There is much on all our minds as we prepare for Christmas this year that is not pleasant. The fires in California that have killed so many and left many more homeless. The tragic plight of almost 90 million displaced people around the world, war in Ukraine and many other places, fears about climate change and its potentially devastating impact on our planet, and our own personal tragedies of lost loved ones, friends or relatives with terminal illnesses, and other losses mean that our hearts are grieving. In 2023, we are certainly experiencing situations and difficulties like never before. So why do we try to cover our pain and grief with Yuletide cheer?
Many churches recognize that Festivals of Carols, celebrations of Christmas, and children’s pageants do not meet everyone’s needs. To fill this gap churches offer a Blue Christmas service, a Service of Solace or Longest Night. People who are not having a very merry Christmas and friends who support them are invited to come and sit with one another in a liturgy that speaks of the love of God for the grieving.
Godspace writers have posted several times in the past about this but thought that this year I would combine some of the resources into a single post so that those of you who are planning services or your own personal ritual can easily access them. Some are creative ideas for activities that facilitate grieving.
One post I do want to highlight from the past however is Katie Kennington Steer’s beautiful poem/post as part of her personal grieving as well as her post for Blue. Christmas 2020 – Feeling Blue
The Empty Chair
An empty chair is a powerful symbol of loss and can really facilitate our grieving. Creating a prayer station composed only of empty chairs or having empty chairs at the front of the sanctuary are both simple but powerful worship tools. If you have a small group of participants you might like to suggest each person grabs one of the empty chairs and sits it next to them at one point in the service. The image above is from a memorial service Peter Majendie constructed following the Christchurch earthquake of 2011 – heart rending and effective.
Use Lots of Candles
Four candles are often lit in Blue Christmas ceremonies: 1) One candle is lit for those who have passed, giving thanks to the memory that connects them to us this season; 2) One candle is lit to redeem the pain of the loss; 3) One candle is lit to honor ourselves; and, 4) One candle is lit for the gift of faith and hope symbolized in the Christmas story. However the lighting of candles by each of the congregation and the creating of a prayer table for all those we have lost can provide an even more compelling statement.
Create a Collage
Ask people attending the service to bring photos of those people or situations for which they are grieving. At one of the tables have a large sheet of cardboard on which people can paste their photos to create a collage.
Remember
Provide ribbon or paper for people to write names or prayers on. Our church does this for All Saints Day and the ribbon then hangs in the sanctuary until Advent begins. If you have an artist in your congregation who can create a collage from these ribbons and prayers. In the photo above we used small rocks instead, writing peoples’ names on them and then putting them in the bowl around the candle. At the end of the service people took out their stones to take home.
Symbols of Pain and Suffering
Our good friend Mark Pierson is one of the most creative worship curators I know. I still remember him using zip ties and barbed wire crosses in a worship service that had all of us grieving for the abandoned and despised in our world.
Zip or cable ties, are used as handcuffs in many parts of the world and can effectively be used as symbols of bondage either in our own lives or in the lives of the suffering people around the world that we identify with.
One possibility is to give each person a zip tie at the beginning of the service. After a period of quiet prayer and reflection encourage them to come to the front where a chain link fence or screen has been set up. Participants attach their cable tie to the fence as a symbol of identification of the suffering of people unjustly treated, or senselessly killed around the world. They then pick up a barbed wire cut off cross to take back to their seat as a reminder that Jesus accepted us and came to earth to relieve our suffering and pain. The barbed wire is also a symbol of our willingness to accept responsibility of the suffering of others and to do what we can to alleviate it.
Symbols of Hope
Most people do not want to leave a service with a feeling of despair or hopelessness. Providing a table at which they can create a memorial for the season that gives them hope is one way to turn hopelessness into hope. You might like to provide paper and pencils for people to draw or doodle with, rocks for them to paint or plants to create gardens. Alternatively ask them to bring journals and photos to the event. Provide a table at which they can create artistic images of their loved ones or of the situations they are grieving.
