“I ask you again, does God give you the Holy Spirit and work miracles among you because you obey the law? Of course not! It is because you believe the message you heard about Christ” Galatians 3:5
I love all things Christmas! I love the lights sparkling in the trees, the songs, the decorations, the movies (yes, I had to watch A Christmas Story for probably the 20th time and I still laughed out loud at the part when Ralphie has to wear the pink bunny suit from his Aunt Claire). Most of all, however, I love the activities at our church. For 26 years now I have been celebrating Christmas with my Washington Cathedral church family and every year it gets better and better.
Every Christmas it takes a series of miracles to make everything happen and every Christmas it seems that God enables us to pull off the impossible. This year was no exception! It started with our Santa Conspiracy. Every year people of our church dress up like Santa or his helpers and go to hospitals, nursing homes, retirement centers and group family homes to deliver a little Christmas cheer in the form of a stuffed teddy bear or cuddly animal. In order to meet the needs of all the facilities we need approximately 5,000 bears. When all the bears were counted one week prior to “Santa Day” we needed 1,900 more bears to meet our goal. We sent out the cry, “We need 1900 more bears” and miraculously on the Saturday before the Santa Conspiracy bears started pouring in! And by the time we had finished counting them on Sunday night - we not only had enough bears, but we had about 200 bears left over to use next year!
Next was the Christmas Drama. This year’s Glory of Christmas Drama was a tremendous success. Over 800 people showed up to witness our efforts in telling the Christmas Story in a new and compelling way. I have worked with Pastor Naomi for several years in pulling these off. My job is to help recruit cast members, get them into appropriate costumes, and try to get them to the right place at the right time. Her job is to pull the music and drama together into one cohesive unit and work out all the other details (a mammoth job!). Both of us are trying to put wheels on Pastor Dale’s vision for the story we are trying to tell. This year, at the last dress rehearsal we both looked at one another and said “It’s going to take a huge miracle to pull this one off!” We had key people getting sick, we didn’t have coverage on some key technical and backstage roles, and we never got to do a full run through on the entire program. But for some reason, when it came to Thursday night, we both seemed to have a peace about things . . . or maybe it was numbness!? Anyway, it couldn’t have been better. Things just rolled right along without any kind of glitch. All the musicians, actors, stage hands, and technical people showed up and every spot was filled. The program was our best ever and Naomi and I said to one another, “Praise God for miracles!”
Of course, my favorite service of the year is the one on Christmas Eve. We have a long-standing tradition of (I think) one of the most beautiful Christmas Eve Services I’ve ever been to. Spirit Falls Sanctuary just sparkles on Christmas Eve. It is like the building knows it has a very important story to tell that night. One of the highlights of every Christmas Eve is having a ballerina dance to “O Holy Night” (this year was sung once again by Rhonda Jones). The key to that element of the night is actually having a ballerina to dance. Pastor Naomi and I both made several calls to people we knew to no avail. So I began calling dance schools. I called the University of Washington dance school and the lady who answered the phone said that she’d be happy to send out an email, but I better not count on a response because most of the students were gone home for Christmas break. I thanked her for agreeing to send out the email and hung up the phone thinking, “Another dead end.” To my surprise and joy, the next morning at 8 am I received a phone message from a young lady who said she just got the email and wanted more information. When I got back to her and she told me about her experience and qualifications―I immediately knew that God had pulled it off again. Not only was she a wonderful dancer, but she was so excited about dancing at a church on Christmas Eve. She said her family was in the south area and that she’d be honored to dance for both the 6 and 11pm services. If you were able to be here for Christmas Eve, you saw what a beautiful, creative dancer she is. But what you wouldn’t have seen is her beautiful heart for the Lord. She danced with feeling because she believed every word that Rhonda was singing. Her mother came to both services and watched her daughter dance. I couldn’t help but glance over at her face and I don’t think any parent could be more proud than she was at that moment. They both loved Washington Cathedral and thanked us for giving them the opportunity to spend Christmas Eve with our church.
Christmas is over now and as I think back on all the things that happened, I thank God that I am in a church were “We not only believe in miracles- - - we rely on them!” I thank God for all the people who let their lives be used to tell the story and I thank God for the opportunity in this coming year to witness more of the same.
Blessings to you all!!
Pastor Linda Skinner
