Mid-Week Message - November 26

May the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God, and the communion of the Holy Spirit be always with you!

Today, Wednesday, is the middle of the week between the last Sunday of the old church year, and the first Sunday of the new church year.  Advent begins this coming Sunday!

This morning at bible study, we spent a lot of our time talking about hope.  The passage we were reading was one of the ones we usually hear at Christmas - Isaiah 9:2-7 - though we were reading it in the context of Isaiah's time, 700+ years before Jesus was born.

Isaiah was prophesying in Jerusalem, after the northern Kingdom of Israel has been destroyed by the invading Assyrian army, and while the Babylonian army was breathing down the neck of the southern Kingdom of Judah.  And through the lens of history, we know that the Babylonian army will destroy Jerusalem and the temple, and all of the movers and shakers of Ancient Judah will be carried away into exile in Babylon.

In this tumultuous time, Isaiah speaks of people walking in the darkness who encounter a great light.  He sees the challenging times that the people are going through, and he lets them know that even though things might get worse before they get better, the darkest hour of the night will eventually give way to the dawn.  And again, through the lens of history, we know that it would take 70 years of exile, but eventually the grandchildren of the people who were carried away to Babylon would be allowed to return to the land from which they were taken.

As we were talking, someone made the comment, "This sounds like what we need to hear today" and I replied yes!  We sometimes call the bible the "Living Word" which means that we can hear its message afresh every time we read or listen to it.  And so matter what "darkness" we might be travelling through right now - either in our individual lives or in our shared life - we can trust that the dawn is coming.

And this is the true meaning of hope.  Hope isn't for after the sunrise - hope is for the 4am times when even the moon has set and it feels like forever since we have seen the sun.  And then once the sun rises, our hope has become our reality.

(On a side tangent, talking about hope this morning led us into a conversation about understanding the world communally - when hope becomes a gift that is shared within the whole community, it doesn't really matter if I, as an individual, am around to witness the hope becoming reality or not, because the community will witness it.  Most of the people who were carried into exile weren't still around when the time came to return - unless they were carried away as babies, in which case they likely don't remember any life other than exile - and yet their descendants got to experience it.  In the same way, I likely won't be around to witness the time when the vision of the world that Mary proclaims (Luke 1:46-55) becomes reality, when the whole world will be well fed, and where the powerful have been brought down from their thrones; but I trust that this time will come and that sustains my hope.)

This Sunday, on the first Sunday of Advent, we will be lighting our first Advent candle which is the candle of hope.  My prayer is that all of us might be able to take this flickering flame of hope into our hearts, letting it remind us that we too shall experience the dawn when the night has passed.

For announcements this week:

• Worship on Sunday:  Like I said, this is the first Sunday of Advent and we will be lighting our Advent Candles for hope this week. This year's Advent theme is "Will you come to the manger?" and each week we are going to hear the story of someone who was present at the birth of Jesus. This week, we begin with Joseph - we'll be reading his perspective in Matthew 1:18-25.  The service this week will be at Summerville at 9:15 and Westfield and Facebook Live at 11:15.

• Advent Socials (Westfield):  This will be the first week for our Advent Socials after worship. Session members will be putting on the coffee and tea, and this week anyone with a last name from A-L (inclusive) is invited to bring "eats and sweets" to share with everyone!

• Christmas Letters - thank you to everyone who picked up their letters, and who has offered to deliver them to friends and neighbours!  I will be bringing any un-collected letters from Long Reach and Summerville back to the office for Elaine to mail; letters at Westfield will still be at the back of the church on Sunday, then on Monday Elaine will mail any that haven't been picked up yet.

• Christmas Letters (part 2):  If you would like an electronic copy of the Christmas Letter, I'll attach it here. (I tried to scan a copy of the beautiful one with the graphics Elaine added, but the church scanner isn't working at the moment, so you're stuck with the plain text version this week.)

  For the Christmas letter, click here.

  For the Advent and Christmas Schedule, click here.

• Advent Candles:  Cindy Patstone (Westfield) and I will have candles available for purchase up until this Sunday! $15 for one candle, and $25 for two! These are candles that you can burn down a little bit each day in the month of December until Christmas is here.

• 2026 Calendars:  Once again, Joe Brooks has gathered some of his fabulous bird photographs to make a calendar for next year - this time around, they are all birds he encountered in his travels. We are selling these calendars for $40 - $20 of this covers the cost of the calendar, and the other $20 is a donation to the church (for which you will receive a receipt). To see the poster with details about how to order one, you can click here.

• Upcoming Dates (ie grab your calendar!)

  - Saturday December 6, 9am-noon, UCW Bake Sale at Westfield (note that they often sell out long before noon!)

  - Saturday December 6, 7pm, Service at Long Reach to mark the National Day for Remembrance and Action on Violence Against Women

  - Wednesday December 10, 7pm, UCW Christmas Communion Service (everyone is invited to this service - you don't need to be a UCW member to attend)

• Queerly Beloved:  Our next gathering will be Sunday December 7 at 7pm in the parlour at Westfield United Church.
  

Thank You Corner - this week's thank you goes out to our leadership of Two Rivers Pastoral Charge, the members of our Official Board and Session. We had two amazing meetings last week, filled with Holy-Spirit inspired conversations about what direction we want to take our ministry as a church in 2026. I am so grateful that we have such a faithful and dedicated group of leaders here at TRPC!

For a closing though this week, I know that many of us around here are fans of Unvirtuous Abbey on Facebook (and if you haven't encountered UA, you can check them out by clicking here).  Anyways, the "Abbot" of Unvirtuous Abbey is actually a United Church minister in Moncton, Rev. Aaron Billard at St. John's United Church, and he recently did an interview with a colleague in Ontario.  They spend half an hour or so discussing the ministry of Unvirtuous Abbey - how it came into being, and the origin stories of the different types of posts that appear.  It is a delightful conversation if you are fan of the Abbey, and even if you aren't, it is interesting to listen to two spiritual leaders speaking about their faith and ministry.  You can watch the interview by clicking here.

Blessings to you and yours, today and always!

Kate.

Rev. Kate Jones

Two Rivers Pastoral Charge

(506) 757-2201 (office)

(506) 343-1307 (mobile)

www.tworiverspastoralcharge.com

Pronouns:  she/her/hers

"Teacher, what is the greatest commandment in the law?"

Jesus replied, "You must love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your being, and with all your mind. This is the first and greatest commandment.  And the second is like it: "You must love your neighbour as you love yourself."

(Matthew 22:36-39)