Art journalling like this is becoming more and more popular. Creating pages with the images of those we love who have passed away, decorating them and using them as a focus for prayer during the season can be very healing. Personally, I am discovering more each year how healing a memorial garden or stone can be too and offering this creative exercise to others is something that I increasingly do at retreats and other events.
Resources for Blue Christmas
Services
- Fidelia Magazine has an excellent liturgy for a Blue Christmas service – When Christmas Hurts.
- re:Worship always has great resources and I think has the best list for Blue Christmas ideas of any site I have visited.
Music
- Lectionary Songs has some excellent suggestions on songs for such a service.
- And another good list of Songs of Lament to consider.
- Our church’s Longest Night service used the words of Mumford and Sons song “After the Storm” for the prayer after communion, which I thought was very powerful.
After the Storm
And after the storm,
I run and run as the rains come
And I look up, I look up,
on my knees and out of luck,
I look up.
Night has always pushed up day
You must know life to see decay
But I won’t rot, I won’t rot
Not this mind and not this heart,
I won’t rot.
for those who hate their thighs and for those who have been abused.
for the bones that break and the cancer that spreads.
for blisters and splinters and hairs that split.
for asthma that seizes and for those we love who never get better.
for those who can’t get warm enough to sleep.
for those who wake early to find the dreams of beauty are not real.
for those whose coffee pots break when they need it most.
for hangovers and regrets and nights spent tossing.
Come and lament with me.
Let us attend.
For today and most days
All we bring are broken things.
- Here is a beautiful adaptation of Psalm 88 that would also make a good addition to a Blue Christmas service
Prayers
A couple of years ago, when grieving the still raw death of my mother, I wrote my own Blue Christmas poem.
On this long dark night we await the coming of Christ.
We long for the light of his presence,
With us and in us.
When our souls are deeply troubled,
and our hearts break with the weight of sorrow,
may our grief be seasoned with love,
and our sorrow be buoyed by hope.
In our times of God-forsakenness and estrangement,
May we gaze on the innocent One,
made perfect through suffering.
and see in him our vulnerable God,
who saves in weakness and pain.
May our suffering empty us of pride,
and lead us to true joy
our only security,
in Christ the infinite depths of God’s grace.
Let me end with this meaningful prayer by Ted Loder which appears in Guerrillas of Grace,
O God of all seasons and senses,
grant us the sense of your timing
to submit gracefully and rejoice quietly in the turn of the seasons.
In this season of short days and long nights,
of grey and white and cold,
teach us the lessons of endings;
children growing, friends leaving, loved ones dying,
grieving over,
grudges over,
blaming over,
excuses over.
O God, grant us a sense of your timing.
In this season of short days and long nights,
of grey and white and cold,
teach us the lessons of beginnings;
that such waitings and endings may be the starting place,
a planting of seeds which bring to birth what is ready to be born—
something right and just and different,
a new song, a deeper relationship, a fuller love—
in the fullness of your time.
O God, grant us the sense of your timing.
This is part of a series on Christmas/Advent resources.
- Advent Activities for Families and Kids
- Helping Kids Give Back This Christmas
- Celebrate With Simplicity This Christmas
- Advent/Christmas Music from a Rich Array of Traditions
- Getting Ready for Advent/Christmas Worship Resources for the Season
- Choosing Your Scripture Readings for the Coming Year
- Who Will You Invite to the Manger?
- Advent Candle Light Liturgy
- What On Earth Are The O Antiphons
Resources from Godspace for Advent and Christmas
Godspace has a variety of resources available for celebrating this season.
- NEW DEVOTIONAL! Lean Towards the Light this Advent & Christmas + Advent Cards Bundle compiled by Christine Sine and Lisa DeRosa
- A Journey Toward Home: Soul Travel For Advent to Lent compiled by Kristin Carroccino and Christine Sine
- Waiting for the Light: An Advent Devotional compiled by Ricci Kilmer, Susan Wade and Christine Sine
- Prayer Cards – more than Christmas gifts. These have been used for daily devotions, grief counselling, small groups and congregational prayers.
Check out the entire resource list here for more ideas for Advent and Christmas.
