This week’s service will continue the line of thought from last week when we asked what human beings are.  As I said, our answer to that question affects everything we do—how we treat our bodies and other people and all creatures and the earth itself.

Last week we heard Paul say that we are Spirit living through our flesh, and if we acknowledge that and live as manifestations of the force of love and life and light that we call God, then our lives are transformed.

This week Paul is even more explicit: “It is the God who said, ‘Let there be light,’ who made light shine out of utter darkness, who has shone in our hearts… But we have this treasure in clay jars, so that it may be made clear that this extraordinary power belongs to God and does not come from us.”  Our calling is to make this extraordinary power of love and life and light “visible in our bodies.”   (II Corinthians 4:5-12)

This is beautiful and hopeful and inspiring.  We will reflect on what it looks like when people have the Spirit visible in their bodies—we know because we have seen it, we have felt it, we have heard about it in some of the greatest stories we know.  Christ certainly showed it, and we will hear how compassionate and courageous and counter-cultural it looked when the Spirit was visible in his body.  (Mark 2:23 – 3:6)

See below for more details on the service plus a YouTube of one of the gorgeous pieces Annemieke will play.

We will sing “Immortal, Invisible, God Only Wise,” and “Creating God, Your Fingers Trace” sung to the tune Kedron which may not be familiar to us but is one of the most popular tunes in at least two of the denominations that came together to form the United Church of Christ.  We will also sing a new hymn set to a familiar Advent tune, “God’s Star-Igniting Spark of Light.”

The choir will sing the spiritual, “My Lord, What a Morning,” arranged by the Amidons, as well as “Lord of Life, We Come to You,” and pianist Annemieke McLane will play three much loved pieces by Robert Schumann.  Here is one of them performed by Vladimir Horowitz: