
 
* * *

Advent Daily Devotion Christmas Eve Hebrews 12:1-12
On this Christmas Eve we reflect on the journey to
Bethlehem. It has been difficult and confusing at times. We
have questioned if we would make it this far and even if God
was with us along the way. As we prepare to meet Jesus face
to face, we give thanks for the great cloud of witnesses that
have guided us to his manger. For whom do you give thanks
this year?
Fairest Lord Jesus, ruler of all nations, we travel with your
family to the stable in Bethlehem, eager to meet you, heavy
with expectation, longing for rest as we prepare for your
inbreaking. Surround us with that great cloud of witnesses that
upholds and instructs us, inspires and spurs us on until that
day when we are all gathered around your heavenly throne in
worship. Amen.
  
* * *
Luke 2           
In those days a decree went out from Emperor Augustus that all the world should be registered. ² This was the first registration and was taken while Quirinius was governor of Syria. ³ All went to their own towns to be registered. ⁴ Joseph also went from the town of Nazareth in Galilee to Judea, to the city of David called Bethlehem, because he was descended from the house and family of David. ⁵ He went to be registered with Mary, to whom he was engaged and who was expecting a child. ⁶ While they were there, the time came for her to deliver her child. ⁷ And she gave birth to her firstborn son and wrapped him in bands of cloth, and laid him in a manger, because there was no place for them in the inn.

The Shepherds and the Angels

⁸ In that region there were shepherds living in the fields, keeping watch over their flock by night. ⁹ Then an angel of the Lord stood before them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were terrified. ¹⁰ But the angel said to them, “Do not be afraid; for see—I am bringing you good news of great joy for all the people: ¹¹ to you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, who is the Messiah,^[a] the Lord. ¹² This will be a sign for you: you will find a child wrapped in bands of cloth and lying in a manger.” ¹³ And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host,^[b] praising God and saying,
¹⁴ “Glory to God in the highest heaven,
    and on earth peace among those whom he favors!”^[c]
15 When the angels had left them and gone into heaven, the shepherds said to one another, “Let us go now to Bethlehem and see this thing that has taken place, which the Lord has made known to us.” ¹⁶ So they went with haste and found Mary and Joseph, and the child lying in the manger. ¹⁷ When they saw this, they made known what had been told them about this child; ¹⁸ and all who heard it were amazed at what the shepherds told them. ¹⁹ But Mary treasured all these words and pondered them in her heart. ²⁰ The shepherds returned, glorifying and praising God for all they had heard and seen, as it had been told them.

* * * 
 
It’s been a very long year. 
 
Much, much love to you all.
  
Matt Matthews
Cell: 864.386.9138
Matt@FirstPres.Church

1.       Beat snake to death with a long-handled pitch-fork.
2.      Cut off the head with a sharp shovel, and bury the head.
3.      Cut off the rattles to save to give to someone.
4.      Straighten out the tines of the pitch-fork.

Good Word: (Luke’s story…)
 
Luke 2            
⁸ In that region there were shepherds living in the fields, keeping watch over their flock by night. ⁹ Then an angel of the Lord stood before them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were terrified. ¹⁰ But the angel said to them, “Do not be afraid; for see—I am bringing you good news of great joy for all the people: ¹¹ to you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, who is the Messiah,^[a] the Lord. ¹² This will be a sign for you: you will find a child wrapped in bands of cloth and lying in a manger.” ¹³ And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host,^[b] praising God and saying,
¹⁴ “Glory to God in the highest heaven,
    and on earth peace among those whom he favors!”^[

LET US PRAY: 
 
We are getting even closer, Holy God. 
 
Most of us aren’t children anymore. So, it’s no wonder that approaching the manger no longer makes us most of giddy—though a few of us still, still are, and a few more of us still remember. We take the news for granted—at least the sugar-coated, fa-la-la-la-la part of it that we have shoehorned into our idea of a gum drop Christmas.
 
You dropped in out of the sky into a manger, from heaven’s holy high to earth’s lowly low. Mary and Joseph found themselves homeless in a crowded Bethlehem, and, soon, refugees, on the run from Herod. The baby Jesus was already a victim of the politics of Palestine and Rome in the first century that would, eventually, land him on a cross. But we don’t want to think about crosses right now. And that’s okay. We are right to find our kneeling place at the manger, silence, reverent, open. May we join in on the angel song.
 
You crashed into our lives with your son, O God. And, giddy or not, our world turns nearly upside down in the wake of that dramatic splash. 
 
Thank you.
 
AMEN.
 
* * *
 
Much, much love to you all.
 
Matt Matthews
Cell: 864.386.9138
Matt@FirstPres.Church

* * *

On Wednesday evening, December 23 at 7 pm we will stream “Musical Christmas Treats and a Family Carol Sing.” This will be highlighted by three anthems selected from recent Christmas Music Sunday services and a number of traditional carols recorded by our current choral quartet.