Godspace has a number of Advent resources available for both free download and purchase. Visit our store here.
by Christine Sine
The first week of Advent has been a time of enriching reflection for me. Tom and I have taken time to go on retreat and I have spent ample time each day entering into my chosen devotionals. More than anything I have been awed by the vulnerability of God in this Advent story, a theme that has been focused by this quote from Paul Neeley’s blog
Christmas is not about greatness but smallness, not about strength but weakness, not about force or coercion but invitation and welcome. Christmas does not need anyone to accept its joy or embrace its light.
Christmas happens in the margins, away from the spotlight. Christmas is elusive for the proud and the blustery, and threatening to every form of politics: Judean or Roman, British or Irish, Indian or Pakistani, Russian or American, Chinese or Korean, Iranian or Iraqi.
Christmas is about the vulnerability of God, about the revelation that God is the servant of his universe, that if we too serve the creation with God then we join his smallness, an insignificance that displays for all to see the mystery of a profound divine weakness, a humility that casts down all greatness and arrogance and elevates poverty and lowliness.
Christmas is about the vulnerability of God
What a profound observation. The One who is timeless and omnipotent becomes truly vulnerable and subject to all the created natural forces breathed into existence. The One who cannot be contained in the vast expanse of the universe is contained in the womb of a teenager, herself vulnerable – an unmarried teenager open to the censure of her society who might put her to death, risky her life as she travels to Bethlehem in the late stages of her pregnancy and even more risking her life and that of her young child as she flees with Joseph into Egypt.
What incredible vulnerability. God comes not as a powerful emperor but as a babe, born not in a palace but on the outskirts of the empire, in a small and insignificant village.
Christmas is about welcoming the most vulnerable.
That amazingly is not the end of the story. God then invites the most vulnerable of the society into the story – the shepherds – despised and “unreliable”. Would we welcome them?
As I ask that question I cannot help but think of the migrant families today that are stopped at the U.S./Mexican border looking for a place where they can make a livelihood, so vulnerable and despised. Or the refugees on Lesbos in Greece, those turned away by Australia and other countries. They too are considered unreliable, a possible threat to our security. Would we, could we welcome them as God welcomed the vulnerable?
Next come the foreigners, outsiders, of another religion. They too could have and should have been turned away by Jesus Jewish family. Would we have welcomed them?
All of these are the vulnerable image of God – the vulnerable image that shines so brightly not just in the Christ child but in all those who are made in the divine image.
Advent brings the hope of Good News for and to the vulnerable.
These are the vulnerable ones who sing for joy at the good news, who face rejection yet still come because they have caught an awe inspiring glimpse of the One who is bigger than the universe yet small and vulnerable in a young woman’s womb.
This is our vulnerable God who gave voice and song to all creation yet became silent and inarticulate except for the cry of a baby to its mother. This is our vulnerable God who is more powerful than all the rulers of all the created worlds and yet comes as a servant to all, the One who washes feet and gives himself as a sacrifice for this creation.
This is the greatest hope that we can ever look forward to, the hope of a God who comes not in power and might but in weakness and humility. What an incredible God this God of the Universe is.
This morning I was one of the readers for our church’s Carols and Lessons. My reading was this beautiful song by Hildegard of Bingen:
As I continued to reflect on the beautiful service this afternoon, I pulled out my favorite Hildegard of Bingen recording, then went hunting on Youtube for one to share with you too. I have been listening to it ever since and thought you might appreciate it too.
Advent Podcast #2
- Story by Jim and Donna Mathwig
- Music by Aaron Strumpel,In Mansions and Church of the Beloved
- Reflection by Dr. Dwight Friesen
- Story by Jim and Donna Mathwig
- Music by Aaron Strumpel,In Mansions and Church of the Beloved
- Reflection by Dr. Dwight Friesen, Seattle School of Theology and Psychology Seattle WA
- Meditation by Christine Sine, taken from the Advent devotional Waiting for the Light
- Produced by Ryan Marsh, Church of the Beloved
Listen now:
Listen to Donna and Jim share their grief as they lose their home in the recession, enjoy Aaron Strumpel’s music and ponder Dwight Friesen’s profound reflections on Advent and the need to knock on the doors of injustice and anticipate where Christ might be born.
