The Yada Yada Prayer Group Gets Decked Out (29 page)

Read the Christmas scripture:
Luke 2:1–20.

Light the Christmas candle
. Say:

I light this candle for Jesus Christ, who was born in a manger
on Christmas Day.

Sing
“Away in a Manger.”

Suggestions:

Doing the celebration each day will undoubtedly use up your candles, but the daily meditation can be meaningful, so just replace the candles with new ones.

Let each child and/or parent be responsible for lighting one particular candle and saying what it means (e.g., oldest
child lights first candle, second child second candle, a parent lights third candle, etc.).

If the full Advent celebration is too long for your family, just read the new scripture and light the new candle each week.

O Come,O Come, Emmanuel

1.
O come, O come, Emmanuel,

And ransom captive Israel,

That mourns in lonely exile here,

Until the Son of God appears.

Refrain:

Rejoice! Rejoice! Emmanuel

Shall come to thee, O Israel!

2.
O come, Thou Dayspring, come and cheer

Our spirits by Thine advent here;

Disperse the gloomy clouds of night,

And death's dark shadows put to flight.

3.
O come, Thou Key of David, come

And open wide our heavenly home.

Make safe the way that leads on high,

And close the path to misery.

4.
O come, Desire of nations, bind

All peoples in one heart and mind.

Bid envy, strife, and quarrels cease.

Fill the whole world with heaven's peace.
³

Celebrate a New Year's Eve “Watch Night”

New Year's Eve!
The beginning of a New Year is celebrated all over our globe—though not all countries celebrate on December 31. China and Israel, for example, have calendars based on a lunar month, so the date of their New Year celebrations, while consistent on a lunar calendar, change on the “standard” solar calendar most of us use.

Many of us remember the New Year's Eve not too long ago when the calendar flipped from 1999 to 2000—the second millennium was here! Wahoo! What an historical event! (Though, to be honest, the next day pretty much resembled the one just before it. The sun rose, the sun set, in that wonderful rhythm of God's awe-some creation.)

Reflect

Undoubtedly, people have commemorated New Year's Eve ever since primitive calendars were able to identify the date. But Christian “Watch Night” services seem to have begun with the Moravians, a small community of believers in Bohemia (now the Czech Republic) in the eighteenth century. These Christians, persecuted because of their protests against a state church and its many excesses, fled to Bohemia and eventually to the New World in search of freedom to worship God according to the New Testament model. In 1733, they held their first Watch Night service, a time to give thanks to God for His blessing and protection in the year past, and to rededicate themselves to God's service in the coming year.

John Wesley borrowed the idea for his followers, who were later known as Methodists. Since then, many modern Christians have observed some sort of New Year's Eve service reflecting on God's goodness during the past year and recommitting themselves to Him for the New Year. Two biblical themes are often emphasized: Jesus' words before His betrayal, “
Watch and pray
so that you will not fall into temptation” (Matthew 26:41 NIV; emphasis added), and His warning to be ready for His return at the end of the age, “Therefore
keep watch
, because you do not know the day or the hour” (Matthew 25:13 NIV; emphasis added).

However, African-American Christians experienced special significance in this observance on the night of December 31, 1862, which for them was also “Freedom's Eve”—the night before the Emancipation Proclamation went into effect and all the slaves in the Confederate states were declared free. As they came together in churches and private homes all across the nation, hope, fear, and prayers gave way to shouts of joy, songs, and thanksgiving to God when word spread after midnight that the Proclamation had not been retracted. It's an event that all Christians can incorporate into their Watch Night services, praising God for bringing us through another year and thanking Him for both physical and spiritual freedom.

A Watch Night Celebration

If your usual New Year's Eve consists of sacking out in front of the TV and watching “the ball” fall in Times Square . . . or leaving the kids with a babysitter while you hold a glass of bubbly and sing “Auld Lang Syne” at the office party . . . consider celebrating a family-friendly Watch Night. The following Watch Night celebration can be adapted for use in a church setting, or at home with family and friends.

Invite!

“Make new friends, but keep the old . . . ” the old camp song goes. A New Year's Eve celebration is an excellent time to celebrate “old friends” and “new.” A youth group from one church could invite a youth group from another church. A family could invite another family—or two! One “old friends” and one “new.”

It's important to keep our children's hearts—and our own—open to those Jesus loves but who are often overlooked. “Birds of a feather flock together” is
not
in the Bible!

Eat!

Begin the evening with a potluck meal. If your church or neighborhood involves many nationalities, this could be an “international night” with foods from different countries.