Please invite your family, loved ones and especially the kids to Zoom in with us to sing along on the carols. 

I hope to see you there.

* * *

Two important Christmas Eve announcements (please pay attention, dear readers):
 
1.) Our prerecorded service will be available at 4 pm on Christmas Eve (Thursday) at firstpres.live. Please enjoy it at that time or later in the evening whenever you’d like. Would you please consider sharing the link far and wide with everybody on your mailing list, Facebook pages, etc? We all worked hard on it. 
 
2.) Our friends at First United Methodist Church have invited us to an in-person Christmas Eve service beginning at 7 pm at the northeast corner of West Side Park. This brief service will include listening to the carillon at First Methodist and hearing the nativity story from Luke’s gospel. If you feel well, wear your mask, dress warmly, and keep your distance as we gather at the park to bear God’s light to the world!

The Heart of Mission December 22, 2020   The Christmas Joy Offering for Christmas Eve   Isn’t this a beautiful graphic of the nativity? Do you like to color? A special coloring sheet of the above picture is available at   https://specialofferings.pcusa.org/site_media/media/uploads/specialofferings/christmas_joy/2020/cjo20_coloring_page.pdf   This picture shows the perfect gift in Jesus Christ given to us at Christmas. The Christmas Joy Offering shares the perfect gift for some. Read about how Rev. Ken Tracy was able to pay for his wife’s skilled nursing care through the Christmas Joy Offering. https://www.presbyterianmission.org/story/the-nine-lives-of-the-rev-ken-tracy/     Every year on Christmas Eve, First Presbyterian Church Champaign takes up the Joy Gift Offering, a special offering of the PC(U.S.A.). The Christmas Joy Offering reflects that God is with us, through the generous gifts that support church leaders among us, retired, present and future, who have pointed us to God. Even as we support our current and former church leaders through the Assistance Program of the Board of Pensions, God is calling new leaders for our Church and world, through the ministry of Presbyterian-related schools and colleges equipping communities of color — offering students the means for a brighter future and enhanced opportunities to use their talents and skills to serve God, the Church and the world for years to come. Because God is with us, we see the potential of students of color who will become our leaders and we seek to come alongside them, to encourage them, to be with them. 50% of your gifts make it possible for students to learn and grow in faith at Presbyterian-related schools and colleges equipping communities of color. Because God is with us, we see church workers who have critical financial needs and we come alongside them, to assist them — we are with them. 50% of your gifts provide assistance for current and retired church workers and their families with critical financial needs. Thank you for your gift to the Christmas Joy Offering — for when we all do a little, it adds up to a lot.   If you want more information about our other two December offerings, Advent and Angel Tree/Food Offering, please go to  https://firstpres.church/giving/.   Merry Christmas,   Rev. Dr. Rachel Matthews, Mission Coordinator   Let us keep all our mission partners in our prayers, those who are waiting to go back to their place of ministry and those who are able to work where they are. Listen for God’s call to you in their ministry.   Our PC(USA) Mission CoWorkers:   Mark Adams and Miriam Maidonado Escobar (Mexico) Farsijanna Adeney-Risakotta (Indonesia) Jeff and Christi Boyd (Central Africa) Jo Ella Holman (Caribbean and Cuba) – And, for the mission coworker you are preparing to take her place. Bob and Kristi Rice (South Sudan)   Our regional and global mission partners:   Kemmerer Village (and Camp Carew) Lifeline Pilots Marion Medical Mission Mission Aviation Fellowship Opportunity International Friends of Presbyterian Education Board in Pakistan Presbyterian Cuba Partnership Special Offerings of the PC(USA) Theological Education Fund Young Adult Volunteers   Here in Champaign – Urbana:   CU at Home CANAAN S.A.F.E. HOUSE CANTEEN RUN COURAGE CONNECTION DREAAM eMPTY TOMB, INC FAITH IN ACTION JESUS IS THE WAY PRISON MINISTRY THE REFUGEE CENTER RESTORATION URBAN MINISTRY SALT & LIGHT   Here at First Presbyterian Church   FPCC Amateur Preachers FPCC Environmental Committee working with Faith in Place FPCC Presbyterian Women FPCC ESL FPCC Children, Youth and Families FPCC Mission Possible/Go and Serve         302 W. Church Street   Champaign, IL 61820   217-356-7238   info@firstpres.church           Attachments: The_Heart_of_Mission_122220.pdf

Monday December 21^st, 2020
A weekday e-mailer from
Matt Matthews
 
To Members and Friends of 
First Presbyterian Church
Champaign, Illinois
  
Dear Friends,
 
A Christmas story from Judy Nicolette:       
Many years ago, when I was a second grade teacher, the children we’re getting excited about Christmas.  One student said that another student told her there is no Santa Claus, and she asked me if it was true.