By Lilly Lewin
We are on the way to Bethlehem.
We are all on the way, in the midst of Advent and all the holiday preparations that go with the season.
How are things going?
If you are like me, you still have a long list of things to do and preparations to make.
We are on the way to Bethlehem and the birth of Jesus.
Are we ready?
Are we getting close? I mean are we getting closer to Him or are we feeling farther away due to those long lists of things to do and stuff piling up emotionally and maybe even physically! (you should see my dining room table! Filled with paperwork and wrapping!)
The gospel reading for this week is Luke 3: 1-6 which reminds us of Isaiah 40.
ISAIAH 40 The Message
“Comfort, oh comfort my people,”
says your God.
“Speak softly and tenderly to Jerusalem,
but also make it very clear
That she has served her sentence,
that her sin is taken care of—forgiven!
She’s been punished enough and more than enough,
and now it’s over and done with.”
Thunder in the desert!
“Prepare for God’s arrival!
Make the road straight and smooth,
a highway fit for our God.
Fill in the valleys,
level off the hills,
Smooth out the ruts,
clear out the rocks.
Then God’s bright glory will shine
and everyone will see it.
Yes. Just as God has said.”
LUKE 3 (NIV)
In the fifteenth year of the reign of Tiberius Caesar—when Pontius Pilate was governor of Judea, Herod tetrarch of Galilee, his brother Philip tetrarch of Iturea and Traconitis, and Lysanias tetrarch of Abilene— 2 during the high-priesthood of Annas and Caiaphas, the word of God came to John son of Zechariah in the wilderness. 3 He went into all the country around the Jordan, preaching a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins. 4 As it is written in the book of the words of Isaiah the prophet:
“A voice of one calling in the wilderness,
‘Prepare the way for the Lord,
make straight paths for him.
5 Every valley shall be filled in,
every mountain and hill made low.
The crooked roads shall become straight,
the rough ways smooth.
6 And all people will see God’s salvation.’”
The Isaiah passage is one of my very favorite passages. It gives me great hope on the way to Bethlehem.
Speak comfort!
Speak tenderly to Jerusalem,
and proclaim to her that her hard service has been completed,
She has been punished enough
Her sins are forgiven
Can you picture God saying this to you today?
Can you imagine God speaking comfort and speaking softly and tenderly to you?
Telling you that you that your sins are forgiven?
Sit with this awhile. Receive the comfort of this.
Breathe it in.
What is a symbol of this comfort for you?
Is it a cozy blanket, a warm fire, a cup of tea or good coffee?
Look up this passage on Bible Gateway and read it in different translations.
What do you see or hear? What do you notice?
The second part of the passage can also help us get ready for our journey to Bethlehem.
And you might need to work with the second half of the passage in order to really rest in the first part, the comfort and forgiveness.
“Prepare for God’s arrival!
Make the road straight and smooth,
a highway fit for our God.
Fill in the valleys,
level off the hills,
Smooth out the ruts,
clear out the rocks.
What are the ROCKS that are in your path right now?
What are the things that are making your path rocky and rough and preventing you from going smoothly to Bethlehem?
Notice the rocks in your yard, or on the street or path near your home. Collect a few rocks on your next walk around the neighborhood. Hold a rock or two in your hands and consider the things that are blocking your path and the pathway of your heart to receive the King this Advent.
What things are in your way?
Ask Jesus to show you these things.
Are there rocks of fear and anxiety in your way?
Are there rocks of resistance and bitterness because of broken dreams or feelings of not enough?
Are there broken rocks that need healing?
Are there rocks that others have thrown on your path that need to be cleared away and forgiven?
What about the rocks you’ve thrown on the paths of others? Or on your own path that are blocking you?
Rocks of busyness, worry, doubt, impatience, laundry, homework, etc…
Talk to Jesus about these things and then go back and read the beginning of Isaiah 40.
Allow Jesus to have these rocks.
