(Re: Revelations, see especially Revelations 12)  It is St. John's Spirit-appointed task to supplement the work of St. Matthew and St. Luke so that the nativity can not be sentimentalized into coziness, nor domesticated into drabness, nor commercialized into worldliness.... The splendors of creation and the agony of redemption combine in this event, this center where God in Christ invades existence with redeeming life and decisively defeats evil.  It is St. John's genius to take Jesus in a manger attended by shepherds and wise-men and put him in a cosmos attacked by a dragon... Our response to the Nativity cannot be reduced to shutting the door against a wintery world, drinking hot chocolate, and singing carols.  Rather we are ready to walk out the door with.... Highest praises of God in our throated and two-edged swords [Word of God] in our hands.

Eugene Peterson, Reversed Thunder (pp. 121-122)

Order of Worship, January 2 2011

Grace Presbyterian Church