No education class in college prepared me for this!  I answered that a long time ago, a man called St. Nicholas, gave presents to children at Christmas to celebrate Jesus’s birthday, and ever since that time, someone has continued giving gifts in his name. 

One girl then raised her hand and said, “Mrs. Nicolette, it’s funny.  Jesus was born at Christmas and he died at Easter, he hit a holiday both times!”  
 
* * *
 
Advent Daily Devotion Monday Joshua 24:19-24
Joshua asks the people to make a public declaration of
faith, a commitment to serve God and God only. After
they do so, Joshua reminds them that they are witnesses
“against themselves.” They cannot claim ignorance or
deny their affirmation of loyalty to God. When have
you made a public commitment to serve God? How
will you make that choice evident today?
Gracious God, you abound in steadfast love and yet you hold us
accountable to the public witness we make to serve you. When
we forget or neglect our affirmation of faith, call us back to you
and correct our ways. May our witness against ourselves be a
constant reminder that our ultimate loyalty is to you and that
commitment is made visible in how we live. Amen. 
 
News

Virtual Dessert Tuesday, December 22, 7 pm
Be prepared to tell us your favorite Christmas tradition. Tell us about your favorite holiday food. What makes your Christmas special? If you have an ugly sweater, please wear it. Let’s have a festive evening together.
Email zoom@firstpres.church for the link.

* * *
 
The FPCC Community Mission Deacons Champaign County Food Insecurity Drive/ aka The 2020 Angel Tree: Food insecurity is the dry technical term for American households going hungry at least some of the time.  It is at crisis levels all over America and very much so in Champaign County.  According to Census Bureau data, currently, over 1 in 10 American adults did not have enough to eat last week.  And, worse,  for families with children, approximately 1 in 4 such families did not have enough food for their children last week!  In Champaign County, rates are similar, and Food Stamps, Eastern Illinois Food Bank, and others are unable to meet the increasing need.  For people of color the statistics are considerably worse. Help is desperately needed now.  
 
The FPCC Mission perspective emphasizes supporting programs that actually help people lift themselves out of poverty.  But, critically, FPCC also firmly believes that crises demand immediate responding.  Therefore, CMD invites you to join in responding to this crisis.  
 
Our fund provides an opportunity for FPCC to reach out to struggling Champaign County brothers and sisters who, through no fault of their own, are caught up in this crisis.  The Eastern Illinois Food Bank has more information at this web site: 
 
https://www.cu-citizenaccess.org/2020/12/07/food-insecurity-projected-to-soar-in-eastern-illinois-and-champaign-county/#:~:text=The%20overall%20rate%20in%20Champaign,from%2012.8%25%20to%2019.4%25.
 
So, if you are able to contribute to this fund, that would be wonderful.  The amount collected will be contributed to Eastern Illinois Food Bank and hence put to good use via an organization expert in food distribution!  As an encouragement, CMD has contributed $4000 and a member family has contributed an additional $1000.  Because the need is so overwhelming and many of us have resources that can make a difference, we are optimistic that our church can contribute a substantial amount that will help relieve the hunger issue in Champaign County.
 
Thank you for your consideration and your generosity. 
 
* * *
 
Humor (Hard times really need godly laughter): 
 
Well, this is a realistic answer…  A Sunday school teacher was telling her class the story of the Good Samaritan. She asked the class, “If you saw a person lying on the roadside, all wounded and bleeding, what would you do?”
 
A thoughtful little girl broke the hushed silence, “I think I’d throw up.”
  
Good Word: (Luke’s story…)
Luke 2            
In those days a decree went out from Emperor Augustus that all the world should be registered. ² This was the first registration and was taken while Quirinius was governor of Syria. ³ All went to their own towns to be registered. ⁴ Joseph also went from the town of Nazareth in Galilee to Judea, to the city of David called Bethlehem, because he was descended from the house and family of David. ⁵ He went to be registered with Mary, to whom he was engaged and who was expecting a child. ⁶ While they were there, the time came for her to deliver her child. ⁷ And she gave birth to her firstborn son and wrapped him in bands of cloth, and laid him in a manger, because there was no place for them in the inn.

LET US PRAY: 
 
We are getting closer, Holy God. Is it possible that we won’t notice graces along the way because, since we’ve been here before, we think we’ve seen it all? We think we know it all? We think there’s nothing you could do to surprise us? Forgive us for thinking we know our way around the stable too well. 
 
(We love you.)
 
AMEN.
 
* * *
 
Much, much love to you all.
 