Allow Jesus to clear the path for you.
And as you are driving the highways this week, notice when they are straight.
Notice the valleys and hills around you.
Thank Jesus that you are on the path to Bethlehem.
Continue to ask him to take away the rocks on your path.
And let us all receive the Comfort and Forgiveness and Love of Jesus this December.
Listen to this passage in Messiah by Handel
more ideas for advent and christmas at freerangeworship.com
by Christine Sine
As Christmas rapidly approaches and I survey our world with its pain and suffering I was reminded of this prayer that I wrote a couple of years ago. It is my favourite Advent prayer and I love to revisit (and repost it) each year.
How do we make room at this season for all the marginalized people in our society and our world? How do we reach out to bring peace and not violence, healing not disease, wholeness and not destruction? How do we make room for all those who are despised and abandoned not just at this time of year but at all times?
by Christine Sine
At the beginning of the calendar year we make resolutions and plans for the entire year. Why don’t we do the same before Advent, the beginning of the church year? After all, for people of faith, the liturgical year and rhythm that revolves around the life death and resurrection of Jesus, should be more important for us than the secular year.
Tom and I have just printed out the the daily lectionary readings from the Book of Common Prayer for the coming year. This is still my favourite scripture reading plan though I must confess that this year I have taken a break for a few months and just focused on one verse and some days just part of a verse for my daily devotions.
The daily lectionary readings cycle on a three year rotation. There is an Old Testament, Psalm, New Testament and Gospel reading for each day. Part of what I love is that the readings from each section of the bible follow the same theme and have helped me to understand a lot about where Jesus drew his theology from. The Jewish leaders would have been well educated in the Old Testament which is why they were so often annoyed by what he said.
What I don’t like about these readings is that they do not include all the books of the Bible so it is good to identify these and work out a way to incorporate them as well in your readings.
Planning for the Coming Year
I heartily recommend taking time in the next few weeks to plan your scripture readings, prayer rhythm and retreat times for the coming year. Get together with your spouse, your family, or a group of friends and do some brainstorming.
Here are a few questions to ask yourself first:
- Do you want to follow the church calendar with your daily readings?
- Do you want to read through the entire Bible in a year?
- Do you want a contemplative approach to bible study and focus on a single verse or phrase each day?
- Is there a specific Biblical theme you would like to consider?
- Is there a Bible App or devotional App that appeals to you?
- Are there blogs you visit regularly that augment your Bible reading? If so how can you more intentionally incorporate these into your scripture reading? Is there a focus these blogs offer that can run in synch with your readings?
- Are there Apps you use regularly that
Choose Your Scripture Plan
Here are some resources to help you identify which plan you might like to try. I have tried to put together a list from a wide variety of denominational perspectives:
The Voice is a great source for the daily scriptures of the liturgical year. The site also has one of the most comprehensive explanations of Advent and the symbols we use during the season.
The Daily Office from the Mission of St Clare and based on the Book of Common Prayer
Daily readings from the Presbyterian Mission Agency USA
BibleStudyTools.com provides several plans for reading through the whole or parts of the bible in a twelve month span.
Reflections from Forward Day by Day
Northumbria Community provides resources for praying the daily office through morning, midday, evening and compline services.
Bible App Anyone?
Sacred Space – Daily Prayer with the Irish Jesuits
Pray as You Go – also from the Jesuits. I love this daily prayer for your phone.
If reading the daily lectionary readings is a little much for you check out Lectionary Liturgies which posts liturgies for Sunday worship based on the RCL weekly readings.
biblegateway.com provides a variety of reading plans that can be downloaded as an app.
The Bible App – also provides lots of reading plans for different seasons of the liturgical year as well as those themed around a topic selected by the user.
Or if you really want to be challenged this Advent try this Social Justice Advent Guide for Families from the North Carolina Council of Churches. It uses the Lectionary Year A scriptures but it would be easy to adapt these for any year.
And Rachel Held Evans has a post on 28 Ideas for Advent that is definitely worth a look.
This is one of a series of posts on resources for Advent and Christmas. Check out the other posts here.
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