Matt Matthews
Cell: 864.386.9138
Matt@FirstPres.Church

Friday December 18^th,  2020
A weekday e-mailer from
Matt Matthews
 
To Members and Friends of 
First Presbyterian Church
Champaign, Illinois
 
Dear Friends,
 
What a surprise we have in store for this Sunday! (Christmas Pageant!) 
 
* * *
 
I know we can’t worship in person on Christmas Eve, but that doesn’t mean we haven’t worked hard (and are still working hard) to produce a beautiful service of worship. I hope you join us for that service. It will be available at FirstPres.Live at 4 p.m. You can watch it any time after that hour.
 
* * *
 
Pay attention to God’s activity in the world around you. Be amazed. Tell somebody.
 
See you on Sunday, 
 
PEACE,
 
Matt Matthews
864.386.9138
 
 
* * *
  
Advent Daily Reading Friday Luke 12:13-21
Jesus warns us to be on guard and keep watch for all kinds
of greediness. Jesus tells us to keep a lookout for our own
propensity to believe that our life’s worth is measured in
material goods. When have you believed life consists of
an abundance of possessions? Be conscious today of your
relationship to money and possessions. How does that
relationship reflect, or not, your relationship to Jesus Christ?
Jesus, you enter the world as an infant, born in a stable to a
family with little in the way of material possessions. You tell
your followers to take nothing for their journey. You warn us
to be on guard for greed. As we prepare for your birth, we pray
to be given the faith to put you first so that all our priorities
are rightly ordered. Amen.

Saturday Isaiah 9:1-2
Deep darkness resonates this year. The word in Hebrew can
be translated as “shadow” or “death-shadow.” The people
in this passage know the reality of fear and suffering — a
nearness to death and vulnerability that feels familiar
right now. As you navigate the waning days of a difficult
season, where do you see God’s light breaking into the deep
darkness?
God of the light no darkness can overcome, we confess to
being weary, tired of worries that keep us up at night and
ready for your promised rest. When we walk through the
valley of the shadow of death, grant us the peace that passes
understanding and the ability to see even a pinprick of your
light that shows us a way forward. Amen.

Sunday Acts 1:6-10
Why read a passage about Jesus’ ascension during the
season of Advent when we prepare for his birth and
return? What do Jesus’ final instructions to his closest
friends just prior to being lifted up to heaven have to
do with us on the cusp of Christmas? What resonates
in this passage at this time in this year is the disciples’
pressing question. They want to know if now is the
time that God will restore the kingdom of Israel. Their
question is understandable. Having endured seeing
their friend and Savior suffer and die, they want an
assurance that all that pain results in restoration. In
our human terms: they want to know it has all be
worth it, leaving their familiar vocations, following
Jesus, fearing for their lives, huddling behind locked
doors, processing the good but utterly upending reality
of resurrection. After all this, will the world be set
right on their terms?
Do we not have similar questions at the end of this
long year? Will the vaccine come soon and be safe?
Will we be able to be together in person again? Is
now the time we can sing in worship? Will those long
oppressed find justice? Will the economic fallout ebb
and turn course? Is it not the time for the restoration
of what we used to call normal, Lord?
Jesus tells the disciples that he does not know the
answer to what is to them their most pressing
question. Instead, he gives them a mission, an
unwavering purpose no matter what is happening in
the world. They are to be his witnesses right where
they are and to the ends of the earth. I wonder if they
were frustrated by his response. I wonder if we are,
too. Often we want Jesus to answer our most pressing
questions, but rather than answering our question
Jesus gives us a job to do. We are to tell the world what
we know of Jesus and what we know of God through
him. Even as we make ready for his birth, we are to
tell others why his incarnation matters to us and to
Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria and the world.
As we continue to navigate a difficult time in the life
of the world, we bear witness to the love of God that
refuses to let us go. As we wrestle with challenges that
persist despite our fatigue and dismay, we tell of the
one found among the least of these. As we press God
with understandable and pressing questions, Jesus
recognizes our fears but entrusts us with the gospel
anyway. As we get closer to Bethlehem, we remember
that we are already and always witnesses to our Savior
right where we are and wherever we are sent.
Gracious God, we have so many questions, urgent questions.
We want to know when this time filled with so much
upheaval will come to an end. Even as you honor our
questions, you entrust us with your mission of bearing
witness to Jesus Christ at all times and in all places. Open
our mouths that we might proclaim your praise. Guide our
actions that we might embody the good news of our Savior.
Amen.

* * *
  
Much, much love to you all.
 
Matt Matthews
Cell: 864.386.9138
Matt@FirstPres.Church
 
One more Sunday of Advent music. Enjoy:
 
O Come, O Come…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qcIIZpnZPgo
  
Emmanuel…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aKEUlJRQVbA